Because the location of the university was originally the "Tsinghua Garden", a royal garden in the Qing Dynasty. So the name of the garden was chosen as the name of the university.
The name "Tsinghua Garden" was given by Emperor Xianfeng of the Qing Dynasty. The original site of Qinghua Garden was part of the Xichun Garden built during the Kangxi period. During the Daoguang period, the original Xichun Garden was divided into east and west parts. The garden in the west was named "Yingchun Garden", and the garden in the east was still named "Xichun Garden". After Emperor Xianfeng ascended the throne, he changed the name of Xichun Garden in the east to Huayuan.
The plaque behind the Gongzi Hall of Tsinghua Garden now reads the four characters "Shui Mu Tsing Hua", with a couplet on both sides: The mountain light outside the threshold is extraordinary through the thousands of changes in spring, summer, autumn and winter; the clouds and shadows in the window are either east or west. Going back and forth from north to south is a fairyland. This four-digit dictionary of "water, wood, and Qinghua" comes from the poem "You Xichi" written by Shuyuan of the Jin Dynasty: Jing Zang's songbird collection, water, wood and Qinghua. "Zhan" means clarification. Therefore, there is a pool behind the hall, so the poem above was used to inscribe the plaque as "Shui Mu Qing Hua".
In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion in China led to the armed intervention of the Eight-Power Allied Forces. On the morning of September 7, 1901, Yi Kuangli and Li Hongzhang, plenipotentiary representatives of the Qing court, and representatives of 11 countries signed the final agreement and signed the "Xinchou Treaty" that plunged the Chinese nation into misery.
Article 6 of the Xinchou Treaty stipulated that the Qing government should compensate eight countries including Russia, Germany, France, Britain, the United States, Japan, Italy, and Austria, as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Norway. The total principal and interest of the country's military expenditures, loss expenses and other amounts were 982,238,150 taels of silver. From 1902 to 1940, it was to be paid off in 39 years, with the customs, customs and salt administration proceeds as collateral, and in accordance with the methods listed in the treaty and The exchange rate, equivalent to the payment in the currencies of various countries, is the "Boxer Indemnity". Among them, Russia spent the most to send troops to Manchuria, so it received the largest amount of more than 130.37 million taels. China's population at that time was about 45,000 people, and each Chinese was allocated about one tael of silver in the Boxer Indemnity. The Gengzi compensation exceeded the sum of all previous compensations. At this point, China's finance and economy were completely bankrupt. In modern times, China paid more than 1.6 billion taels of silver as war "reparations" to the general governments of imperialist countries. Of all the countries that launched a war of aggression against China, Japan plundered the most property from China.
The "Xin Chou Treaty" signed in 1901 stipulated that the Qing government should pay 450 million taels of silver to the eight Western countries as compensation, of which the United States should receive more than 32 million taels, equivalent to US$2,400. More than 10,000 yuan.
On March 6, 1906, American missionary Ming Enpu suggested to President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House that the Qing government’s “Boxer Indemnity” be used to establish schools in China and fund Chinese students to study in the United States. . Driven by Ming Enpu and others, President Roosevelt proposed to Congress a proposal to sponsor education in China, which was passed by Congress on May 25, 1908.
In 1908, the United States officially announced that it would return half of the "Gengzi Indemnity", totaling more than 11.6 million U.S. dollars, to China to support students studying in the United States. In order to carry out the work of sending students to study in the United States, the Qing government opened Tsinghua Preparatory School for Studying in the United States in Beijing in 1911, which was renamed "Tsinghua University" in 1924.
In 1924, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution to use the rest of the Boxer Indemnity for China to establish the "China Culture and Education Promotion Foundation" (or "China Foundation"), with an amount of US$12.545 million. , the Beiyang government appointed a trustee board composed of 10 Chinese and 5 Americans. A considerable part of the amount is provided to Tsinghua University in the form of scholarships. Due to such a special funding source and operating model, Tsinghua has had its own special advantages and school-running conditions in many aspects since its establishment, and it is therefore different from other universities in China. Such an environment also objectively laid a certain material foundation for Mei Yiqi's management of the school and provided the necessary conditions for running a school. Foreign historians commented: "One of the secrets of Tsinghua's success is that when other institutions turn to the unstable charity of the warlord regime, Tsinghua's annual budget is guaranteed." ⑷ Although this view implicitly exaggerates the United States The meaning of the role played, but it is basically fair.
Among the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, nearly one-third are "Tsinghua people." In 1949, Mr. Mei Yiqi, an outstanding educator who was in charge of the "Tsinghua Foundation", came to Taiwan and used the funds to found Tsinghua University in Hsinchu.
Because Tsinghua has relatively abundant funding sources, it also has considerable autonomy in running schools. These conditions naturally have some impact on school governance and promote Tsinghua’s improvement in the school’s management system and operating mechanism. Gradually, a set of independent things with Tsinghua's own characteristics came into being, and some special systems and styles emerged. Even the subsequent gradual formation of Tsinghua's school spirit and academic style are inextricably linked to this. An example that clearly reflects this characteristic is the several large-scale school trends that occurred at Tsinghua University in the 1920s and early 1930s. Among them, the president of Tsinghua University has changed many times, with as many as more than a dozen terms. There has even been an embarrassing situation where Tsinghua University has been without a president for several years and has been maintained by the school council.
The word "worker" generally refers to working slowly or passively. In fact, when people originally said "moyang workers", they did not include this meaning. It is originally a process in construction projects. It turns out that in our country's old-style house construction, those who are sophisticated require "grinding the bricks to match the seams." Grinding is to polish the surface of the brick wall to make it flat, smooth and beautiful. From 1917 to 1921, the United States used the Boxer Indemnity money from the Qing government to build Union Hospital and Union Medical College in Beijing. Its construction quality requirements are very high, and its appearance adopts the traditional Chinese "grinding bricks and seams".
That is, grinding technology. Since this project was funded, designed, and supervised by foreigners, the Chinese called it "foreign workers." The 14th main building of Union Hospital is also a high-rise building, and the "grinding" work is voluminous and slow. At that time, many workers participating in the construction project renamed this process "moyang work", and over time it evolved into the meaning it has today.
The United States’ well-intentioned education program has achieved remarkable results. The Chinese students who passed the Gengzi Indemnity Examination (Hu Shi was among the second batch) and studied in the United States became the brightest stars in Chinese academic circles in the following decades, and their words and deeds deeply influenced those who came after them.
By the 1930s, the United States had surpassed Japan and became the country with the largest number of Chinese students studying abroad. At the same time, Americans established 12 missionary universities in China, including the famous Yenching University. Union Hospital emerged as a mission hospital, and the Rockefeller Foundation funded rural surveys and archaeological activities by Chinese scholars.
The United States used a small part of the "Gengzi Indemnity" from the decadent Qing Dynasty to build Union Hospital to show its "mercy and favor" to the Chinese. The original site of Union Hospital was originally a residence of a relative of the emperor during the Jiajing and Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty, and later became a palace of the Qing Dynasty.
Unexpectedly, when the American colonists used advanced construction equipment to break ground, they unexpectedly discovered a large amount of gold and silver treasures several meters underground. The value of these gold and silver treasures is enough to cover several "Concords". Americans have made another windfall! However, since the real estate rights have been transferred to the Americans, the officials of old China can only beat their chests and watch a large amount of gold and silver flowing out! Later, when the U.S. government was financially strapped due to the war, it transferred the hospital to the American oil tycoon, the Rockfield Oil Consortium. Since then, "Xiehe" has become a veritable foreign private hospital.
In early 1926, the British Parliament passed a bill to refund China's Boxer Indemnity (the refund would be used for educational projects such as sending overseas students to the UK), and that is why Scosell was sent to China to formulate the bill. Terms of use. At that time, Hu Shi was the Chinese adviser to the "Sino-British Boxer Indemnity Advisory Committee." After the success of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, the Soviet Russian government announced that it would give up all the privileges of imperial Russia in China, including returning the unpaid portion of the Boxer Indemnity. The Russians' privileges in China will also be abolished, and there is only one exchange condition for all this: the Beiyang government recognizes the new Soviet power.
In May 1924, the two countries signed the "China-Russia Agreement", which stipulated the purpose of refunds. In addition to repaying various debts of the Chinese government that had used Russian funds as collateral, the remainder would be used for China's education. China and the Soviet Union Send personnel to form a fund committee (Russian Boxer Indemnity Return Committee) to handle the matter.
The total balance of French Geng repayments is more than 391,580 francs, which is equivalent to more than 75,550 U.S. dollars. The total amount of this balance shall be from December 1, 1924 to 1947 according to the agreement. It continues to make advances year by year to the Sino-French Industrial Bank as a guarantee for the bank's issuance of five cents US dollars. The Sino-French Industrial Bank used this US dollar claim for four expenses: 1. Exchange back the unprofitable bonds held by Far East creditors; 2. Handle Sino-French education and charity; 3. Pay the unpaid share capital balance to the Chinese government on behalf of the Chinese government; 4. Repay the loan owed by the Chinese government to Sino-French Industrial Bank.
In early 1920, Li Shizeng, Cai Yuanpei and Wu Jingheng used the Boxer indemnity to establish the Sino-French University in Beijing. Mr. Cai Yuanpei serves as the chairman and Cai Yuanpei serves as the principal. In the winter of the same year, Cai Yuanpei and his husband went to France again, and cooperated with Herriot, the mayor of Lyon, France, and Lepine, dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Lyon, to establish the Association of Sino-French Universities in Lyon and decided to establish a Sino-French University in Lyon. .
Finally, under the leadership of the United States, various countries have returned reparations to China for education and cultural exchanges, but Japan has not returned a cent.