From Plans for Teacher Training to an Opening
The Normal Department of the Imperial University opened in Beijing on 17 December 1902, the starting point traced by Beijing Normal University. Its site lay around Mashenmiao on Jingshan East Street. It belonged to the university’s accelerated programme and was specifically responsible for training teachers.
The university’s regulations of 1898 had already proposed a dedicated teacher-training establishment, but that plan had not been implemented. After the university closed in 1900, the Qing court appointed Zhang Baixi to restore it in 1902. New-style schools needed teachers, while a complete university organized into specialist disciplines could not be established immediately. The Normal Department therefore opened alongside the department for training officials, addressing the shortage of qualified teachers for expanding schools.
Students Arriving from Different Provinces
The department’s entrants had varied educational backgrounds, often including the traditional examination system. Admission tested classical learning alongside mathematics, physics, history and geography. Students entered through examinations in Beijing, provincial selection and nomination, or transfer from the translation school. They arrived at different times, and further students joined after teaching began.
Researchers’ reconstruction of an early Imperial University student register lists 195 normal students: 76 admitted directly by examination, 80 nominated by provinces and 39 transferred from the translation school. The register describes the early student body assembled over time. Lun Ming travelled to Beijing to sit the entrance examination on his own initiative and subsequently completed the original normal course.
Subject Knowledge and Teacher Training
The curriculum combined classical studies and ethics with pedagogy, foreign languages, mathematics, physical sciences and natural history. Pedagogy covered educational aims, principles of teaching and school administration. Students studied both the subjects they would teach and how to organize a classroom. Chinese instructors, Japanese instructors and foreign-language teachers shared the courses, with translated textbooks providing important teaching materials.
After the new school system was introduced in 1904, the department followed the advanced normal-school structure and increasingly organized specialist study. Its four groups emphasized language, history and geography, mathematics and physical sciences, and natural history, alongside shared education and psychology courses. Jiang Han taught classical studies, Chen Fuchen history, and Hattori Unokichi served among the Japanese instructors, linking subject specialization with preparation for teaching qualifications.
Stipends and Study Materials
Support included provincial assistance with students’ living expenses as well as resources within the university. Students still faced the costs of stationery and books, often alongside family commitments, and provincial stipends varied. Students from Guangdong requested assistance comparable to that offered by other provinces. Although Lun Ming had not been provincially nominated, he qualified as a Guangdong normal student. Zheng Lifen’s documentary research finds that adjustments in 1905 increased this group’s stipends to twenty-five taels per person per month.
The university assembled resources by requesting books from provinces, buying foreign publications and translating textbooks through its translation bureau. Hattori Unokichi purchased Japanese works on teaching methods and school administration, while the Shanghai translation branch translated and edited educational texts. These textbooks, reference works and lecture notes supported courses and students’ later teaching.
Graduates’ Teaching Obligations
The original normal class completed its graduation examinations in 1907. Assessment combined ongoing studies with final examinations and was accompanied by rewards connected to traditional examination status. Graduates also owed educational service: the 1907 rules set a five-year obligation, requiring them to accept posts assigned by the Ministry of Education or provincial authorities rather than evade service through other appointments. Teacher preparation thus extended from admission to placement in provincial employment.
Implementation encountered practical difficulties. Drawing on Jilin provincial archives, He Ling describes the university’s requests for graduates to return borrowed books. After taking teaching posts, Gu Debao, Zhang Hao and others needed the books to prepare lessons and asked to retain them or pay for them; other graduates returned their loans. This exchange shows teachers carrying new knowledge to places where equivalent books were not necessarily available.
A Separate Institution in 1908
On 14 June 1908, the sixteenth day of the fifth lunar month of Guangxu 34, the Ministry of Education petitioned to establish a separate Capital Advanced Normal School. With the university’s specialist faculties about to open, the memorial argued that it could no longer manage normal education as well. It proposed extending buildings on the Wucheng Middle School site at Changdian and appointing Chen Wenxian to direct preparations. The court approved the proposal that day, beginning the department’s move toward institutional independence.
The separate school continued arranging its new site and courses and became Beijing Normal University in 1923. The Normal Department’s opening in 1902 marked the beginning of this institutional history. Teacher training, provincial financial support and graduate service developed during subsequent years, sustaining the early operation of new-style normal education.