John Leighton Stuart

John Leighton Stuart (Chinese: "Sītú Léidēng" 司徒雷登; born June 24, 1876; died in 1962) was the first President of Yenching University and later United States ambassador to China; he was the last person to hold that position before the transfer of the embassy to Taipei.

Early life

Born in Hangzhou of missionary parents from the United States, he was an American by nationality; however, he considered himself a Chinese more than an American. Leighton could speak a native tongue of the Hangzhou dialect. At age eleven, he went to the U.S. state of Virginia, where his awkwardness in speaking English made him teased by his classmates. He attended Hampden-Sydney College and later Union Theological Seminary, where he aspired to be a missionary.

Missionary and academic

In 1904, after his marriage, he came back to China with his wife and became a second generation missionary in China from the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

In 1908 he became a Greek language lecturer in Nanking Theological Seminary in Nanking.

In January 1919, he was appointed president of Yenching University. He quickly made the university among the top universities in China. By 1930s, it was the top Christian university in China. He cared much about students and teachers and their interactions. He encouraged to concern more about China and the world. He even led a protest with his students against the Japanese invasion in Manchuria.

Legacy

A footnote to Mao Zedong's article "Farewell, Leighton Stuart!" (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press 1969; vol. IV, p. 439) has the following biography of Leighton Stuart:

John Leighton Stuart, who was born in China in 1876, was always a loyal of U.S. cultural aggression in China. He started missionary work in China in 1905 and in 1909 president of Yenching University, which was established by the United States in Peking (Beijing). On July 11 1946, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to China. He actively supported the Kuomintang reactionaries in prosecuting the civil war and carried out various political Intrigues against the Chinese people. On August 2 1949, because all the efforts of U.S. imperialism to obstruct the victory of the Chinese people's revolution had completely failed, Leighton Stuart had to leave China quietly.

References

*Yu-ming Shaw, An American Missionary in China: John Leighton Stuart and Chinese-American Relations (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies Harvard University: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1992).
*Philip West, Yenching University and Sino-Western Relations, 1916-1952 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).
*John Leighton Stuart: The Forgotten Ambassador, The Reports of John Leighton Stuart, 1946-1949 (Westview Press 1981), ISBN 0-86531-157-9.
*John Leighton Stuart: Fifty years in China, The memoirs of John Leighton Stuart, missionary and ambassador.
*John Leighton Stuart: Greek-Chinese-English dictionary of the New Testament (Presbyterian Mission Press 1918).
*Mao Tse-tung: Farewell, Leighton Stuart! In: Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press 1969; vol. IV, p. 433-440.

External links

*Mao Zedong: [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_67.htm Farewell, Leighton Stuart!]