Barbour Scholarship Research Paper

The Barbour Scholarships: Striving for Better Education, or Just a Tool for Assimilation?

United States foreign policy has continually posed a controversial and changing issue. In the early twentieth century, Congress enacted multiple immigration regulation acts, including the Johnson Reed Act in 1924, which restricted immigration from China, Japan and India in response to American citizens' uncertainties and resentment towards minorities. As more minorities diversified the nation and began to prosper, white Americans feared the loss of power and control over them, instilling increased tension among the races. Thus, in 1917 the acceptance of the Barbour Scholarship for Oriental Women at the University of Michigan was a drastic counter-
Many victims were so young that they had never previously engaged in sexual relations: "Like other virgins, Bok Sil resisted with all her strength, but was violently deflowered. She ended up covered in blood while screams sounded from the adjoining rooms." As a result of Confucian ideology, women were excluded from the educational system, and taught how to behave as women and respectable wives, rather than as self-reliant and independent-thinking individuals. With the collapse of the feudal dynasty, women were eventually permitted to receive an education but only up to the senior level comparable to our high school system today, in which they were taught four subjects: history, geography, arts and natural science. As expressed in Jeanne Bisilliat and Michele Fieloux's book Women of the Third World: "Imprisoned as they are by their own culture and ignorant of other cultures, the oppression to which women are subjected takes place at every level: their work, their condemnation and their
Rufus noted his visit to Dr. Ting, the "superintendent to the Peiyang Hospital for women and children, built largely through her own effort," who was also in charge of the local city orphanage, and the founder of two schools, and a network that took health care directly to the homes of children. In Tientsin, Rufus also noted that out of six city commissioners, three were previous Barbour Scholars. Like these women, upon returning to their native countries many of the Barbour Scholars worked at a variety of levels and in committees which bettered the lives of women and children, and their societies as a whole. Professor Rufus in The Quarterly Review continued to document some of the Barbour Scholars' accomplishments, emphasizing the extent to which the Scholarship acted as the nourishing water to a seed in spring, enabling these women to bloom and flourish. Miss Sharkeshwari Agha served on a number of national committees as secretary of the All-India Women's Conference for Education and Social Reform; Miss Yi-fang Wu who obtained a Ph.D., was elected President of the Ginling College, became a member of the United Foreign Missionary Conference team, and helped develop the New Life Movement in the organization of women for war relief; and Miss Me-iung Ting received her M.D. and returned to China as head surgeon, supervising nurse, and director of Peiyang