The splendidly housed and equipped St John’s University at Shanghai is
American Episcopal. The tourist should take a rickshaw out to Jessfield
suburb, five miles from the River Bund, and see its modern buildings,
with adapted Chinese roofs. Its leading spirit has for years been a
New Yorker by birth, Doctor Francis Pott, son of the noted publisher.
Its theological school is, of course, Episcopalian. Most important is
its famous medical school, headed by Doctors Boone, Lincoln, Jefferys,
Tucker, Myers, and Fullerton, whom all Central China loves. Chinese
doctors, such as Tyau, Waung and Koo, assist. The school of arts is
equally famous and brilliant, though perhaps not so imperative. I
hope the day will soon come when this model university will have a
larger science school, not of mediocre equipment, but endowed by some
American at least half as richly as a standard American college would
be endowed in science. The library, museum, dormitories and teachers’
school all need endowments. The university has a full-fledged modern
athletic department, and it is thrilling to see the Chinese boys
“play up, play up, and play the game” of American football, baseball,
etc. The football team has mowed down the Municipal Police team on
many occasions. Track teams and rowing teams from St. John’s are yet
going to make China famous at Olympics and Henleys. Military drill is
exceedingly popular, and many of the four hundred boys, who represent
every province, jumped into the front rank in winning China’s
republican revolution, though St. John’s has not yet taught politics.
It should and will perhaps add a strong branch in political economy.
The debating society is popular, as one could expect in the New China,
and the dramatic society is successful, for the Chinese are born
actors. The students also have a modern orchestra. The university is
not a “griffin”, for it dates back to 1879. Five large buildings stand
on the twenty acres of campus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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