Harvard University and its influence on Chinese mathematics
Other than Tsinghua University, the United States also influenced two other significant universities in the history of Chinese mathematics: Peking University, and Nankai University . Since the late 1900s, large groups of Chinese mathematicians went to America for higher education with government support. They gathered at the University of Chicago, Princeton University, Harvard University, and the University of California. Among these American higher education institutions, Harvard Universityserved as the starting point for Chinese students to study mathematics and it subsequently influenced Chinese mathematics through its graduates who returned to Peking University and Nankai University.
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Early Chinese Harvard Graduates
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Qin Fen , the earliest Chinese Harvard graduate of note, went to Harvard in 1906 and studied mathematics and astronomy. Qin later went back to China and founded the Department of Mathematics at Peking University in 1913 with two other colleagues. It was the first department of mathematics in a Chinese university. Even now the department code for the Department of Mathematics at Peking University is still "01", suggesting its importance among all departments.
Jiang Lifu was also a Harvard graduate and obtained his second degree there in 1919. He founded the Department of Mathematics of Nankai University in 1920. A strict and successful educator, many of Jiang Lifu's students followed his path to Harvard.
One of his students, Jiang Zehan, studied in Nankai and later went to Harvard, observed that, "the tests [at Harvard] were not really as hard as those in Nankai." He also informed another student that he would not fail his exams even if he played around for all his time there [12]. After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard, Jiang Zehan went back to teach at the Department of Mathematics at Peking University. He became the dean there from 1934 to 1952 and had a far-reaching impact by restructuring the department along the lines of the western educational system. He also introduced topology to China for the first time [12].
Western Mathematics Spread in China
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As these American educated mathematicians moved back to China, they also invited American mathematicians to go with them. Jiang Zehan welcomed William Osgood and G. D. Birkhoff to Peking University in 1934.
G. D. Birkhoff gave lectures at Peking University for two months in 1934 [15].
William Osgood, the chairman of the department of mathematics at Harvard from 1918 to 1922, taught in Peking University for two years. Several important Chinese mathematicians, including Jiang Lifu, served as his assistants. With their help, Osgood published two textbooks based on the lectures he gave in Peking: Functions of real variables (1936) and Functions of a complex variable (1936) [8].
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