After the Opium War in 1840, the Qing Government was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing. Fuzhou became one of the five treaty ports. Subsequently, the Treaty of Wanghia between China and the United States in 1844 gave foreigners the privilege of renting land for trade, preaching, and establishing schools in China.
That is why the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established the Fuzhou Mission in Fuzhou. In 1847, American missionary Stephen Johnson and his wife were sent to Fuzhou to build a church and Ponasang Primary School. Pastor Johnson was the head of the school, and students took the Bible as the main course and attended culture courses as well. It was the first modern school founded by the American church in Fuzhou, and in 1853, the school was renamed the Gospel House. After taking over as head of the school in 1858, Reverend Caleb Cook Baldwin accepted the advice of a teacher (who passed the imperial examinations at the provincial level in the Qing dynasty), named the school “Gezhi School” after the ancient maxim of “Things investigated, and genuine knowledge acquired ” from the Chinese Confucian classic, The Book of Rites. Later, the school was renamed Foochow College (Gezhi Academy in Chinese).
Before 1927, Foochow College was affiliated with the church, and its successive presidents were all American missionaries. In 1916, the middle school division was retained, and the school system was set to be six years. In fact, it had become a combined junior and senior high school.
In 1919, the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal May 4th Movement swept the whole country, and the Fuzhou Student Movement was launched in Fujian. On March 24, 1927, a total of ten graduates of the Foochow College, including Shao Chengzhang, Lin Chaohan, and others, founded the organization of Fuzhou Alliance for Anti-cultural Invasion and Recovery of Education Right, and the staff and students held up the anti-imperialist banner of fighting the cultural aggression and the recovering of the right to education. Fujian Provincial Government Affairs Committee decided, “No foreigner shall be appointed as chairman or president of the board of directors of schools.” On June 27, the decision was approved by the Provincial Government Affairs Committee. In the same month, the principal of Foochow College, Willard Livingstone Beard, was forced to resign, and the school board appointed Shen Zhizhong, the director of Fuzhou YMCA(Young Men’s Christian Association), as the principal.
Shen Zhizhong was born in Minhou, Fujian Province on August 29, 1890. At the age of seven, he began to study at a family school. Later, he graduated from Foochow College, being the 20th (or the 21st) batch of graduates of the school. After graduation, he went to the United States for further studies. During his studies in the United States, he received his master’s degrees from Yale University and the University of Minnesota. After returning to China, Shen worked as a secretary of Fuzhou YMCA, engaging in the dissemination of western culture activities, such as advocating for mass and civil education, scientific lectures, and caring for Christian students, which achieved remarkable results. Shen was also a member of the Board of Directors of Foochow College. He was appointed by the Board of Directors of Foochow College as the first Chinese principal of the school in June 1927, thus ending the history of the middle school in which only foreigners were allowed to serve as principal.
After taking charge of the college, Shen began to carry out school sports activities. Some students participated in the Far Eastern Championship Games held in Japan and the Philippines twice and were the champions in the pole vault and the champions in the high jump.
It is said “in 1927, the middle part of the second floor of the student dormitory of the Lincoln Building in Gezhi Middle School was burned, and one corner of the dining hall was blown up by grenades. Besides this, some teachers left the school and took some students with them. The school was forced to suspend all its classes”.
Shen felt that the matter was difficult and prompted his resignation. After his resignation, he returned to YMCA to work. In addition to spreading western culture, he also introduced foreign modern sports such as basketball, track & field sports, and swimming to Fuzhou, and promoted the publishing of Christian publications and news research.
In order to expand the influence of the YMCA, Shen went to southern Fujian to work. He was the director-general of Xiamen YMCA since 1934 and the head of Xiamen YMCA New Life and Labor Service Group since June 1935. He assisted the New Life and Labor Service Group of Zhangzhou Christian Church and more than 10 service groups to carry out the new life movement in urban and rural areas.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Shen guided the YMCA to devote itself to the Anti-japanese and national salvation movement. In March 1946, he became the director of Fuzhou Office of Zhejiang and Fujian Branch of the China National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (CNRRA) and the director of Fujian Provincial Emergency Relief Committee. He often went to Fuzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, and other places to raise funds and carry out relief work for soldiers in the Anti-Japanese War and students.
In 1948, Shen was sent by the Chinese Christian World General Association to serve as the director-general of the Singapore Chinese Church and the principal of the Singapore Chinese Journalism Institute to conduct research on Chinese news. In 1949, he represented Singaporean Chinese Christian leaders at the Southeast Asian YMCA Leadership Conference in Bangkok, Thailand. After the meeting, he said in an interview, “Only with the development of the World YMCA can people live in peace and work in peace...”
On August 17, 1964, Shen retired from his life in Singapore at the age of 74.
On March 17, 1942, after graduating from the China Bible Seminary in Shanghai, Shen Biyu, the eldest daughter of Shen Zhizhong, married Wu Naiwen, a native of Longshan Town, Nanjing County, Fujian province, who had graduated from the North China Theological Seminary in Teng County, Shandong Province.
Shortly after their marriage, they devoted themselves to preaching the gospel in Anxi and Tongan churches in the mountainous area of Southern Fujian Province. From 1945 to 1946, the couple served as missionaries at Guankou Church in Xiamen. In the winter of 1946, they and their two children went to Shanghai to visit relatives, and Wu studied at the China Bible Seminary in Shanghai for half a year and served as a short-term preacher in a Shanghai church. In May 1948, he was appointed to serve as a preacher in Shima Church. On October 16, 1949, Wu Naiwen was appointed as the fifth pastor of the church. On September 20 of that year, Shima was liberated from the Japanese invasion. After the founding of new China, the Chinese Christian Council launched the “Three-Self Patriotic Movement", and the Shima TSPM was also established.
- Translated by Nicolas Cao
