a particular martial art could make one invulnerable to bullets.2 Other dramatic developments included the republican Xinhai Revolution of 1911, the First World War, wars with Japan during the 1930s and 1940s, the Second World War, and the civil war that followed the end of the Second World War. Collectively, these factors meant that the lives of the members of this generation were profoundly shaped by war, conflict, and radical political change. During their lives, Chinese society also underwent modernization, urbanization, steady population growth, social reform, and cultural transition.3
Chang and his peers lived in an era of political upheaval during which the masses increasingly sought to challenge the old imperial order. Calls to introduce a republic and modernize China, not least its educational system, were heard increasingly loudly, especially after the country suffered a series of military defeats and interventions by foreign powers. The Manchu Qing dynasty, which had held power in China since 1644, had been visibly weakened by the two Opium Wars, the first in 1839–1843 and the second in 1856–1860. Defeated twice, China was forced to accept the opium trade and to grant special trade privileges to France and Britain. China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 also contributed to a sense of vulnerability and an urge to modernize the country. The powers interested in dominating China—especially Japan, Great Britain, France, and Russia—also introduced the idea of spheres of influence in 1898 in order to make a partition of the whole country.
The Qing Dynasty and Its Education System
During the first hundred years of the Qing dynasty, China developed into a rich country that was greatly admired in the rest of the world, particularly Europe. And yet, for the remainder of the nineteenth century it became a welcome El Dorado for merchants and missionaries, mostly from Europe and the United States. China also came to be viewed in many quarters as “the sick man of Asia.” The European colonial powers arrogated to themselves so-called extraterritorial rights (rights and laws of their own that had judicial force beyond their own borders) that curtailed the authority of the Chinese state and its control of several key ports. The First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 also resulted in a major loss of prestige for the Qing dynasty. The superannuated Chinese army showed itself in combat to be inferior to the modernized Japanese army. The status of Manchuria was to become a highly fraught issue for China and Japan, particularly following the 1905 Convention of Peking, by which China was forced to accept that Russia would cede authority over Manchuria to Japan. The convention also resulted in Japan acquiring control over Guangdong Province, Korea, and Taiwan.4 The Meiji Restoration in Japan, which began in 1868, had radically increased the political and economic strength of Japan through industrialization, modernization, educational reform, and centralization of the state.5
The state of political crisis in China at the turn of the twentieth century prompted educationalists and politicians to scrutinize the Chinese education system of the imperial period, a system that had consisted primarily of recitation of classical works of Chinese literature under the supervision of a teacher. The civil service’s meritocratic recruitment system likewise was centered on the knowledge of ancient Chinese texts, such as the writings of Confucius. Numerous observers argued that the secondary and tertiary education systems needed to be reformed in order to meet the economic, military, and cultural challenges of a new era. This was especially true of China’s military expertise, which had shown itself to be quite inadequate in confrontations with Japan and the Western powers. The fact that university-level study was focused on law and civil administration was also deemed problematic in view of the pressing need for scientific and technological proficiency.
Many in China also regarded several of the overarching aims of primary and secondary schooling as obsolete. During the final years of the imperial system, the goals of school instruction had been described as loyalty to the emperor, respect for Confucius, public spirit or patriotism, martial courage, and a practical and technical disposition. When the republic was declared in 1912, these objectives were replaced with moral training, technical skills, instruction in “military citizenship,” and aesthetic orientation. In 1918, the goal of inculcating a spirit of popular democracy was added to the list.6 At the same time, no change was made to the nationalist framework, according to which school was regarded as an important instrument for the creation of a national identity. The American Scout movement subsequently became a highly valued “import” and inspiration for civics instruction in society at large.
By the end of the nineteenth century, however, even the imperial regime had begun to try to develop a more socially relevant education system that was oriented toward the needs of the army and navy, an educational ambition that grew after the turn of the century to include other areas. Greater resources were dedicated to subjects such as science, agronomy, and engineering. Before its abolition in 1905, the imperial civil service examination system also began to place greater emphasis on science than had been the case in the previous century, when it had principally focused on the humanities and classical education.7
Looking back on these developments in the 1950s, Peng Chun Chang reflected that the old teaching forms of the imperial system, namely recitation of classical texts, were not entirely without merit. The overarching aim of this system of education had been to develop the ability to memorize and absorb Chinese wisdom and knowledge by using both voice and hearing. Recollection of a text became, as it were, incorporated into one’s own sound-memory bank. When someone schooled in the old way tried to recall a passage from a work of Chinese philosophy, Chang claimed, an observer would first hear them make a faint humming sound before beginning to recite the text. Their recall was also often perfect.8
Childhood and Early Education
What were Chang’s early years like? Peng Chun Chang (or Chung Shu / Zhong Shu) was born in 1892 in Tianjin (formerly Tientsin), an important coastal town in northeast China. He had one brother and three sisters. However, only one of the sisters, Zhuchun, survived, and so Chang grew up with an older brother and an older sister. His sister went on to marry the famous revolutionary and educator Ma Qianli, who worked closely with Chang’s older brother, Poling, in his Nankai school.9 Stanley Chang was unable to say what happened to the sister and where she lived in China: “My father’s sister was called ‘Third Aunt’ by those of us in the family, so she was older than the two brothers. I don’t know what happened to her in the later years of her life because I left China in 1940.”
Chang’s family came originally from Shandong Province, which had also been Confucius’s home province. They supported themselves by trading on the large canal that connected Hangzhou and Beijing from south to north, gradually becoming wealthy and moving to the city of Tientsin. Chang’s grandfather had a passionate interest in literature and, despite his financial success, regarded his business career as a compromise in life. Chang’s father, Jiu-an Zhang Yun Zao, 1834–1909), loved music, especially the flute, riding, and archery and spent much of the family fortune on his leisure interests. Jiu-an was forty-nine years old when Chang was born, a fact reflected in the child’s nickname, Number Nine. (In China, birthdays ending in nine, such as forty-nine or fifty-nine, are often celebrated in place of an even anniversary, the concern being that the person in question might not live for another year.) In the United States, Peng Chun Chang would often be called P. C. by his friends.
Because Jiu-an deeply regretted his life choices, he imposed strict discipline upon his children and impressed upon them the value of study. Having himself failed to pass the imperial examination, he was insistent that his own children would be educationally successful. In this respect, it can be said that the imperial examination system contributed in different ways to disseminating a culture of learning in China: partly by selecting those who would go on to enter the civil service, partly by imparting knowledge about the system and a passion for it further afield, including among those who had themselves not passed the examination.10
Chang’s older brother, Poling (Shouchun), born 1876, was subjected to corporal discipline by his father as a spur to study. By the time Chang was born, however, Jiu-an had moderated his approach to parenting, with the result that the younger son was given very different treatment than his brother. One important legacy that Chang received from his father was music. As a child, he accompanied his father to several opera performances. Chang’s mother