Yan Xiu (; 12 April 1860 – 15 March 1929), also known as Yan Fansun, was a Chinese educator who, with
Zhang Boling, founded
Nankai University and the
Nankai system of schools.
Early life
Yan Xiu was born on 12 April 1860 into a
salt merchant family in
Tianjin
Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...
during the
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...
.
Early career
Despite belonging to a merchant family, he also belonged to the ranks of
scholar-gentry
The " gentry", or "landed gentry" in China was the elite who held privileged status through passing the Imperial exams, which made them eligible to hold office. These literati, or scholar-officials, (''shenshi'' 紳士 or ''jinshen'' 縉紳), a ...
. He was a controversial figure whose reformist ideas made him an outcast of Beijing politics and earned him criticism from fellow scholar-officials. As the educational commissioner of
Guizhou
Guizhou (; Postal romanization, formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in the Southwest China, southwest region of the China, People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the pr ...
, he proposed an essay-based special examination (''jingji teke'') as an alternative to the
Chinese imperial examinations. Following the failure of his proposal and the
Hundred Days' Reform, he was rejected from the scholarly circles by anti-reform court officials of the Qing government.
Career in Tianjin
He returned to Tianjin in 1898 to work for the Yan household's salt trade monopoly of the Sanhe district. The wealth from the salt trade allowed Yan Xiu to continue his life as an educator, establishing a household school. He hired
Zhang Boling to oversee the school's organization and curriculum. Zhang Boling was trained in Western knowledge, graduating in 1894 from the
Beiyang Naval Academy in Tianjin, organized by
Li Hongzhang.
Despite the events of the
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an Xenophobia, anti-foreign, anti-colonialism, anti-colonial, and Persecution of Christians#China, anti-Christian uprising in China ...
, a violent uprising against foreign influence in China, Yan Xiu retained his reformist aspirations for Chinese education and later traveled to
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
in August–November 1902 to observe its education system. The Yan household school eventually merged with that of another merchant family, which later led to the formation of Nankai Primary School and Nankai Middle School in 1904 and eventually
Nankai University in 1919.
In 1905, Yan established the ''
Zhili Education Official Gazette'',
which was the earliest education official gazette in China.
Death
Yan Xiu died on 15 March 1929 in Tianjin.
Gallery
File:严范孙.jpg,
File:YanFansun.jpg, Statue of Yan Xiu in Nan Kai school in Tianjin, China
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xiu, Yan
1860 births
1929 deaths
Educators from Tianjin