The Protestant missionary enterprise in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was an enormous effort on the part of Western Protestant missionaries to convert a foreign civilization to Christianity and the Western way of life. One of the most important aspects of this campaign was the focus on education and the introduction of public missionary schools for girls into the Chinese context. Certainly many historians, such as Kenneth Latourette and Alice Gregg have produced broad works that touch on the subject of missionary schools for girls, and others, such as Ryan Dunch and Mary Jo Waelchli, have written fascinating case studies on individual schools.
This thesis will look at the phenomenon of female education in the public sphere, examining the development of missionary schools for girls in China between 1872 and 1924. Examining three schools as case studies, this thesis will argue that these schools were not uniform, but that each school was an institution responsive to desires of the local community in which it was located, the individuals who were associated with it, and the historical trends of the times. The intersection of these three disparate factors resulted in a series of schools linked by a common goal – the education and conversion of Chinese girls – but following very different paths. These paths would lead not to the conversion of China, as hoped by the missionaries, but would leave a lasting impression on education for girls in China.