ABSTRACT
In central China, Wuchang on the Yangtze's south bank was an important seat of learning, one of the centres to which thousands flocked for the triennial civil service examinations. The name of Henry Haigh, a Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) Secretary whose missionary service was in India, meant little to the Chinese and it soon became known as the Wa Ying Middle School. Some Districts might have scores of schools in their care, and occasionally a Director of Education an ordained or lay missionary was appointed. Such missionary appointments were infrequent, and it was rare, before a District became autonomous, for a national to be made Director of Education; generally school management was left to the local minister or superintendent. The driving force behind modernization, until well into the twentieth century, was generally a missionary principal; the principal was most commonly a minister, with any lay missionary in a supporting role.
