John Leighton Stuart - Early life, Missionary and academic, Legacy

Protestant missionary and educator, born in Hangchow, China. The son of Presbyterian missionaries, he graduated from Hampden-Sydney College, was ordained a Presbyterian minister, and returned to China in 1904. He was a professor at Nanking Theological Seminary (1908–19) and in the latter year he became first president of Yenching University in Peking. Named US ambassador to China (1946), he returned to the USA (1949) after the consolidation of Communist power. His memoir, Fifty Years in China, appeared in 1954.

John Leighton Stuart (Chinese: Sītú Léidēng 司徒雷登; died in 1962) was the first President of Yenching University and later United States ambassador to China;

Early life

Born in Hangzhou of missionary parents from the United States, he was a Westerner and an American by nationality;

Missionary and academic

In 1904, after his marriage, he came back to China with his wife and became a second generation missionary in China from the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

In January 1919, he was appointed president of Yenching University. He quickly made the university among the top universities in China. By 1930s, it was the top Christian university in China.

Legacy

A footnote to Mao Zedong's article Farewell, Leighton Stuart! (Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press 1969; 439) has the following biography of Leighton Stuart:

John Leighton Stuart, who was born in China in 1876, was always a loyal agent of U.S. cultural aggression in China. He started missionary work in China in 1905 and in 1909 president of Yenching University, which was established by the United States in Peking (Beijing). On July 11, 1946, he was appointed U.S. ambassador to China. On August 2, 1949, because all the efforts of U.S. imperialism to obstruct the victory of the Chinese people's revolution had completely failed, Leighton Stuart had to leave China quietly.