ABSTRACT
Progressive intellectuals and officials such as Cai Yuanpei and Wu Yuzhang realized the necessity of Western education for Chinese youth and managed to have some eighty of them sent to study in European countries, especially France, in the years between 1912 and 1918. More could have been dispatched but for the high costs of travel and tuition. A round-trip ticket and a four-year college program abroad cost several thousand dollars, which even many wealthy Chinese families could hardly afford. For the first time, Deng Xiaoping felt that his father treated him like an adult, not like a child. After the dinner party for his sixteenth birthday, he was called into his father’s bedroom for a private conversation. Deng Wenming wanted to know a little more about his son’s future plans abroad. Since only a small proportion of Deng’s generation could leave their rural homes for the city, and even fewer could go abroad.
