At the Centennial, Li Gui ran into the Chinese students who had come to visit. He never thought that his country was so far-sighted to have sent so many young students to the very frontline of industrial development. Li Gui recorded: ‘I saw the boy students walking around in the exhibition hall, unrestrained in speech and movement. Their attire and bearing were in the western fashion, yet over their western coat they wore a Chinese gown.’

Li Gui chose a few older students to ask what they perceived to be the benefit of the exposition. They answered ‘the assembly of international goods for public display enriched their knowledge. The advanced technology of new machinery encouraged the imitation. And the expo could promote friendship among countries. The benefits were great.’ Then Li asked what they liked most. They said ‘the foreign printing technology and the Chinese carved ivory’. ‘But don’t you miss home?’ ‘We do, but that doesn’t help at all. All we can do now is concentrate on our studies. We will return home sooner or later.’ ‘Why are you wearing foreigners’ clothes?’ The kids responded: ‘It is really inconvenient sometimes to wear our own clothes. Our rule is that we must not cut off our queues and must not enter churches.’

Here at the Centennial Exhibition the Connecticut Educational Commission displayed to the world the English essays written by the young Chinese students as their pedagogical outcome. When the students arrived in Philadelphia, President of the United States, Ulysses Grant was at the exposition as well. When informed, he arranged to meet the Chinese students.

On August 25th 1876, Philadelphia Inquirer reported that President Grant staged a welcoming ceremony for the young Chinese students, in which he shook hands with every one of them. The newspaper lauded the boys as being of intelligent mentality and sedate demeanor.

Deeply impressed with what he saw in the young Chinese students at the Centennial, Li Gui wrote down ‘the outcome of western education is well beyond our estimation.’

The year 1876 marked a moment of great change in the world. The boy students were brought to the epicenter of the upheaval. They were to grow up in the boom time of the steam engine. At the expo of 1876, they appeared in their traditional Chinese apparel worn over their western clothes. When years later, they discarded their long gowns or even cut off their queues and competed with the American students on the sports field, where would fate then propel them?

One American city features prominently in the history of Chinese overseas students. It is the capital city of Connecticut, Hartford, located in the northeast of the United States. Though not as famous as New York or Boston, more than a century ago, Hartford was the center of U.S. manufacturing and insurance industry.

Though a small city, Hartford became a prominent business center. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, Hartford became the city with the highest average income in the United States.

With the rapid growth of the economy Hartford attracted a great number of publishers, writers, educators and politicians, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in 1851. The great writer Mark Twain also lived here.

Mark Twain moved to Hartford in the same year the first group of Chinese students arrived in America. He became a friend to the Chinese through the Chinese Educational Mission which was set up in Hartford.

Rong Hong decided that Chinese Educational Mission should be located in Hartford. The Qing Dynasty spent $75,000 US dollars constructing an office building for it in 1877.

This house was fitted up with the most advanced tap water and heating system at the time. The famous architect in Springfield Mr. Gardener supervised the construction of the whole building. He even put up four of the Chinese students, including Tang Shaoyi, Liang Ruhao and two others, in his home.

The office building was located on Collins Street, in the western region of Hartford. It was demolished in 1972, and the place became a parking lot for nearby hospitals.

Hartford was a city with the largest number of overseas Chinese students. The dozens of them became very special guests in this city.

With the end of the Civil War in 1865, Hartford’s economy began to grow very fast.

A great number of migrants thronged into the city.

The Hartford Public High School was an old high school built in 1638. It was here that over thirty of the Chinese students studied. Today at the original site of the school there stands only a stone monument amid wild grasses. The school was demolished to make way for city highways. It was reestablished at a new site.

A grade book of the graduates of 1881 was saved from the fire and kept in the archive room. We saw several names of the Chinese students in it.

Including Huang Kaijia from Zhenping and Cai Shaoji from Xiangshan, both in Guangdong Province.

Some pictures of the Chinese students were also kept in the archive room.