強學會紀事 : 汪康年傳稿之ニ

Abstract

The westernized army that had cost Li Hung-chang (李鴻章) his fifteen years' labours proved a failure in the Sino-Japanese War, and this gave rise to a movement for institutional "reform, " leading to the birth of an organization called Ch'iang-hsueh-hui. On the other hand, in the early nineteenth century Protestant missionaries began to propagate their faith, and their efforts proved successful, at least, partly by employing medicine and education as their means. Timothy Richard was one of these missionaries. His activities were not limited to education but the enlightenment of the Chinese literati who were affiliated with the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese (Kuang-hsueh-hui (廣學會)) established in Shanghai in 1887. Ch'iang-hsueh-hui was also set up by such young progressive scholars of south China as K'ang Yu-wei (康有爲) and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (梁啓超) as wsell as progressive officials in Peking, and Timothy Richard played the role of adviser. Seeing that progressive movement would not succeed in the much conservative atomosphere of Peking, K'ang Yu-wei organized another Ch'iang-hsueh-hui in Shanghai, but it was disbanded by order of the Empress Dowager and her clique after only a few months' existence. Peking's Ch'iang-hsueh-hui survived as Kuan-shu-chu (官書局), while in Shanghai the movement revived in the form of a journal, Shih-wu-pao (時務報), started by K'ang Yu-wei six months after the dissolution of the society. The journal was continued for three years, and responsible for making a fourishing period of the movement.