Written by Weijiang Zhang

Presented in this section is brief information about John Leighton Stuart and William Bacon Pettus, their relationship, and the valuable archives uncovered in Claremont through the Pettus Archival Project.  

John Leighton Stuart 

John Leighton Stuart (1876-1962) was a significant figure in Sino-American historical relations, especially relative to China’s higher education as well as in the last few years before the Chinese communists took over China in 1949.  Nowadays, Stuart is mainly remembered by the American polity as the one who lost China to the communists, and by the Chinese as the one who was satirized by Mao Zedong’s three critical essays.  Unfortunately Stuart’s enormous contribution to Chinese higher education as an “educational missionary” and as President of Yenching University has been largely ignored or forgotten by both China and the United States. 

Throughout his forty some years of educational work in China, Stuart made enormous contributions to Chinese higher education development, especially to Yenching University, currently the campus of Beijing University.  Born in China and then educated in the United States, Stuart returned to China as a missionary educator, assuming a teaching position at the University of Nanking, now the campus of Nanjing University.  His early years of work at this Christian institution prepared him as an excellent college educator and an administrator.  And because of his successful educational and administrative work, he was selected as the first president of Yenching University (formerly called the University of Peking) in 1919.  The then newly-formed institution was the result of combining several institutions in northern China including Hui Wen University, the North China Union College, and later the North China Union Women’s College.  With the university’s great fundraiser, Henry Luce, as his vice president, President Stuart developed this small missionary institution into a leading university in China.  But his last years as the United States’ Ambassador to China since 1946 largely damaged his reputation, and his successful career as an educational leader has been lost and forgotten in history.  In addition, on both sides of the Pacific, he became the scapegoat of American politics for losing China to Communism and of Chinese politics for the imprint of American aggression and foreign policy.  

William Bacon Pettus 

William Bacon Pettus (1880-1959) was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama.  After he graduated from Columbia University (Missouri) in 1905, he married Sarah DeForest.  In the following year, they sailed for China against strong opposition from his family. Landing in Shanghai in 1906, Pettus and his wife worked at Shanghai’s YMCA Headquarters and began their diligent study of Chinese language and culture.  In 1908, Pettus enrolled in the Master’s program studying Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Nanking.  After receiving his Master’s degree in 1910, he resumed his work in Shanghai and began to show interest in Chinese instruction to Westerners in China.  He attended language instruction seminars and conferences in Europe and learned the Direct Method of teaching.  Because of his solid foundation in Chinese language, literature, and culture as well as his enthusiasm for Chinese instruction, the Foreign Mission Boards in Peking appointed him as the president of the College of Chinese Studies (formerly called the North China Union Language School) in 1916.  In the same year, Pettus moved to Peking with his family and began his lifelong pursuit of an educational leadership career.  Through his vision and persistent hard work, Pettus developed and expanded the small language college into a world center of Chinese studies for foreign nationalities in China.  But the Japanese invasion and subsequently the Pearl Harbor Incident halted the college’s operation.  The college did not reopen for instruction until 1945, and then operated under the shadow of Chinese civil war.  The college eventually terminated its program when Chinese communists declared the new China in 1949.  Thus the successful story of the college and Pettus’ enormous contribution to educating foreigners in Chinese language and civilization was lost and buried in history until the Pettus Archival Project began to uncover the archives in the Honnold Library of The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California. 

Their Relationship 

Both J. L. Stuart and W. B. Pettus were significant educational leaders in China.  Yenching University was an American institution which aimed at educating Chinese in modern western education. The College of Chinese Studies was an American institution which  aimed at educating Westerners in Chinese language and civilization.  Both Stuart and Pettus had been actively involved in each other’s institutions.  Yenching University had produced some of the most outstanding diplomats, scholars, journalists, and professors.  Similarly, the College of Chinese Studies had produced some of the most prominent sinologists, diplomats, military generals, and Chinese experts apart from its training thousands of Americans and other Westerners in Chinese language and culture.  Their graduates had worked in prestigious universities, diplomacy, businesses, military, and cultural organizations, and museums.  The collaboration of the two institutions was so close at one time that the College of Chinese Studies was renamed: The Yenching School of Chinese Studies.   Apart from their professional relationship, they had been childhood friends in Mobile, Alabama, and had over the years become the distinguished foreign educators in Peking in their respective ways.  During their lifetime, they had established an everlasting friendship and professional relationship as a result of their Chinese experience and their enormous interest in and appreciation of China. 

Stuart and Pettus Collection 

The J. L. Stuart and W. B. Pettus archival collection includes over one hundred and fifty pieces of correspondence between the two as well as much related correspondence, covering the years from 1920s to 1950s.  A large component of the collection is during the time Stuart was U.S. Ambassador (1946-1949) to China.  This collection of documents in the archives of The Claremont Colleges provides a valuable source of information on Sino-American historical relations during those complicated years of entanglement, and has opened up a fascinating area of study on John Leighton Stuart through William Bacon Pettus and his institution.  

Sample Quotations from the Archival Documents 

“Leighton Stuart came to our college on Friday and gave a fine talk on Anglo-American cooperation in China, dealing with the continued Japanese aggression, which is almost certain to go much further, and may take in Peking, and even Shanghai and Nanking unless it is checked by forces other than China, which cannot put up an effective resistance to the Japanese military party. Tuesday, I go out to Yenching for lunch with Stuart and a committee of his faculty to aid them in planning and starting a program for teaching the younger Americans on the faculty the Chinese language.” (Pettus to CCCF Trustees, 1935) 

“I have just received the report from Father Goertz and am enclosing a copy herewith. My impression from my last visit a few weeks ago, as well as from this report, would indicate that the work is progressing as well as we would have hoped for. He apparently is taking good care of the funds and avoiding any waste.” (Stuart to Pettus, 1940) 

“Your name is frequently on the radio and in the papers connected with the news from China. There was much interest everywhere over the reported American airmen held by the tribemen in West China; no one is surprised at the difficulty in locating them…     I’d be glad for news about how you and Philip are faring during these strenuous, difficult days. Please give him my cordial greetings.” (Pettus to Stuart, 1946) 

“I should like to have a good talk with you about development in China, but it is quite difficult to attempt anything in a letter without saying too much or too little. However, things are moving and on the whole I believe in the right direction, though without the speed that we would like to see? Trends outside of China will have, as you can well imagine, an important influence.” (Stuart to Pettus, 1947) 

“You will be interested to know that Philip Fugh’s daughter, Aline, is sailing from Shanghai on June 15 by the SS. General Meigs, due in SF about the end of the month. As she is travelling alone and is rather timid about new experiences on arrival, it would be very nice for her if you could have someone meet her and assist her in travel arrangement….  It is quite possible that a recent Yenching graduate, who has just married Gen. Tsai Wen-chih, the Generalissimo’s Military Aide, will be traveling with Aline.” (Stuart to Pettus, 1947) 

“I am taking an early opportunity to thank you again for all that you did for Philip and myself during our stopover in the Bay region. It was good to have conversations with you after the man and varied associations of the past and to realize that the sentiments on both sides are unchanged by time of distance.” (Stuart to Pettus, 1949) 

“Yesterday afternoon Sarah and I went up and had an hour on the lawn with Admiral and Mrs. Nimitz. The Admiral is doing much speaking for the United States….  I have been glad to learn from time to time from Philip that you are succeeding in recovering some of your mobility.” (Stuart to Pettus, 1950)

“I was much pleased to receive from Random House a note saying you had sent me an advance copy of “Fifty Years in China”. I have since received and read the book with intense interest and am grateful for it. I am much impressed with the wonderful job you have done in making clear the complex problems….  I remember seeing a messenger from the State Department hand you a package containing two copies of that terrible White Paper. After I had read this book, I talked with you and others who had served as ambassadors and been much related to China and all expressed disapproval of the book [the White Paper].” (Pettus to Stuart, 1954)

References:

1. California College in China Foundation Archives, Libraries at The Claremont Colleges, Claremont, California
2. Edwards, D. W. (1959). Yenching University, United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia.
3. John Leighton Stuart and William B. Pettus Correspondence, Harper Hall 205, School of Educational Studies, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California
4. Shaw, Yuming. (1992). An American Missionary in China: John L. Stuart and Chinese-American Relations, Council on East Asian Studies at Harvard University.
5. Stuart, J. L. (1954). Fifty Years in China: The Memoirs of John Leighton Stuart. New York: Random House.
6. Stuart, J. L. (1981). Edited by Rea, J. C. B. K. W. The Forgotten Ambassador: The Reports of John Leighton Stuart, 1946-1949. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Zhang, Weijiang. (2004) Institutional Development and Legacy (Doctoral Dissertation), Claremont Graduate University, Honnold Library, Claremont, California

©2005 Pettus Archival Project, SES, CGU. All Rights Reserved