History
The university was originally founded under the name of Peking University. In its early years, it was in a chaotic situation, due to its financing by several different churches:
- Huiwen University (滙文大學) was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church (美以美會) in 1889. Its precursor was (崇內懷理書院) founded in 1870. Hiram Harrison Lowry was its principal.
- North China Harmony Women's University (華北協和女子大學). Its precursor (貝滿女塾) was founded in 1864
- Tongzhou Harmony University (通州協和大學). Its precursor (公理會潞河書院) was founded by the Congregational church. Devello Z. Sheffield was the school's principal.
John Leighton Stuart was appointed as the principal of the university in January 1919 when he taught Greek language in Nanking Theological Seminary (金陵神學院), a seminary in Nanjing, China. Being short of capital at the beginning, he turned to fundraising worldwide and received support from the estate of Charles Martin Hall, an American executive of Alcoa Aluminum. He bought the royal gardens of Qing to build a scenic campus and employed gardeners from the Imperial gardens. In 1926 the campus was completed. Theology, Law and Medical were the main schools in the university, with Arts and Science studies.
Stuart attracted major Chinese and Western scholars to teach. Religion was not a qualification, although Stuart gave major support to the School of Theology. In 1928 the Harvard-Yenching Institute, was jointly founded by Yenching University and Harvard University for the teaching of the humanities and social sciences in East Asia and Southeast Asia. This independent institute continues to exist on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Also in 1928, American journalist and educator Walter Williams established a department of journalism. By 1930, the school was among the top universities in China, its teaching distinguished itself by a considerable academic freedom.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War in World War II, Peking was occupied by Japan and the university was moved to Chengdu in Sichuan. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Yenching University with its Christian background was closed. Its arts and science faculties of Yenching were merged into Peking University, and its engineering section was merged with Tsinghua University, and Peking University obtained the Yenching campus. In 1952 Peking University moved from central downtown Beijing to the previous Yenching campus in the city's Haidian district.
Read more about this topic: Yenching University
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