The United States In The Way Of The Chinese Church School Transmutation

This thesis is a brief sketch of the history of the American mission schools in China ,trying to explore their development systematically. Christianity was introduced to China for four times: in the Tang Dynasty, the Yuan Dynasty, the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty, and after the first opium war, among which the fourth cosmic introduction influenced China greatly. In this missionary movement, America set up the early mission schools in China to assist them in their propagandist activities. With Ma School biilt in 1839 as the first one, the American mission schools developed and grew in strength, and finally, in 1951, they disappeared in China. The American mission schools existed in China for more than 100 years, which had an impact on the Chinese modern education.Some outcomes have been produced about the study on the mission schools in China, however, the works either introduced the general situations of these schools or made a case study on a certain school, and there were few works studying the developmental track of American mission schools in China specially and thoroughly. The impact of the mission schools was considered as the "cultural invasion", thus denying it, or as the "propagation of civalization", giving a high praise. The author tries to elaborate the developmental track of the American mission schools in China by using a number of historical facts to make the background in which schools were set up, the developmental process and their characteristics easily understood, thus making people see through to the intention to set up the mission schools so that they can understand the significance revealed by the mission schools to Chinese education. Nowadays, Chinese educational reform is developing quickly. Therefore, studying the American mission schools is conducive to constructing a modern educational system.This thesis is divided into four parts. The first part is introduction which delineates the research situations of the modern mission schools in China. Part II introduces the background in which the American mission schools were set up. Part III discusses the developmental process of the American mission schools. Part IV is about the influences the American mission schools had on Chinese modern education and its evaluation.