Watson McMillan Hayes

Watson McMillan Hayes (Chinese: 赫士; pinyin: Hèshì, born November 23, 1857 in Mercer County, Pennsylvania - died 1944 in Weifang, Shandong) was an American missionary and educator in China.

Hayes graduated from Allegheny College.[1] He was ordained on August 15, 1882 and sent to China in the same year.[2] He taught at Tengchow College and later served as its president[3] in present-day Penglai, Shandong. In 1901, he was invited by Yuan Shikai to organize Shandong College,[4] the forerunner of Shandong University and the second modern university in China. With the backing of Yuan Shikai, he also published Shandong's first successful newspaper and petitioned the Qing court to grant a holiday on Sundays;[5] Shandong College was closed on Sundays right from the start.[4] However, by the end of 1901, Hayes and six Chinese Christian teachers he had brought with him had resigned already[4] over disagreements regarding the policy of mandatory Confucius worship for students of the college.[6] After that, Hayes went on to teach the Presbyterian Mission Theological Class in Cheefoo (Yantai).

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, W. M. Hayes, together with his wife (Margaret Young Hayes) and his son (John David Hayes), was held as a prisoner in the Weihsien (Weixian) Internment Camp, a civilian assembly center operated by the Japanese on the premises of a former Presbyterian mission in the present-day town of Weifang. He refused to be repatriated under the “Prisoners Exchange Project” organized by the International Red Cross and died in the camp in 1944, about one year before the camp was liberated by the Americans on August 12, 1945.

W. M. Hayes' son John D. Hayes (1888–1957), continued to work as a missionary and English teacher in China until he was arrested and tried as a spy in 1951. After 10 months in jail, he was expelled from China.[7] His trial in China was the topic of an article ("The Brainwashing of John Hayes", written by Frederic Sondern, Jr) published in Readers Digest and a television drama of the same title in which Hayes was portrayed by the actor Vincent Price.

References

  1. ^ A twentieth century history of Mercer County, Pennsylvania, Lewis Publishing Company
  2. ^ Biography of Watson McMillan Hayes, The Presbyterian Ministerial Directory, 1898
  3. ^ Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850-1950, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY 1971
  4. ^ a b c John J. Heeren (1940): On the Shantung Front, The board of foreign Mission of the presbyterian church in the United States of America
  5. ^ Qu Zheng-Min, "China's first university"
  6. ^ Ulrich van der Heyden (Editor), Holger Stoecker (Editor) 2005: "Mission und Macht im Wandel politischer Orientierungen", Franz Steiner Verlag
  7. ^ "China-Born American Sees Mao-Russ Rift", Desert News and Telegram, March 10, 1953
Protestant missions to China
Background
People
Missionary agencies
Impact
Pivotal events
Chinese protestants