Yung Wing

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Yung Wing (Chinese: 容闳; Pinyin: Róng Hóng) (November 17, 1828 – May 29, 1912). Born in Zhuhai in Guangdong province, he studied in Robert Morrison's missionary schools as a boy and his classmates included Tong King-sing.

Yung was the first Chinese student to graduate from a U.S. university, graduating from Yale College in 1854. After finishing his studies Yung Wing returned to China and worked with western missionaries as an interpreter. In 1859 he accepted an invitation to the court of the Taiping rebels in Nanjing, but his proposals aimed at increasing the efficiency of the Heavenly Kingdom were all eventually refused. In 1863 Yung Wing was dispatched to the United States by Zeng Guofan to buy machinery necessary for opening an arsenal in China capable of producing heavy weapons comparable with those of the western powers.

Yung Wing was naturalized as an American citizen on October 30, 1852, and in 1876, he married Mary Kellogg, an American. They had two children: Morrison Brown Yung and Bartlett Golden Yung.

He persuaded the Qing Dynasty government to send young Chinese to the United States to study Western science and engineering. With the government's eventual approval, he organized what came to be known as the Chinese Educational Mission, which included 120 young Chinese students, to study in the New England region of the United States beginning in 1872. The Educational Mission was disbanded in 1881, but many of the students later returned to China and made significant contributions to China's civil services, engineering, and the sciences.

Yung Wing's grave is located at Cedar Hill Cemetery outside Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

P.S. 124, a public elementary school at 40 Division St. in Chinatown in New York City, NY, is named after Yung Wing.