Knight Biggerstaff

Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room: An Attempt to Introduce Western Science and Technology to the Chinese

through the treaties that followed the first Anglo-Chinese War (18391842); and the Treaties of Tientsin (1858) and Peking (186o) opened the door wide to Western influence. Of primary concern to most foreigners in China during the half century after 186o was the expansion of opportunities for commerce or for religious proselytizing. But probably of greater consequence to the Chinese, though few of them were aware of it at the time, was the spread of Western ideas and techniques, largely by missionaries and other foreigners who sought to enlighten their unwilling hosts. Modern schools-some established by missionaries, others operated by foreign employees of the Chinese government; newspapers and magazines-some published by foreigners or Chinese for profit, others issued by missionary bodies or individual missionaries; books on modern subjects-either translated from European languages or written specially for Chinese readers: these were among the principal transmitters of Western ideas to the soil of China. Virtually all the foreigners who went to China during the nineteenth century regarded Western civilization as superior to that of China, and many of them favored remaking China along Western lines. Some foreigners felt that Chinas paramount need was for the science and technology that had been developed in the West, and progressive-minded Chinese were themselves eager that their country acquire scientific knowledge, considering its mastery essential for Chinas self-preservation. One interesting, though not too successful, effort of well-disposed foreigners and progressive Chinese to bring Western scientific and technological knowledge to China was the Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room in Shanghai. From the late 1840s individual missionaries had

A Translation of Anson Burlingame's Instructions from the Chinese Foreign Office

During the winter of 1867–1868 the Chinese Foreign Office dispatched its first diplomatic mission to the United States and Europe. The stipulated time for treaty revision was drawing near and the Chinese government had reason to expect that the Treaty Powers, under pressure from their merchants doing business in China, would demand a considerable expansion of the privileges which they had forced the Chinese to grant them on previous occasions. Fearful of the internal effects of a great extension of foreign influence and activity, the Foreign Office decided to send a special embassy directly to the governments of the various Treaty Powers to plead for patience and forbearance.