Self-Strengthening Movement
The School of Combined Learning, or the Tongwen Guan () was a government school for teaching Western languages (and later scientific subjects), founded at Beijing, China in 1862 during the late-Qing dynasty, right after the conclusion of the Second Opium War, as part of the Self-Strengthening Movement. Its establishment was intimately linked to the establishment of the Zongli Yamen, the Qing office of foreign affairs. The establishment signifies the Qing Empire, after years of reluctance, at last tried to learn about the West of their own accord.