Study Of Chinese Christian College

Since the sunset of Qing dynasty, western powers invaded China one after another. Western missionaries kept up the pace of powers, they got the privileges to missionary freedom in China.Finally they started to initiate education to preach the Gospel.As of1926,they established17church universities in China,including Cheeloo University, Yenching University and Saint John’s University.In the beginning, the church universities had rich religious atmosphere,they offered many courses in religion and forced students attend religious activities to achieve the purpose of missionary. Due to the particularity of the church university, the school expenditure mostly emanated from the missionaries’ mother church. So the missionaries keep a firm hand on the administrative power of the church universities. The church universities were not subjected to the chinese government.Since the1920s, chinese nationalist sentiment began to awaken. All the social sectors condemned the religiosity of the church universities and protested the infringement on China’s education sovereignty.Finally, the Non_Christianity Campaign and the retrieval the right of education broke out. Meanwhile, the national government promulgated many rules and laws to demand the church universities must register in China. Under such a serious situation, the church universities started the sinicization process.Cheeloo University was the first church university established by the missionaries. It also was the most typical church university. The funder Calvin even didn’t teach English to keep its religiosity and train the missionaries suited chinese. But Cheeloo University couldn’t keep its independnce under the turbulent chinese society after1920’s. It begin to make the chance to become de-religion and closer to the chinese reality. In this paper, I try to analysis the sinicization process and the characters of the church university by taking Cheeloo University as a case.The first part, based on the rich school regulations, I elabroate the development of Cheeloo University experienced five different times. The earlier two periods paves the background of the sinicization of Cheeloo University. The third period introduces the changes after registerring in China. Then Cheeloo University experinced the wars and set up some courses that chinese needed, lots of chinese famous scholars teached in Cheeloo University. After the liberation war, the new government took over Cheeloo University. This part sorts out the pcocess of Cheeloo University from a closed religious university to that out of the missionaries and closely connected in the chinese society.The second part analysis the sinicization of Cheeloo University in five areas. The missionaries kept a firm hand on the university’s administrative power in the beginning. The management firstly emphasizing the presence of chinese under the pressure of register. Then chinese control the administrative power gradually from formally to essentially. Cheeloo University reduced the number of religious classes, pay more attention to Shantung rural construction instead of trainning missionaries. More chinese teacher came in to Cheeloo University, it makes the course meet the chinese real needs. In the aspect of financial resources, the church afford all the funds in the early time. Since Cheeloo University registered in China, the funds was’t only from church, but became diversity. Even the chinese government afford the most funds after the Korean War.The sinicization of Cheeloo University influence itself and the chinese society deeply. After the change, Cheeloo University thought highly of the teaching and research instead of the religion. The diversification of funds afford enough material base to develop the academic level. Cheeloo University not only promote the education in Shantung, but also demonstrated the just starting Shantung Academy. Cheeloo University educated numerous graduates during eighty-eight years. They made outstanding contributions to the development of Shantung and China. The year of1952, all the church universities including Cheeloo University were revoked, all equipments and stuffs were rearranged into other national universities. In my interview, the church universities integrated into the chinese education sysytem totally and finished the process of sinicization.