Teaching in Tianjin and planning Peiyang
Tenney was born in Boston and studied at Dartmouth College. The college archives’ biography records that he began tutoring Li Hongzhang’s sons in Tianjin in 1886 and directed an Anglo-Chinese school there until 1895. This local teaching experience preceded his collaboration with Sheng Xuanhuai.
During the preparation of Peiyang in 1895, Tenney worked with Sheng on regulations and practical plans. The design connected preparatory education with advanced specialist study. Its founding rules covered the responsibilities of administrators and instructors, recruitment, admissions, examinations, finance and student allowances, placing the curriculum within a defined administrative structure.
Regulations, disruption and rebuilding
Tenney served as Peiyang’s chief instructor from 1895 to 1906, participating in teacher recruitment and student assessment. In 1904 he oversaw new regulations for the Tianjin institution under the revised educational system, organizing its teaching and administrative practices in greater detail.
The fighting of 1900 interrupted instruction and the original premises were occupied. Dartmouth’s biography records Tenney’s simultaneous service as Chinese secretary to the foreign-run Tientsin Provisional Government. In 1902 he negotiated in Berlin over compensation for university property taken into the German concession; the indemnity helped fund new premises at Xigu. Educational rebuilding was therefore closely entangled with foreign occupation and local administration.
Overseas students and diplomatic service
After leaving his university leadership post in 1906, Tenney supervised Chinese students in the United States until 1908. Dartmouth’s account describes a group of about thirty advanced Peiyang students who accompanied him for further study. This overseas responsibility extended his educational work beyond the campus.
In 1908 he became Chinese secretary at the American legation in Beijing. He participated in the international opium commission in Shanghai in 1909, served as consul in Nanjing in 1912 and acted as chargé d’affaires in Beijing in 1919–1920. He retired in 1921 and died in 1930. Dartmouth preserves papers concerning his educational ideas and experiences in China.