Zhejiang University: Foundation and Educational Development

Zhejiang University traces its educational origins to Qiushi Academy, founded in Hangzhou in 1897. What was established then was a modern academy combining Chinese and Western learning; the later university's name, departments, and organizational scale did not yet exist. Preparations, recruitment, students' arrival, and subsequent university reorganization are distinct stages of this history.

On March 16, 1897, Xinwen Bao reported that the new school being prepared in Zhejiang would occupy Puci Temple at Henghe Bridge in Hangzhou, where buildings were under construction. Hangzhou prefect Lin Qi served as chief organizer, with Lu Maoxun as superintendent. The list also named senior instructor Wang Linggeng and assistant instructors including Lu Baochen and Lu Kanghua. In April, Shen Bao further reported that local authorities had raised funds, hired teachers, and formally invited applications for residential study at “Qiushi Academy.”

These reports reveal an institution directed by local officials and staffed by Chinese and foreign teachers. Existing temple premises were repurposed for education, while administrative preparations and teaching were divided among the chief organizer, superintendent, and instructors. Establishing modern education thus involved concrete changes in facilities, funding, and personnel organization.

References: [1] [2]

The admissions rules printed in Shen Bao addressed holders of traditional scholarly statuses such as juren, gongsheng, shengyuan, and jiansheng. Applicants had to be under thirty and willing to live at the academy. They supplied names, addresses, ages, and other details, backed by a guarantee from an upright member of the local gentry. Prior study of chemistry, mathematics, drawing, or foreign languages was to be noted.

There were two examinations: an initial test in policy essays on the classics and history, followed by a second examination involving the instructors. Thirty students were to be admitted. Traditional learning remained the foundation of selection, while Western knowledge became an additional subject of assessment. Admission was neither based solely on foreign-language achievement nor premised on abolishing existing scholarly status and classical training.

On May 9, 1897, Shen Bao reported that forty-four candidates had passed the first test and thirty were admitted after the prescribed second examination, with the remainder placed on a waiting list. A Xinwen Bao report gave a different number for candidates in the second examination. Both papers nevertheless show that recruitment did not mean immediate admission after an announcement: applicants proceeded through registration, initial examination, retesting, and selection.

References: [1]

That year's Jicheng Bao reprinted a Xinwen Bao account stating that regulations had been drafted by the time the academy opened and the chief instructor arranged the curriculum. Students were divided into three classes according to prior preparation: those who had studied English, those who had studied mathematics, and those without the corresponding experience. Such grouping reflected differing levels of preparation in Western learning among incoming scholars, requiring teaching to begin from those differences.

Reports of the second examination also explicitly identified foreign languages and mathematics as subjects tested. Read alongside the first examination's essays on classics and history, this shows an academy accommodating traditional training and new branches of knowledge together. It introduced foreign languages, mathematics, and other studies into residential education run by local officials, with teaching organized by the appointed instructors. This differed from an arrangement devoted solely to imperial-examination preparation.

References: [1]

The educational system also offered material support. On May 25, 1897, Shen Bao reported that each student received five silver dollars monthly for food and incidental expenses, with assessments on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month and additional rewards for high achievement. The five dollars was a living allowance, not tuition charged to students. Regular support combined with performance rewards was intended to enable concentrated residential study.

The same report stressed that students did not also need to prepare for the imperial examinations, avoiding divided attention. This did not mean abandoning every aspect of traditional culture. On June 21, Shen Bao recalled that when students entered the academy, Lin Qi led them first in paying respects to Confucius, then in observing teacher–student rites before the instructors, then in saluting local officials, before they went to their quarters.

The coexistence of new courses and traditional ceremonies characterized Qiushi Academy's early operation. Its organizers sought to change scholars' intellectual training and future paths while using established teacher–student ethics and the order of official education to accommodate the new system.

References: [1]

Qiushi Academy later underwent name changes and closure. In 1927, the Zhejiang Public Industrial Specialized School and Zhejiang Public Agricultural Specialized School were reorganized as the engineering and labor-agriculture colleges of National Third Sun Yat-sen University. In April 1928, the institution was renamed Zhejiang University; “National” was added in July. It had colleges of engineering, agriculture, and arts and sciences.

During the War of Resistance against Japan, the university moved westward in stages to Guizhou under Zhu Kezhen and returned to Hangzhou in autumn 1946. Following the departmental reorganization of 1952, it became a multidisciplinary industrial university. In 1998, Zhejiang University merged with Hangzhou University, Zhejiang Agricultural University, and Zhejiang Medical University. These different stages of division and combination cannot be compressed into a single founding event in 1897.

References: [2]

The institution's development also gradually appeared in research published abroad. In 1942, Physical Review published Wang Ganchang's “A Suggestion on the Detection of the Neutrino,” listing his affiliation as the Department of Physics, National University of Chekiang, in Zunyi, Guizhou, and its receipt date as October 13, 1941. The title, institutional address, and publication date connect a specific piece of fundamental physics research with the university's wartime relocation inland.

The paper discussed testing the neutrino hypothesis through the recoil of a nucleus after electron capture. It was a research proposal, not evidence that Zhejiang University had already directly discovered the neutrino. From Qiushi Academy's organization of new learning through admissions, courses, and residential arrangements to university teachers posing research questions in international journals, the scope of educational activity had expanded considerably.

References: [3]