Saint John's University, Shanghai

St. John's University (SJU) was a Christian university in Shanghai. Founded in 1879 by American missionaries, it was one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China, often regarded as the Harvard of China.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Communist government closed the university in 1952. Most of its faculty members, students and library collections were transferred to East China Normal University. Its board of governors moved the university to Hong Kong, founding Chung Chi College, a part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Its former campus at Shanghai is now utilized by the East China University of Political Science and Law.

History

Foundation as St. John's College

The university was founded in 1879 as "St. John's College" by William Jones Boone and Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, by combining two preexisting Anglican colleges in Shanghai. The architect for the college's original quadrangle of buildings was Newark, New Jersey architect William Halsey Wood. The first president was Yen Yun-ching (Chinese: 顏永京, 1838–98). During the early period of St. John's College, Lydia Mary Fay (1804–78), a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal China Mission (or the American Church Mission), helped to set up Duane Hall, a secondary school which later became part of St. John's College.

St. John's began with 39 students and taught mainly in Chinese. In 1891, it changed to teaching with English as the main language. The courses began to focus on science and natural philosophy.

St. John's University

In 1905, St. John's College became St. John's University and became registered in Washington D.C. in the United States. It thus had the status of a domestic university and American graduates of St. John's could proceed directly to graduate schools in the United States. As a result, the university attracted some of the brightest and wealthiest students in Shanghai at the time. It was the first institution to grant bachelor's degrees in China, starting in 1907.

The university was located at 188 Jessfield Road (now Wanhangdu Lu), on a bend of the Suzhou Creek in Shanghai and was designed to incorporate Chinese and Western architectural elements.

In 1925, some academics and students left St. John's and formed the Kwang Hua University. In 1951, Kwang Hua was incorporated into East China Normal University.

Chinese Civil War and disestablishment

The university survived World War II and the Chinese Civil War. However, in 1952 the Communist government adopted a policy of creating specialist universities in the Soviet style of the time. Under this policy, St John's was broken up. Most of its faculties were incorporated into the East China Normal University. The medical school was incorporated into Shanghai Second Medical College, which became the School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2005. The campus became the site of the East China University of Politics and Law.

After the Cultural Revolution in mainland China, the surviving personnel of the original St. John's University Medical School administration decided to recognize the students who were mandated to transfer and subsequently graduated from Shanghai Second Medical College with honorable St. John's University Medical School degree; the diploma was signed by their well respected original president of St. John's.

Notable alumni

:''See also :St. John's University, Shanghai alumni''

* Clement Chang (1929–2018), a Taiwanese academic and politician
* Chen Chi-lu (1923–2014), minister of the Council of Cultural Affairs of the Republic of China, 1981–1988
* Cheng Tien-hsi (1884–1970), author and jurist, last ambassador of the Republic of China to the United Kingdom
* Irene Chou (1924–2011), artist
* Cheng Youshu (born 1924), diplomat and poet
* Raymond Chow (1927–2018), filmmaker
Shelley N. Chou
(1924–2001), neurosurgeon, U.S. Navy; interim dean of Univ of Minnesota Medical School
* Chung Sze Yuen (1917–2018), Hong Kong politician
* Thomas Dao (1921–2009), physician who developed breast cancer treatment alternatives.
* Robert Fan (1893–1979), architect
* Z. Y. Fu, or Fu Zaiyuan (1919–2011), Chinese-Japanese entrepreneur and philanthropist
* Francis Hsu (1920–1973), former Catholic bishop of Hong Kong
* Rayson Huang CBE (1920–2015), chemist, vice-chancellor of University of Hong Kong
* Hu Peiquan (1920–2019), engineering mechanician and aerospace engineer.
* Wellington Koo (1888–1985), diplomat, former president of the Republic of China, foreign minister, former judge and vice-president of the International Court of Justice
* Kwan Sung-sing (1892–1960), architect, “father of track and field in Taiwan”
* Lin Yutang (1895–1976), writer
* Liu Hongsheng (1888–1956), industrialist, known as the "King of Matches"
* Liu Tonghua (1929–2018), pathologist, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering
* Liu Yichang (1918–2018), writer
* Lu Ping (1927–2015), Chinese politician in charge of the return to China of Hong Kong and Macau
* Ma Yuehan, or John Ma (1883–1966), founder of physical education in modern China
* Meng Xiancheng (1899–1967), educator, the first president of East China Normal University
* Ngan Shing-kwan (1917–2019), architect (attended the university high school)
* Qian Liren (born 1924), Chinese politician and diplomat
* Shi Jiuyong (born 1926), jurist, former president of the International Court of Justice
* Rong Yiren (1916–2005), "Red Capitalist" founder of CITIC Group and vice president of the People's Republic of China
* Jiang Shaoji (1919–1995), internist and gastroenterologist in China
* Jing Shuping (1918–2009, graduated 1939), businessman, founder of Minsheng Bank, China's first privately owned bank
* T. V. Soong (1894–1971), politician and businessman, premier of the Republic of China, brother of the Soong sisters
* K. H. Ting (1915–2012), Anglican bishop and national leader of Protestants in the People's Republic of China
*Tsai (Cai) Neng (1930–1996), psychiatrist of the Shanghai Mental Health Center and pioneer of Chinese psychopharmacology, geriatric psychiatry, and psychosomatic medicine
* Frank Tsao (1925–2019), shipping magnate, founder of IMC Group and Malaysia International Shipping Corporation
* Vivian Shun-wen Wu (1913–2008), businesswoman
* Yen Chia-kan (1905–1993), politician, former vice president and president of the Republic of China
* Chou Wen-chung (1923–2019), Chinese American composer of classical music
* Zhou Youguang (1906–2017), linguist
* Wang Yongnian (1927–2012), literary translator
* Yu Hung-chun (1898–1960), or O. K. Yui, premier of the Republic of China
* Zhu Qizhen (1927–2014), deputy foreign minister, Chinese ambassador to the US, and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Peoples Congress of China
* Zhang Boling (1876–1951), founder of Nankai University and the Nankai system of schools
* Zhang Changshou (1929–2020), archaeologist
* Chen Zhongyi (1923–2019), engineer, academic, and politician
* Alpha Chiang (born 1927), mathematical economist
* Pauline Woo Tsui (1920–2018), Chinese American women's rights activist

Administration

*Francis Lister Hawks Pott, president of St. John's College 1888 to 1896, president of St. John's University from 1896 to 1941
*William Z.L. (SiLiang) Sung was the vice president of St. John's University under Francis Lister Hawks Pott and later the first Chinese-born acting president during WWII. He was accused of collaboration with the Japanese after the war, imprisoned, and later acquitted. He was helped lead the first two delegations from China to the 1932 and 1936 Olympics. He emigrated to the US and became a priest in the Episcopal church, working as a chaplin with the Diocese of California. Also an undergraduate alumni.
* William Payne Roberts, instructor and acting president in the absence of Pott (needs verification)
*David Z.T. Yin, rector of the university, was a distinguished Chinese scholar who had represented the YMCA in Shanghai at the turn of the century.

Institutions with names that commemorate SJU

To keep the school's traditions alive, SJU alumni (called Johanneans) have founded three academic institutions bearing the same name:
* in Tamsui District, Taiwan, St. John's University was established in 1967;
* In Vancouver, St. John's College at the University of British Columbia was established in 1997, and;
* In Shanghai, St. John's College at the East China Normal University will open its door in 2016.Newsletter, SJUAA
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See also

* St. John's University (Taiwan)
* St. Mary's Hall, Shanghai

References

Citations

Further reading

* ''Seeds From The West : St John's Medical School, Shanghai, 1880–1952''. Chen, Kaiyi; Imprint Publications, Chicago, 2001.

External links

St John's University Alumni Association

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint John's University Shanghai

Educational institutions established in 1879
1952 disestablishments in China
Defunct universities and colleges in Shanghai
Anglican universities and colleges
Christian colleges in China
1879 establishments in China