In 1850, at the regular football match between new and old students held by Yale University, a Chinese student with long pigtails scored at a critical moment, thus achieving the first victory of the freshman team in the history of Yale University.
This person is Rong Hong, China's "first person to study abroad", the first Chinese graduate at Yale University and all American universities, whose portrait still hangs on the campus of Yale University. Liel Leibovitz, an Israeli scholar who has long studied the historical relationship between China and the United States, lamented: "China's modernization today actually began the moment Rong Hong bottomed out in Yale football. ”
But just last month, the Ministry of Education issued the First Advance Warning for Studying Abroad in 2019, reminding students who want to study in the United States to study in the United States to study in the United States with caution.
In such a deteriorating situation between China and the United States, international students have also become victims of politics. If we set the time forward 140 years, when the whole world began to compete in an industrial revolution, a group of young children from China were sent to the center of this arena, changing their fate and bringing a glimmer of light to the old China that was dilapidated at that time.
It all has to do with a man named Rong Hong.
In November 1928, a new life was ushered in in a family in Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province, and he was named Rong Hong.
Although China in 1928 was still in a state of isolation, this small county town only 100 meters away from Macao quietly opened a window into the outside world.
Rong Hong's family was not wealthy, so when Rong Hong was seven years old, his father brought him to Macau, because there was a Western-style school founded by foreigners, which not only did not charge tuition but also took care of food, housing and daily necessities.
This school was the Morrison Preparatory School, where Rong Hong began a decade-long Western-style education, and the seeds of Western civilization were buried in the heart of this Chinese boy, which deeply affected his life.
In the fall of 1846, brown, an American educator who was the headmaster, fell seriously ill and returned to China, hoping to take a few classmates to the United States to complete his studies, when the whole class was silent, the whole class looked at each other, and no one dared to respond.
Rong Hong was the first to stand up, you know, this was not an easy decision at the time. Because at that time, most people thought that studying abroad or just going abroad could be regarded as a great shame, especially people with status and status in their families, especially those who could not look at going abroad.
Great historical figures all share similar qualities, the most important of which is to make the right decisions at critical times. Rong Hong's brave decision not only changed his own destiny, but also changed the fate of many Chinese children in the future.
After Yung Hong and his two classmates and the principal came to the United States, they attended the best preparatory school in the United States, the Meng Song School, where they would study for two years according to the financial support of the Hong Kong church people, and then return to China. However, in the second year of Mengsong School, everything changed, and after seeing the prosperity and advancement of the United States, Rong Hong decided to stay and continue to study at university.
However, funding has become the biggest problem. There are two paths in front of Rong Hong, one is that the trustee of Mengsong School can provide financial support, but the premise is that he must engage in missionary work when he returns to China; The second is to study at the University of Edinburgh.
Obviously, these two paths are not the ideals of Rong Hong, who in his memoirs in his later years once recorded the thoughts of that time: "Although he is poor, freedom is inherent, he menstruates, no matter what his karma, will choose the one who is most beneficial to China." If it is limited to one industry, the scope is very narrow, the useful body will be useless, and the preaching is good, not necessarily the cause that benefits China uniquely. ”
Yes, missionary work and a specialized technique could not save China, only by changing people's thinking, which was also the joint efforts of many Chinese talents and heroes later.
Fortunately, Rong Hong's persistence touched a women's association and promised to fund his tuition, so Rong Hong began his yale journey, and he became the first Chinese student at the school.
When he first entered the school, Rong Hong, who was dressed in strange clothes, was often ridiculed by his American classmates, but he won the first place twice in the English exam and completely changed his mind about him. An American classmate even said something like this: "Although a 'Chineseman' took a lot of awards from the 'Yankees' of this school, I think you will find that people are all happy about the success of you as a smart person." ”
As he fell in love with foreign cultures and civilizations day by day, the spirit of freedom and the lively thoughts of the New World had been little by little integrated into his blood. Although life in the United States is rich and colorful, Rong Hong is not happy, because his motherland and the people of the motherland are still in ignorance and closure.
He set for himself the following goal in life: "If one who gives one's will is educated by this civilization, he shall enjoy the same benefits as those who give later." ”
I not only want to enjoy the advanced civilization alone, but I also want my compatriots to see the outside world, so that the Chinese nation can be saved.
Embracing such an ideal, Rong Hong refused the invitation of the editor-in-chief of the New York Times, gave up a bright future and a good life, and resolutely returned to the motherland.
Rong Hong's family conditions are not good, and when he returns from staying in The Ocean, he has many opportunities to change the status quo of his life. He has served in the U.S. Legation in Guangzhou, the High Court of Hong Kong, and the Shanghai Customs, and has a decent and well-paid job. He was also engaged in tea sales, but in the end, because he could not let go of the "big cause" he had once aspired to, he turned around and threw himself into the "foreign affairs movement of self-improvement and self-improvement".
In fact, before promoting young children to study abroad, Rong Hong also completed a major event that was rarely mentioned by posterity - entrusted by Zeng Guofan, he purchased more than 100 machines from abroad, laying an important foundation for the development of the first foreign enterprise, the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau.
Rong Hong, who is proficient in English, is like a bridge between China and the West, and there is no shortage of heavyweights in his circle of friends on both sides of the Pacific. On the Chinese side, there are Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan, Hong Xiuquan, Sun Yat-sen, Tang Caichang, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, etc.; In the United States, there are General Ulysses Grant, who has served two presidents of the United States, and the famous writer Mark Twain.
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan also sent personnel to study abroad, not more than a few years earlier than the late Qing Dynasty. Its promoters are also the Browns who took Rong Hong to the United States that year. Since 1863, Japan has successively sent overseas students, and in 1870, the "Rules for Studying Abroad" was promulgated, which realized the legalization and normalization of studying abroad - "92 people in 1886, 170 students in 1871, and 373 people in 1873." By the time China withdrew its young children from the United States, there were more than 4,800 Japanese students, including more than 20 female students." Some of these international students are government officials, which is obviously of great significance for promoting social change.
For the death of young children who went to the United States to study in the late Qing Dynasty, many people used to blame the problem on Wu Zideng, who was supervising the study abroad. In fact, the Reason why the Qing court, including the Westerners, agreed to study abroad for young children was that "middle school is the body, and Western learning is used." In the eyes of the Qing government, this is an insurmountable red line. However, Rong Hong, who reads foreign languages far better than Chinese, obviously does not understand this enough, which also lays the groundwork for the premature death of the young children he is pushing to study abroad.
Young children's study abroad may not be able to rewrite history, but if the "study abroad project" can be promoted according to Rong Hong's expectations and persistently promoted, the gap between China and Japan may not be widening. In the subsequent Sino-Japanese wars, China may not have been so defeated.
Bidding farewell to the cause of young children studying abroad, Rong Hong still frequently travels between the two sides of the Pacific, hoping to make more contributions to the prosperity of the country with one effort. It is his tireless efforts to run that have ignited the curiosity of many Chinese people for the international community.
On April 12, 1912, Yung Hong died in the United States. Some Americans commented on Rong Hong: "From head to toe, every nerve fiber in his body is patriotic..." Patriotic, some people are accustomed to impassioned speech, and Rong Hong has been practicing it for decades.