Huachung University

Huachung University (Chinese: 華中大學; pinyin: Huázhōng Dàxué; literally: "Central China University") was a Christian university in Wuhan, in China's Yangtze valley, originally called Boone University, was founded by the union of several Christian universities in 1924 and renamed Huachung in 1929. The university expanded until it was forced to retreat during the Second Sino-Japanese War, but returned to Wuhan in 1945. It was incorporated into the national university system in 1951.[1]

Boone College and University

The Bishop Boone Memorial School, a boarding school, opened in Wuchang in Sept., 1871, with three students. It was named after Bishop William Jones Boone, the first Episcopal Bishop of China. It became Boone College (文華書院 Wenhua shuyuan) in 1905, graduated its first class in 1906, and was incorporated as a university in 1909. It comprised preparatory and college departments, a theological school, and a medical school.[2]

The university was formed in 1924 by the union of existing Christian schools and colleges. These included' Wesley College in Wuchang (sponsored by the British Methodists), the Griffith John School in Hankow (sponsored by the London Missionary Society), Lakeside College in Yochow (sponsored by the Reformed Church in America), the Yale-in-China, or Yali, institution in Changsha, and Boone University in Wuchang (sponsored by the American Episcopalians).[3]

The university operated in Wuhan from 1924 to 1927, receiving help from, among others, Central Office of the China Union Universities (later renamed United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia), Yale-in-China.,[4] as well as prosperous local families. After several years of disruption because of political instability, it reorganized in 1929. The disastrous Yangzi floods of 1931 destroyed many buildings, but by the onset of war in 1937, the campus had not only been rebuilt, but many buildings were added. After the Japanese bombings of Wuhan in 1938, the university moved successively to Hengyang, Kweilin, Kunming, and finally to a small village near Dali, in Yunnan. It returned to Wuhan in 1946.[3]

Professional schools were an important part of the university's contribution. The Boone Library School, under the leadership of Mary Elizabeth Wood after 1931 trained a generation of Chinese bibliographers and librarians.[5]

After the January 16, 1951 decision of the Ministry of Education to nationalize Christian colleges, Huachung was joined by the normal college of Chung Yuan University to form National Huachung University.[1] It was later renamed as Huazhong Normal University and relocated to a new campus, leaving the old one to Hubei University of Chinese Medicine.[6][7]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Peter Tze Ming Ng, "Central China University". The Ricci Roundtable. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  2. ↑ Boone College, Wuchang, China from "An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, A User Friendly Reference for Episcopalians," Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum, editors.
  3. 1 2 Huachung University, from Tess Johnston, Hallowed halls: Protestant Colleges in Old China excerpted at "Descriptions Of The China Christian Colleges And Universities" (The American Context of China's Christian Colleges Yale University)
  4. ↑ Chapman (2001), p. 40.
  5. ↑ Cheng (2013).
  6. ↑ 图书馆总馆开馆典礼暨文华公书林开馆101周年纪念大会举行 (Celebrating 101st anniversary of Boone Library School)
  7. ↑ "学校概况 (Hubei University of Chinese Medicine )". Retrieved 2012-02-03.

References and further reading

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