The first education on western lines was given by the Roman Catholic missionaries. In 1852 they founded a college for the education of native priests; they also founded and maintained many primary and some higher schools--mainly if not exclusively for the benefit of their converts. The Protestant missions followed the example of the Roman Catholics, but a new departure, which has had a wide success, was initiated by the American Protestant missionary societies in founding schools--primary and higher--and colleges in which western education was given equally to all comers, Christian or non-Christian. Universities and medical schools have also been established by the missionary societies. They also initiated a movement for the education of girls and opened special schools for their instruction.
Missionary effort apart, the first step towards western education was the establishment of two colleges in 1861, one at Peking, the other at Canton in connexion with the imperial maritime customs. These institutions were known as T'ung Wen Kwan, and were provided with a staff of foreign professors and teachers. These colleges were mainly schools of languages to enable young Chinese to qualify as interpreters in English, French, &c. Similar schools were established at Canton, Fuchow and one or two other places, with but indifferent results. A more promising plan was conceived in 1880, or thereabouts, by the then viceroy of Nanking, who sent a batch of thirty or forty students to America to receive a regular training on the understanding that on their return they would receive official appointments. The promise was not kept. A report was spread that these students were becoming too much Americanized. They were hastily recalled, and when they returned they were left in obscurity. The next step was taken by the viceroy Chang Chih-tung after the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95. The viceroy wrote a book, _China's Only Hope_, which he circulated throughout the empire, and in which he strongly advocated a reform of the traditional educational system. His scheme was to make Chinese learning the foundation on which a western education should be imparted.[15] The book was one of the factors in the 1898 reform movement, and Chang Chih-tung's proposals were condemned when that movement was suppressed. But after the Boxer rising the Peking government adopted his views, and in 1902 regulations were issued for the reform of the old system of public instruction. A university on western lines was established in that year at Peking, the T'ung Wen Kwan at the capital being incorporated in it. The new educational movement gained enormously in strength as the result of the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1906 a new system, theoretically almost perfect, was established. The new system comprises the study of the Chinese language, literature and composition, modern sciences, history and geography, foreign languages,[16] gymnastics, drill and, in the higher grades, political economy, and civil and international law.