British Missionary Timothy Richard and Chinese Modern Education

British missionary Timothy Richard came to China, actuated by preaching the Gospel and expanding the sphere of Christian influence. Considering some complex reasons for history, civilization, ideology and custom etc, he paid attention to secular education as well as doing missionary work to attain his Christian goal. He laid much stress on the function of education, so he proposed Chinese government should set up Educational Department. In the late Qing Dynasty, he participated in the organization and management of Shanxi Imperial University. Under the circumstances of modern times of China, when it was in the grip of national crisis, and the contradictory between China and foreign countries was acute and complicated, all the work he had done exerted objective influences in many aspects. While it reflected the strong semi—colonial character in modernization of Chinese education, it had some positive effect as well.