Written by John Regan

Weijiang Zhang's comprehensive study of the educational, diplomatic, personal, family, and social life of William B. Pettus, the remarkable story and tragedy of his family, and his considerable achievements provides multiple perspectives of examining Sino-American educational and cultural relations in the first half of the Twentieth Century.  The followings are extracts from Zhang's study about the real estate and photos and maps which we discovered from the archives in Claremont.  There are the College compound in the center of Beijing, the Elizabeth Fisher land, a summer house in Western Hills outside Beijing, and a beach summer compound in Bei Dai He.  Several of the researchers have searched around the green spaces of the Western Hills, and to date, have not found some remnants of the property.

Following quotes are from Weijiang Zhang’s study:

"Circa 1924, the $350,000 (valued in gold) funds enabled the College to purchase five acres of land and to build 15 modern buildings with modern facilities in central Beijing. The College compound was one of the few modern Western buildings standing in the center of dotted Chinese traditional bungalow houses. One student wrote in his memoir that the College "sat arrogantly" (Fairbank, Chinabound: A Fifty-Year Memoir, 1982, p.38) among the Chinese houses, exemplifying itself as a unique, modern, comfortable place for foreigners in Beijing. P.38

Apart from building the new compound, the College purchased two pieces of property at summer resorts: one at the beach town of Bei Dai He and the other at a mountain resort in Western Hills respectively.  Prior to the building of the summer compound at the beach, many of the students went to the area for summer study by renting farmers' houses.  This became more and more unsatisfactory both for the students and the teachers. The compound consisted of 25 rooms, enough for half a dozen teachers and 30 students. P.39

The other outpost in the cool mountain resort in Western Hills had two cottages in order to escape the hot summers of Beijing. Of this, The Mandarin wrote: "A desirable site in the Western Hills for retreats, weekend conferences, and vacations is available and can be purchased and equipped for $15,000.  The site contains several acres of ground with two houses and quite a number of fruit trees upon it." P.39

The main structures in the College compound are still standing amid the enormous growth of central Beijing today, waiting for its unknown future fate in current booming economy. The photos (which exist in the archives) of the College taken more than half a century ago still reverberate the images, sounds, smells, familiarities, and atmosphere of this "old school" in central Beijing when I made site visits on the remaining College grounds.  Sights and scenes of the remaining College match with the descriptions of the College in the yellow pages and reflected in the "old photos" in the archives of the library of the Claremont Colleges.  It would not be difficult that a simple association of thoughts and imagination could allow one to almost "see" Pettus sitting in his office on the second floor of the Main Building, students mimicking the Chinese teachers' Beijing dialect, students' activities on the volleyball courts, and the grand receptions and dinners held on the roof patio of the Main Building where American ministers, business people, diplomats, visitors from the United States, and significant scholars sipped tea and enjoyed friendly talks-a perfect scene of international comity in the center of Beijing. P.38

Now the College grounds is the administration office of retired cadres from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry's staff residential place, with a number of high-rise apartment buildings built on the spaces that used to be the tennis courts, volleyball courts, and Elizabeth Fisher's land. (Adjacent to the College itself, the land was purchased in 1936 with the donation of trustee Elizabeth Fisher) P.126

With regard to Shapiro's inquiry about the sale of the property, Fenn had clearly stated that the Council was in no way interested in selling the property (Fenn letter to Shapiro, February 25, 1950). P.129

The College compound had been leased to the Chinese new government from the time when the Ministry of Culture moved in. Three agreements were discovered in the archives both in Philadelphia, Connecticut, and Claremont.  But no other agreements were identified after 1953. P.130

Later Minutes of the Council found in Philadelphia, state that the Communists "had confiscated our property" in Beijing.  But after careful examination of the archives in Philadelphia and Claremont, I have not found any recorded legal documentation as to how the property was confiscated and when exactly that happened. P.134

A (Retired Director of Construction Division, Ministry of Culture, China) was very excited to talk about the College compound and exclaimed that the College grounds were the "only high-class place" with the tallest buildings on the eastern part of Beijing in the early 1950s when the rest of the eastern part of the city was dotted with Chinese bungalows.  In the compound, he said, there were beautiful gardens, flowers, lawns, tennis courts, and volley-ball courts.  High-ranking officials from the new government often came to the College, he reported, to play tennis and hold parties.  This man's remark is confirmed by Fenn's letter to the Council in 1947.  Of this, Fenn wrote, "The great flat roof of the recitation hall has always been a convenient perch for a panoramic view of Peiping [Beijing]." P.135

"Institutional Development and Legacy, An Early Model of Effective Cross-Cultural Postsecondary Education: A Case Study of the College of Chinese Studies in Beijing and the California College in China Foundation in California." Weijiang Zhang’s doctorate dissertation

In the late 1990s, on a very hot day, Zhang and I finally found the site of the College of Chinese Studies in Beijing.  First, we had tried to enter it from the north main gate, but the metal gate was closed.  We walked around the extensive property and back to the street again.  Then we found a little lane and followed to its end.  There through a gate with a guard room, we entered the college grounds.  We should have been stopped, but curiosity prevailed.  In a narrow path, we met an elderly man.  Who was this person, we wondered at the time?  It turned out that he was a retired member from the Ministry of Education. Thus opened a lengthy conversation with this man, who told us that right after 1949, a westerner came and said that he had lived on the grounds for many years.  This westerner turned out to John Pettus, older son of William B. Pettus.  I recall that Mr. Shapiro had once told me that he had given the property to the Ministry of Culture by "playing favorites."  Shapiro lived in one of the big faculty houses on the grounds.  He was living there because he was escaping death arrest from the Nationalist Government because he was pro-Mao’s revolution.  He stayed at the property for a few years before the Ministry of Culture formally moved in.  

On that first day of discovery of the college grounds where Pearl Buck had given those early versions of her Nobel Prize speech, where Hu Shih had come for meetings, where General Stilwell and top political and academic leaders had met and walked, there was a sense of walking where history had been made.  On that day, we had only begun to come to know dramatic details and to sense the almost magic as we walked up the steps of the Main Building where the president's office had been.  At that time, we had only read, perhaps, a third of the materials that we are going to.  We went along visualizations and comparing photos in the archives with what currently stands there.  On the third floor, there was door leading to the huge patio on the roof.  There we imagined what it would be like when there were no tall buildings around the grounds and where we could see afar.  Down in the auditorium of the Main Building, we could see rows of tables at which retired members were playing Chinese games.  They didn't seem to notice us or have any likelihood of sharing our deep recall and impressions of long gone and forgotten persons of an era when ancient China finally broke with a past and began the modern era. 

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