Fudan University: Founding and Early Education

In 1905, Ma Xiangbo and some teachers and students left Aurora Academy and established Fudan Public School elsewhere in Shanghai. Drawing on newspapers, letters, and other materials, Zhang Zhongmin shows that the founding involved disagreements over authority and teaching administration within the earlier institution. It continued the educational activities of an existing community of teachers and students while requiring new premises and funding.

Ma invited Yan Fu and twenty-seven other individuals to serve as trustees, drawing on their reputations and social connections to raise donations. Yan helped formulate management procedures and courses and jointly supervised entrance examinations with Ma. On the afternoon of September 14, 1905, Fudan Public School held its opening ceremony, at which Yan spoke as a trustee. Founding, fundraising, admissions, and formal opening were different steps in the same process and cannot all be represented simply by the date on which a school name appeared.

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In interviews in 1935, Ma recalled that the school initially faced severe financial difficulties and that teachers and students selected the former military commander's offices in Wusong. He asked Liangjiang Governor-General Zhou Fu to lend the premises and provide assistance, and received approval. Ma explained that the location offered both distance from the busy city and an open coastal environment. Acquiring premises depended on support from local officials, while the educational initiative came from Ma and the teachers and students.

An admissions advertisement in August 1905 described the premises and accommodation arrangements in detail. The Wusong military offices were temporarily available for the opening, but could house only eighty boarding students, requiring additional accommodation to be rented outside the school. Three fee levels covered boarding on campus, boarding off campus, and independently rented lodgings with lunch at school. Annual charges were respectively 120, 100, and 60 yuan, payable in two semester installments; the advertisement also specified which expenses, including exercise clothing, were covered. These arrangements connected limited premises, student living conditions, and school revenue.

References: [2] [3]

The same advertisement provisionally set enrollment at 160, including 120 former Aurora students who had already registered, leaving the remaining places open to new applicants. It preserved the existing educational community while admitting newcomers. The advertisement also emphasized diligent, self-motivated study, without assuming that all applicants had completed the same stage of education.

Entrance examinations for new students were scheduled at the office on Aiwenniu Road opposite Zhang Garden in Shanghai, under Yan Fu and Ma Xiangbo's supervision. Chinese was examined in the morning; those who had already studied a Western language took an additional examination in the afternoon. The combination shows an expectation that students would have a foundation in Chinese learning alongside the capacity for foreign-language study. Admission results were to be announced in newspapers, with examinations and travel to begin classes in Wusong arranged separately.

The advertisement proposed a four-year preparatory course and two-year specialized courses. Preparatory study led toward specialized industrial and commercial or political and legal studies and was linked to university entry. This was the course plan announced during recruitment, not a direct equivalent of a modern undergraduate degree. The advertised opening date was also a projected arrangement; the formal ceremony took place in September. Different dates in founding materials should be understood in relation to the specific actions they describe.

References: [3] [1]

The exercise-ground rules in the 1905 Fudan Public School Regulations incorporated physical training into daily student life. The first bell instructed students to prepare clothing and equipment, and the second summoned them onto the field. Team leaders were appointed by the exercise instructor, who recorded marks, and unjustified absences were prohibited. Sick leave required documentation; sudden illness had to be verified and reported by the dormitory head.

The rules also required clean equipment, orderly exercise clothing, shoes, and headwear, and observance of formation during drills. For sporting games, they prescribed gradual practice and permitted the creation of a separate physical-education study section, whose rules still required the principal's approval. This was an organizational possibility allowed by the regulations, not evidence that such a section had actually been established.

Hou Jia's comparison of early statutes notes that Fudan's regulations covered examinations, leave, private study, classrooms, dormitories, dining halls, and other matters. Academic training and communal living thus came under the same written framework rather than depending solely on teachers' ad hoc instructions.

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Ma recalled that while he was at Fudan, students frequently approached him after classes with difficult questions and sought his assistance when they encountered problems. Such contact was an important form of early intellectual activity. During the 1911 Revolution, troops occupied the premises and the school had to relocate. Ma later applied to use the Li Hongzhang Memorial Temple in Shanghai, promising to preserve its inscriptions, statues, and spirit tablets. Relocation was a practical arrangement to keep the school operating, not another founding.

Later statutes continued to broaden the scope of school activities. Hou Jia's analysis of the 1920 Fudan University Statutes lists library collections, public speaking, magazines, music, drama, and English debating. It also notes a dedicated chapter on school self-government: classes and dormitories elected representatives, and student councillors participated in discussions of everyday affairs.

From initial classes in borrowed premises to the organization of classrooms and communal life through statutes, Fudan's development followed two intertwined paths: maintaining material conditions through fundraising, accommodation, and relocation, and experimenting with institutions that cultivated students' capacities for study and shared governance. The public school began in 1905; subsequent revisions under the name of a university belonged to its continued development.

References: [2] [5]