Sheng Xuanhuai
In 1889, Ferguson used the living room of his house in Nanjing for classes; these grew into Huiwen Shuyuan, which in turn evolved into the University of Nanking. In 1897 he was offered a position by Sheng Xuanhuai, a pioneering industrialist and well-connected entrepreneur whom he had met by chance a few years earlier when they were both on a Yangtze river boat. Sheng was impressed by Ferguson's learned Chinese and courtly manner and invited him to found a second western-style school, the Nanyang Public School, Shanghai, a predecessor of the Jiaotong (Transportation) University, which later split into three independent institutions: National Chiao Tung University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Xi'an Jiaotong University. In 1897, to facilitate faculty and students getting to and from the school, he built a road in the Shanghai French Concession with his own salary, which was later named Route Ferguson (now Wukang Road).