caption predecessor successor death_date imagesize birth_date order term_start image article_title term_end name occupation
zhang in official robes - lin shaonian march 30 , 1907 200px 1847 minister of post 1906 zhan baixi.jpg zhang baixi
 1907 zhan baixi politician
zhang baixi

zhang baixi -lrb- ; courtesy yěqiū -lrb- 埜秋 -rrb- ; posthumous name : wéndá -lrb- 文達 -rrb- -rrb- -lrb- 1847 -- march 30 , 1907 -rrb- was a chinese government official during the late qing dynasty who is known for initializing the education reform .
he was considered to be the `` father of university '' in china .
both the peking university and the beijing normal university respect him as a founder and president .
zhang baixi was born in changsha county of hunan province .
in 1874 , he earned a jinshi degree and was elevated to the hanlin academy .
as high administrator for many years , zhang baixi advocated profound political , economical and educational reforms .
although he was a member of the reform group led by kang youwei in the hundred days reform of 1898 , his role was small enough that his career continued to develop after the reformers were suppressed .
after the boxer rebellion , partly because there were few surviving officials of ability and experience , he became a close advisor to the empress dowager .
zhang proposed to reopen the imperial capital university -lrb- 京師大學堂 , former peking university -rrb- founded in 1898 .
he had several motivations .
one was national pride , to show the world that china could have a world-class university even after the boxer debacle .
a second was to keep higher education under the control of the central government , not local or provincial governments or private universities .
he succeeded in getting government funding for an expanded and more impressive campus in the heart of the capital and for a well-supported faculty .
among his priorities for the university was a bureau to translate japanese books and a compilation bureau which would publish text books of modern knowledge .
according to one later official , zhang 's contribution to the development of peking university was second only to that of cai yuanpei .
in 1902 , zhang drafted the `` authorized school regulation '' -lrb- 欽定學堂章程 , alternatively called renyin educational system -lrb- 壬寅學制 -rrb- -rrb- , `` renyin '' being the year 1902 , which was puit into effect by qing government .
in 1904 , zhang participated establishment of the `` presented school regulation '' -lrb- 奏定學堂章程 , or called `` guimao educational system '' -lrb- 癸卯學制 -rrb- -rrb- , `` guimao '' being the year 1904 , which was the first modern chinese educational system .
zhang died in beijing in 1907 .
