He is a second-generation American missionary. He was also an educator who founded the yenching university and served as the principal and school administrator. He is also a diplomat and once served as the American ambassador to China. Mao Zedong is very famous in China, because he wrote an article "Farewell to Si Tuleideng", but he is unknown in his own country-the United States.
The second generation of American missionaries
Si Tuleideng's parents were South American Presbyterian missionaries who came to China in the early days. They were born in Tianshui Tang, Hangzhou on 1876. He is of pure American descent. In Si Tuleideng's own words, he is "more like an American than an China". He was born in Hangzhou, China, and speaks pure Hangzhou dialect. At the age of 0, 165438+ went to school in Virginia, USA, where he was ridiculed as a monster who could not speak English. Influenced by the voluntary missionary movement of overseas students, he transferred to a seminary and decided to preach. 1904, he returned to Hangzhou with his wife and became the second generation Presbyterian missionary in South America.
From 65438 to 0908, he became a Greek professor at Jinling Theological Seminary. 19 10 served as the chairman of the Nanjing church business Committee. During the Revolution of 1911, he was also a special correspondent of the Associated Press in Nanjing.
Build a first-class yenching university.
19 19 was hired as the president of yenching university in June. Since then, as a long-term leader of Yanda University, he has made indelible contributions to the development of the university. Si Tuleideng raised money everywhere to build a beautiful new palace-style campus for yenching university in the western suburbs of Beijing, and invited famous Chinese and foreign scholars such as Wu Leichuan, Xu Dishan, Gu Jiegang, Qian Mu, Wu Wenzao and others to teach at Yanda University at great expense, so as to enhance their popularity and academic status .4438+0927.100000000005 By the year of 1930, Yanda University had developed into a missionary university with the highest academic level in China.
Si Tuleideng advocates academic freedom and requires Yanda University students to face both China and the world. Si Tuleideng also paid attention to the interaction with students and employees, treated students kindly and treated faculty warmly, which left a deep impression on many students and employees.
Si Tuleideng sympathizes with the student movement. After the September 18th Incident, he even personally led students to March in the streets and shouted anti-Japanese slogans.
From 65438 to 0930, Princeton University awarded him an honorary doctorate in literature. 1933 was summoned by American President Roosevelt to listen to his opinions on the current situation in China.
194 1 When the Pacific War broke out in, he was kept in a concentration camp by the Japanese army and was not released until Japan surrendered. Yanda was also forced to move to Chengdu. From 65438 to 0945, after his release, Si Tuleideng succeeded as President of Yanda University (later school administrator) until he left China.
American Ambassador to China in the Critical Period
1946,1/kloc-0 became the U.S. ambassador to China in July, 2008, with a term of office during the national civil war (1946- 1949). At the same time, he also served as the Dean of Yanda University. At that time, some people commented that he was "both a politician and a scholar, a cunning opponent and a warm friend".
1in April, 949, the army of the * * * Party captured Nanjing, but he did not go south to Guangzhou with the National Government and stayed there. It was not until August 2 that he was forced to leave China and return to the United States, and then retired. It is said that on the eve of his departure from China, he had a secret contact with the top leaders of China's * * * production party, and he also planned to go to Beijing to discuss the issue of US recognition of the people of China and the government of China, but he was recalled in advance and failed to make it. On August 8, Xinhua News Agency broadcast Mao Zedong's Farewell to Si Tuleideng, and regarded him as a symbol of the United States with great irony, calling him "a symbol of the complete failure of the American aggression policy". This article has also been included in middle school Chinese textbooks, and the name "Si Tuleideng" has become synonymous with notoriety and failure in China.
After returning to the United States, he was first gagged by the State Council and later harassed by McCarthyists. Suffering from cerebral thrombosis, resulting in hemiplegia and aphasia. He died in Washington on September 1962. He always hoped to send the ashes to China and bury them in the campus of yenching university, but so far it has not been realized.
Historian Lin commented on him like this: "Probably no American has been involved in China's politics, culture and education for as long as a doctor in the whole 20th century, which has had an immeasurable impact."
work
Fifty years in China