 The
late nineteenth-century in America was marked by a desire to introduce
Western influence, and, more importantly, Christian doctrines to the
nations of the East. Not immune to this trend, numerous Dickinson College
alumni used their ties to the College to help establish educational
and religious institutions in China, most particularly the West
China Union University in Chengtu in the Sechuan Province. Men such
as John Goucher, class of 1868, and Raymond
Brewer, class of 1916, were instrumental in the workings of the
University as well as securing financial support for it through Dickinson
and its alumni. Although thousands of students studied at the university,
by the turn of the twentieth-century, anti-Western and anti-Christian
sentiment had risen to an all-time high in China, resulting in the Boxer
Rebellion in 1900. Despite such outbursts, the West China Union University
continued to exist until 1926, when relations with the Chinese government
as well as its people became extremely strained. |
