Here's an early history of the COURTYARD OF THE HAPPY WAY that later became the “Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center.”

This  fascinating exerpt comes from “The First in China College,” an article by Moses Chu, recently printed in Chinese in eBaoMonthly.com an internet magazine. Mr. Chu has translated the article into English and has given me permission me to reproduce this account.

Mary T. Previte

The first college in China was established in Tengchow, Shantung, in 1876, not far from Chefoo (now called Yantai). Built on the ruins of the “Temple of the Goddess of Mercy,” it was founded by Calvin Mateer, D.D., an American Presbyterian missionary from Pennsylvania. But the name, Tengchow College of Liberal Arts was not formally adopted until 1882. Mateer’s aim was to create a college with the best teachers of the highest academic and moral standards and to train pastors to spread Christianity in China.

He believed that since social superstitions had held China back from keeping up with the developing world, this situation could be improved only by spreading Christianity. He insisted that English should not be taught to Chinese unless it was absolutely necessary, because the graduates should teach and serve the common people in China. So Mateer insisted that students study from Chinese, not English, textbooks. He himself wrote many of his college textbooks in Chinese, many of them books on science.

Usually he was stern and serious in manner, a splendid image in those days for a school principal. Students nicknamed him “Di Lao Hu,” roughly translated “Di, the Tiger.” He forbade the use of tobacco and alcohol either inside or outside the campus. During Dr. Mateer’s tenure at Tengchow College, 79 students graduated.

Henry Winters Luce, a Presbyterian missionary, was also a teacher at the college. (Luce was the father of Henry R. Luce, who later founded and became Managing Director of the America’s Time, Life, and Fortune publishing empire.)  When an already-existing  school at Weihsien was burned during the Boxer Rebelion of 1900, Henry Winters Luce raised money to rebuild it as a university.

In 1901, Watson M. Hayes, D.D., Calvin Mateer’s successor, left Tengchow College to establish a provincial college in Tsinan (now called Jinan, the provincial capital) and also established the first daily newspaper in Shandong province. The college was moved to Weihsien in 1904. Weihsien was halfway by rail between Tsingtao (Qingdao) and Tsinan. Simultaneously, the Tengchow College merged with a college founded by British Baptists in Tsingchow (now called Yidu).

The new school at Weihsien became a university with colleges of the arts, medicine, and theology with 120 students. Due to primitive transportation using only mules, it took more than a year for the laboratory and workshops to be set up on the new college campus. Living on the campus during his retirement, Calvin Mateer erected a windmill near his workshop, a landmark visible for a few miles southeast of the city of Weihsien. He continued to write, translate, publish, preach, and travel. The campus was named “Le-Dao-Yuan” or “The Courtyard of the Happy Way.”

In 1917, the college moved from Weihsien to Tsinan and merged with medical colleges from Hankow, Naning, Peking, Mukden and became known as Cheeloo University with additional support from over ten foreign missionary groups. Today, the Cheeloo University site is  used by Shandong University.

During World War II (1941-1945) after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Japanese turned the old Le-Dao-Yuan campus into an internment camp called the “Weihsien Civilian Assembly Center.” About 1,500 nationals of all Allied countries from north China were imprisoned there until they were liberated by a team of American rescuers, August 17, 1945.

Among the prisoners interned at Weihsien were Watson M. Hayes, his wife and son. Hayes was a successor to Calvin Mateer and a founder and principal of the North China Theological Seminary established in Tenghsien.  For many reasons, he refused to be repatriated under the 1943 prisoner exchange arranged by the International Red Cross. Watson Hayes, 86, died in 1944 just one year before the camp was liberated.

(Moses Chu, a scholar, businessman, and prolific writer, grew up in Chefoo, China. His father was a student of Dr. Calvin Mateer. Mr Chu now lives in Tempe, Arizona.)