The Imperial University amid Late Qing Reforms
Peking University's predecessor, the Imperial University of Peking, emerged from late Qing efforts to change education and the training of talent. In 1896, Li Duanfen proposed expanding schools and establishing a university in the capital. On July 3, 1898, the Guangxu emperor approved preparations, with Sun Jianai responsible for administration. Regulations drafted by Liang Qichao on behalf of the Zongli Yamen linked teaching with national educational organization, arranging instruction in the capital while requiring provincial schools to follow common curricula and rules.
The institution was not yet an undergraduate university with the clearly defined boundaries of later years. Because primary and secondary schools remained incomplete, the regulations proposed admitting students of different levels, dividing them into classes for progressive study, and establishing teacher training, a library, and experimental apparatus facilities. It was both a school for training talent and, for a time, an authority over provincial schools. July 3 marks authorization for establishment, not the day students began classes.
Opening in a Former Princely Residence
The first site used Princess Hejia's former residence in the Mashenmiao area of Beijing. Campus studies show that the early institution accommodated teaching, housing, and activities within existing courtyards, rather than beginning with a complete modern campus. Adapting old buildings required educational plans to fit the practical site.
Wang Xiaoting and Huang Wenyi's research dates the first opening to December 31, 1898, explicitly distinguishing it from the reopening in 1902. The regulations envisaged 500 students: 300 from categories including officials and 200 advancing from provincial middle schools. Actual enrollment was smaller. Drawing on higher-education historical sources, Zhang Yaqun records a little over 160 students initially, increasing to more than 200 by May the following year. Planned places and actual enrollment should not be conflated, nor should all these students of varying attainment be considered modern undergraduates.
Curriculum, Teachers, and Budgets
The regulations placed classical studies, Neo-Confucian philosophy, historical and institutional knowledge, mathematics, and the investigation of things among general studies, and listed advanced mathematics, agriculture, mining, engineering, and commerce among specialist studies. Students could choose English, French, Russian, German, or Japanese. Foreign languages were tools for obtaining knowledge, not equivalents of all Western learning. Because entrants had limited foundations, the regulations anticipated completion of general courses first; specialist instruction depended on further conditions. Specialist teachers who did not yet have students could temporarily help translate books.
Finance likewise requires distinguishing design from implementation. Chapter Seven of the regulations listed a startup budget totaling 350,000 taels for buildings, books, apparatus, and hiring teachers, requiring advance budgets and subsequent final accounts. Zhang Yunjun's study separately records an initial central-government allocation of 350,000 taels and discusses funds during later reconstruction. Such figures must be understood in their respective phases, rather than merged into one fully expended account.
Interruption, Reopening, and Disciplinary Divisions
Warfare in 1900 closed the institution and damaged buildings and books. Zhang Baixi led its restoration in 1902, when the Tongwen Guan was also incorporated. Preparations and formal reopening were not simultaneous: the chronological study cited above identifies December 17, 1902 as the reopening date, preventing its confusion with the first opening in 1898.
Reconstruction brought changes to curricula and organization; the 1898 plans cannot be treated as unchanged institutions throughout the following decade and more. By 1910, the disciplinary university offered seven divisions: classical studies, law, literature, investigation of things, agriculture, engineering, and commerce. In 1912 it was renamed Peking University. The gradual transition from a school of mixed educational levels to a university organized by disciplines required interruption, rebuilding, and new regulations.
How Translation Became Part of Teaching
A shortage of textbooks posed a practical obstacle to implementing the new curriculum. Drawing on university and related archives, Zhang Yunjun notes that preparations for a translation bureau began in 1898, were interrupted in 1900, and resumed in October 1902; a Shanghai translation branch had been established in May 1902. The main bureau, branch, and later separate translation college were different organizations and should not collectively be described as one system already operating in 1898.
Yan Fu oversaw translation work, with Lin Shu participating in rendering texts into written Chinese. Tasks also included selecting titles, checking translations, and polishing prose. Four translated manuscripts completed by the Shanghai branch in May 1903 included two volumes of a history of Western ethics; records for January 1904 listed works including six volumes on public finance. Specific manuscripts and volume counts show how the introduction of knowledge became usable course materials, while remaining constrained by staffing, schedules, and quality.
References: [3]
Early Evidence Preserved in Library Holdings
The library's early history rests on more than later institutional narratives. An official library bulletin reported in 2014 that staff organizing old collections had discovered the 1899 University Book Catalogue, listing nearly 50,000 volumes under categories including classics, histories, philosophical works, literary collections, collectanea, and Western learning. Read alongside the regulations' library provisions, this early catalog allowed the library to trace its foundation to 1898. Its figures still describe registrations at that time, not necessarily later holdings.
The bulletin also records that a copy of Yili gujinwen yitong shuzheng bearing the university's ownership seal reached a bookshop, where student Lin Chuanshu purchased it and returned it in 1906. Its seals and inscriptions connect wartime losses, individual searching, and institutional reconstruction. The Imperial University's continuity depended not only on regulations and finance, but also on repeatedly restoring textbooks, books, and the practical conditions for teaching.
References: [4]