Yenching

The ancient name of the Chinese city until recently known as Peking, but now properly referred to as Peping, was Yenching. Last fortnight many a U.S. educator and tourist, including John D. Rockefeller III, many a Chinese educator and student, traveled a few miles beyond the walls of Peping, witnessed the dedicatory ceremonies of Yenching University. Formed in 1917 by the consolidation of several Christian colleges, Yenching University represents the greatest single expression of U. S. educational philanthropy abroad.

Often when the West comes to the East (even when the West comes bearing gifts) the visit is made with the assumption that all things occidental are superior, that all things oriental are deplorable. No such error was made in Yenching University's architecture. Here buildings were so designed by able Manhattanite Henry Killam Murphy as to harmonize with the country and the civilization of which they are a part. There are Forbes, Wheeler, Gamble, and Finley Dormitories, but despite their Anglo-Saxon names these buildings have the blue-tiled pagoda roofs, white walls, red lacquer columns, carved porches, sweeping curves and broken lines appropriate to their environment. A typical many-tiered, pagoda-topped tower overlooks an artificial lake, and a pair of gargoyle-like lions guard the multicolored, richly ornamented Alumni gate.

Architect Murphy was born in New Haven, has lived chiefly in Manhattan, has built many a western building after the western fashion. At Yenching with skillful adaptation of western structural standards to eastern esthetic principals he has designed a group of 45 buildings (29 of them already finished) which do no violence to the memory of the Manchu prince of whose summer-palace their grounds were once a part. The present Chinese government has retained Mr. Murphy for an extremely ambitious building program in Nanking, new Chinese capitol (TIME, May 27).

Even more significant than the architecture of Yenching University, however, is the fact that this Chinese university, founded and financed by U.S. money, will be Chinese-controlled. Presiding at the dedication was Chancellor Wu Lei-Ch'uan, onetime Chinese vice-minister of education (1928-29) and now head of Yenching University. Strong is the spirit of nationalism in China, pleasing to Chinese Nationalists should be Yenching's Chinese executive. Meanwhile Dr. J. Leighton Stuart continues in control of administrative detail and academic routine. President since 1919, Dr. Stuart ably guided the university through the perplexities of China's troubled years; has now gladly welcomed Dr. Wu's advancement to titular leadership.