British Missionary Timothy Richard and Chinese Modern Education

摘要

British missionary Timothy Richard came to China, actuated by preaching the Gospel andexpanding the sphere of Christian influence. Considering some complex reasons for history, civilization,ideology and custom etc, he paid attention to secular education as well as doing missionary work to attainhis Christian goal. He laid much stress on the function of education, so he proposed Chinese governmentshould set up Educational Department. In the late Qing Dynasty, he participated in the organization andmanagement of Shanxi Imperial University. Under the circumstances of modern times of China, when it wasin the grip of national crisis, and the contradictory between China and foreign countries was acute andcomplicated, all the work he had done exerted objective influences in many aspects. While it reflected thestrong semi-colonial character in modernization of Chinese education, it had some positive effect as well.