1906年北洋大学资送学生留学哈佛大学考释

How China's Peiyang University Sent Students Abroad to Study in Harvard University in 1906: A Historical Recount

1906年,北洋大学派遣三十多名留学生,由监督丁家立带领前往美国留学。哈佛大学专门为这批学生在暑期学校安排语言课程,以准备大学入学考试与申请。随后,有十五名学生继续留在哈佛就读本科。他们在这里取得优异的学习成绩,并参与创建哈佛大学中国学生会、哈佛大学世界会,成为当时留美学界一股重要的力量。北洋大学这批留美学生开启哈佛大学与中国之间一百多年的稳定的教育交往,同时也可视为清末中国学生海外留学潮从留日转换到留美的一个标志性事件。

In 1906,Peiyang University( renamed Tianjin University in 1951) sent more than 30 students,leaded by their Supervisor Charles D. Tenney( 1857 –1930),the first president of Peiyang University,to study in Harvard University in the US. In order to help these Chinese students prepare for university-entrance exams and apply for the universities,Harvard provided them special language training courses in summer school. In the end,fifteen Chinese students were accepted by Harvard. They not only excelled in their studies there,but also actively involved in the establishment of Harvard Chinese Students Club( 1908) and Harvard Cosmopolitan Club( 1906),becoming the leaders among all Chinese overseas students in the US. This first group of Chinese students from Peiyang University ushered in a new era of educational exchange between Harvard University and China,which has lasted more than one hundred years since then,and also represented a symbolic change in the history of Chinese studying abroad in the late Qing dynasty,namely,Chinese students' most popular study abroad destination had changed from Japan to the US.