;?35v Ginling Nanking College China For the Furtherance of the cause of Christ in China. For the Advance in education necessary to provide trained leadership. For the Education of Christian women for Christian service. For the Promotion of higher education of women under Christian influence. This NOT what IS— But SHALL BE This booklet is one of a series of seven describing the Women’s Union Christian Colleges in the Orient and published by the Joint Committee on these colleges. The ten cooperating Women’s Boards of For- eign Missions in America provide the main- tenance but are unable to secure land and buildings which rapid growth has made necessary. All are in temporary crowded quarters. The Trustees of the Laura Speiman Rockefeller Memorial Fimd have promised approximately a million dollars toward the three millions required. This conditional pledge must be met before January 1, 1923. If the story of this adventure in Interna- tional Friendship and the appeal for aid seem important to you will you not send your check or pledge to the Assistant Treas- urer of the Joint Committee, Miss Hilda L. Olson, 300 Ford Building, Boston, Mass., or to the Treasurer of your own Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions, designating a special college or building if you desire. Ginling Nanking College China The New Campus JOINT COMMITTEE OF THE WOMEN’S UNION CHRISTIAN COLLEGES IN THE ORIENT 1921 Ginling Roses r A New Era ■©■ Transforming 300 Millions'! \_America as Model ■©■ Christianity as MotiveJ Ginling College The College of ‘'Golden Aspiration” HINA! The very name conjures up willowy women of quaint and ancient dignity in rich silks and gorgeous brocades toying with fragile por- celain and budding chrysanthemums or glimpsed through the bamboo curtains of a dainty palanquin. Is it a cruel awakening to come from the China of your dreams to a China that has a postal system, telegrams and news- papers, presidential elections and department stores, an in- dustrial problem and women’s colleges? China herself is awaking and we have only to keep up with the times. The Christian missionary was the Siegfried who roused Brunnhilda from her sleep on the fire-bound rock. The rec- ord of the women in this work — in building for the girls of China an educational system that now prepares for, that de- mands, a college — is a record of distinction and honor. The mission boards of five denominations — the Baptist, the Disci- ples of Christ, the Methodist Episcopal, the Methodist Epis- copal South, and the Presbyterian, have united in founding and maintaining Ginling College as the keystone of their edu- cational arch from the rich inheritance of a Chinese girl to its development as needed in her larger life in the community in this age of unprecedented progress. When more than three hundred million people are changing from an autocracy to a democracy and are taking as their model the nation whose women are more respected and whose homes are more in- fluential than those of any other country, when China’s wom- 3 Ginling, a Classic Name -Q- Thirteen Denominations' ,A Lingual Confusion -S- Housed in Old Dwelling en in ignorance have so dominated society that the men of the nation which prides itself in its love of learning are over ninety per cent illiterate; what must we not provide for, what may we not expect of these women in intelligence, in purpose, in capacity? Since Christianity is the only motive force suf- ficient to raise and reach standards of democratic citizenship, the need of the women of China is higher education that is Christian. This is offered at Ginling College in Nanking. Ginling College bears the classic name of the city — a name given to it two hundred years before Christ and dating back many cen- turies before it became Nanking, the southern capital. Al- though the court was removed to Peking about 1350 A. D., Nanking has kept her literary and much of her official pres- tige. Thirteen Christian denominations have future leaders in Ginling and twenty-eight high schools have trusted her with their graduates. This is why it is, as those who planned Gin- ling foresaw, an asset to have no preparatory department in the college. If we boast of our students we can do so without boasting of our own work. The schools have given Ginling of their best and the students who have come have been respon- sible for the success so far attained. Each student entering Ginling when it was opened in 1915 found herself one of nine girls from as many different cities. The student body represents almost as many dialects as cities. Any girl entering Ginling has had eight years of Eng- lish. To make herself understood by some of the other girls she may at first have to use English instead of Chinese, but she soon learns Mandarin — the language of Ginling, the lan- guage of Nanking and the official language of China. Almost as confusing to a new student as the language are 4 t Spring at Ginling - 8 - New Learning in 01d~\ Courts ^ Overcrowded Decadent Buildingj the devious ways between dormitory, lecture rooms, labora- tories, library, chapel, and offices, through the high silled doorways and the maze of open courts, covered passages, de- tached rooms and gaUeried suites. A Chinese official’s resi- dence has been transformed for college uses. The past and the present impinge on each other in this rambling, pictur- esque Chinese puzzle of a place. How would you feel at a two hours’ final examination in chemistry in a room with twenty windows, each framed in dragon tracery — a room you en- tered pushing ajar the halves of a round door latticed over pa- per in plum blossom and honeycomb design? By the time the final in chemistry comes it is spring. Off with the fur cloth- ing and boots worn in the class rooms all through the winter, forgotten the ice and snow and the discomfort of having no central heating plant, though all the stairways and corridors are out of doors. Spring in the Ginling garden! How the students and the faculty and all Ginling’s friends delight in it! The Wistaria, and rose-arched paths, the plots of Kil- larneys and other hybrid teas, the willow-bordered pond and the lotus pool, the rare shrubs and hardy flowers, and in the midst of all a pavilion used for outdoor gymnasium and tea house by turns; then in the enclosure over the garden wall a tennis court. As a friend of Ginling wrote after her visit, “That Chinese house will be a most treasured memory for all who have had the privilege of living in it. As the girls go up and down and in and out of those old courts the new learning and the changes of manners, thoughts and ideals which come to all college girls will be tempered by the dignity and the greatness of old China.” And now we want you to know that this property is just rented, that it is over-crowded already, that it is only a make- shift at the best. As Miss Goucher was choosing the lantern Plans for New Buildings -s- Beautiful Setting' Thirty Acres of Land -6- Tree Plantingon Campus^ slides of Ginling to show while in America Dr. Reeves of the biology department said: “When there is thrown on the screen that attractive picture of the chemistry laboratory you might mention the fact that when I need moulds and fungi for work under the microscope I can scrape them in abundance from the flag stones of the chemistry laboratory floor.” Because rust and mildew attack and ravage in these poorly construct- ed buildings we must keep the apparatus, the books and oth- er equipment at the minimum of immediate use. And so you must know of our new property and the plans for our new site. The population of Nanking, over three hun- dred thousand people, are concentrated about South Gate, so the great grey wall of the city, twenty-one miles around, encloses hills and fields and an occasional “deserted village.” On some of these hills in the west of the city, where instead of a compound wall twelve feet high our horizon is the sky line, with the moon at times rising from behind Purple Moun- tain and the Drum Tower silhouetted against the eastern sky, and on the other side the sunset making a golden bar of the Yangtse River — on these hills Ginling owns thirty acres. Now that the several plots in which it was bought are sur- veyed and the sixty odd corners marked, and now that the removal of the more than a thousand tombs, which make land buying in China such a “grave” matter, has been about ac- complished, this is where you may dream your dreams of Gin- ling, and this is where you may make them come true. Just turn to the center of this pamphlet for a bird’s-eye view of the buildings proposed. These buildings represent invest- ments that appeal at the same time to high adventure and business acumen. The Ginling students and faculty have been there before you. Already there are groves of trees started, one grove for 6 GinJing’ s Standards High - 0 - Comparisons' Further Growth Awaits New Dormitories^ each group of faculty and classes, and one tree for each mem- ber of the group, planted with her own hands as we celebrated our first Arbor Day on the Ginling campus in April, 1918. Are you wondering about college standards and the work done by the eager, ambitious young women of Ginling? The entrance requirements are equivalent to those of the best women’s colleges in this country, with Chinese and English substituted for classical and modern languages. The require- ments for a degree constitute a full equivalent for the work done in American colleges, and to students who complete the approved course the regents of the University of the state of New York, through the trustees of the University of Nanking, grant the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The five young wom- en who were graduated in 1919 were Pioneers, for they were the first women in China to receive the B. A. degree for work done in China. With the several colleges in America who are sister colleges to Ginling the equality of standard must make an added tie and be a gratifying commendation of the work done where their interest is so keen. Of the small group that represented the faculty when the college opened in 1915 one was an alumna of Smith College. This early established a bond between the two colleges, which later was strengthened through the adoption by the Smith College Association for Christian Work of Ginling as a “sis- ter college.” Denominational colleges have joined in this movement until a goodly number of older sisters are grouped around this sturdy growing young sister of the Orient. The Land is Ours On this beautiful site of thirty acres the architect has pictured our drear >i dwelling, we are in imperative need of the e : The Buildings Will Be V' it Ginling may some day become. At present housed in an old, unsafe o Df the first of our new dormitory buildings. Ginling’ s Children -S- Teaching in Home, Too Day Schools -6- Social Service Training For the Education of Christian Women for Christian Service Is Ginlin^ a Christian College? That is the question asked. This message from Chinese Students in America expresses the genuine sentiment of the Ginling students. Their religion is practical and applied. “We feel as you do, that the most essential need in China is the education of her women, and also believe that unless the education is solely crystallized on a Christian foundation, it will do more harm to China than good. A personal knowledge of Jesus Christ is the great need of the women of all lands.” — Chinese Wonnen Students in America to Ginling College. The Ginling girls as soon as they had discovered them- selves and each other, instead of “burying their heads among books,” raised them and looked across the road at the chil- dren there. Then going “East, South, West and North,” (as the Chinese say), they invited their little neighbors to Sun- day School. They came, and have come, more and more ever since. Not when it rains — no — they have not enough clothes to risk getting a wetting. But on fair days the little school has varied from 15 to 62 children. On Sunday afternoon, long before two o’clock, the great Chinese hall, which is used as a chapel, is filled with tiny tots. Then if you walk through several courts to the Chinese classics room with its quaint doorway, you will find another group nearly as large, moth- ers listening to the girls’ messages of home keeping and simple Christian truth. Then if we follow the girls into the city we will find them in humble homes teaching Bible classes and in community centers gathering the women and children around them for instruction in subjects relating to home and to social life. 10 r Many Opportunities for Christian Service \_Graduates are Pioneers in Many Walks of Life Another interesting activity is the day school which the students planned, equipped, financed, opened and still teach and manage entirely alone. The pupils are over thirty little girls, eight to fourteen years old, chosen from the neighbor- hood Sunday school. Both of these projects are of far-reach- ing influence in the community and furnish good pedagogic practice and social service training for college girls. The students also assist in Sunday schools in several of the Nanking churches and a group is taking charge of Sunday school work in a government orphanage. The opportunities that are afforded the graduates of Gin- ling College for service are illustrated by the experience of the members of the first class. Every member of the class had at least three positions offered her during the spring of her Senior year. About half had decided to teach and the other half were divided in their plans between evangelistic work and the study of medicine. The enthusiastic beginnings of religious and social work in college give promise of some kind of public service even after marriage. The idea of pioneering has been a powerful one in minds of the first students to graduate at Ginling College, They ex- pressed it in the symbol on their class pin — a crossed axe and chisel. One of these “Pioneers” (1919), after teaching at the Woman’s Higher Normal School of Peking, was made head of the English Department of that great Chinese Gov- ernment school, and called another of the same class to help her. This young woman, in order to accept this position, left the Government Normal College in Nanking, where the pre- vious year she had been teaching boys and had most satisfac- torily fulfilled her responsibility as head of the Woman’s De- partment of the first co-educational experiment in Central China. From one of the latest graduates who is now teaching 11 Biology Miss Butler’s Class t A Dream? No, a True Vision' which You May Help Us Realize^ in an Anglo-Chinese school in Singapore comes the news that she is “the only educated one who is allowed to teach in for- eign schools.” The British Government does not permit others who are educated in China to teach any but Chinese children. Another member of the class of 1920 is the assist- ant principal of the Young Women’s Christian Association Physical Training School in Shanghai. Professor H. H. Wilder of Smith College, sends an essay written by one of the students of Ginling upon a theme given them in the class room, “A dream of the Kingdom of God in China.” In straightforward, simple language, with vision and spiritual insight worthy of a prophet she portrays her dream of the day in China for which God’s church works and waits and prays. In closing she says, “Even though this dream of the Kingdom of God in China seems as if it is our remote, un- attainable aim, the beginning and the approaching of the aim is not far away, but here and now in China.” Professor Wilder adds, “Here the essay ends. I look up from my reading and see the girls of Ginling in silks of every imaginable hue passing and repassing beneath the roses. Oh! it is not a dream, thank God, not all of it. Thousands of young people, thoroughly awake to the situation are ready, not merely to dream but to act, and the oldest empire of the world is awakening from its long sleep, not as a menace, but as the newest and perhaps the greatest auxiliary. ‘The begin- ning and the approaching of the aim is not far away, but here and now in China.’ ” As you read the story of Ginling as it is told here, you will see an opportunity to be among the founders, the builders, of 13 Class of 1921 Further Growth Dependent on Aid~\ Ginling Will Appreciate Your HelpJ a woman’s college for China at the moment when such a col- lege can take a wonderful part not only in the development of the country, but in giving to the Chinese Christian church leaders with vision and practical knowledge that can trans- form the next generation. It is not enough to train men as leaders. As the women, the home will be; as the home, so the nation will be — Christian or non-Christian. Ginling College has made an enviable record during the few years of its history. Further growth is impossible in its present rented quarters. Both the development of the college and the health of the faculty and students make the speedy transfer of the college to its new site one of importance and urgency. The alumnae have organized for a campaign to secure funds for the erection of one of the dormitories. Be- lievers in international good-will and world fellowship, up- lifters of earth’s womanhood, lovers of the Church of Christ — all are given an opportunity to contribute to the great goal by having a share in the new pioneer adventure of actually creating a whole college campus for eight hundred thousand dollars. The land has been purchased. The students are waiting. Shall we not house them? 15 FLess than $800,000 Needed to Provide~\ L^5 Buildings and Equ ip me nt^ Building Program First Group Dormitories (4) for students $136,000 Recitation Building 48,000 Science Building 50,000 Social and Athletic Building 50,000 Faculty Residence 35,000 Equipment 50,000 Furnishings 15,000 Contingent Fund 50,000 $434,000 Second Group Chapel $ 34,000 Library 37,000 Dormitories (4) for 200 students 136,000 Faculty Residence 35,000 Equipment 50,000 Furnishings 15,000 Contingent Fund 50,000 $357,000 TOTAL $791,000 16 [ Responsible Supporters are with You' Able Leaders Directing the Work Co-operating Boards Woman’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society Christian Woman’s Board of Missions Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, t Methodist Episcopal Church Board of Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church, South Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Association for Christian Work, Smith College Ginling College Committee . Chairman Robert E. Speer, 156 Fifth Ave., New York T reasurer Russell Carter, 156 Fifth Ave., New York Secretary Miss Elizabeth R. Bender, 150 Fifth Ave., New York Chairman Candidates Committee Miss Margaret E. Hodge, 156 Fifth Ave., New York Frank Mason North Mrs. Henry W. Peabody Mrs. Anna R. Atwater Miss Mabel K. Howell t Professor Irving F. Wood, Advisory Member President of the College Mrs. Lawrence Thurston, Nanking, China Looking Through One of the Many Moon Gates at Ginling