Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and then explained, “Harvard is a famous university, but they don't have a department
of geography there. The University of Liverpool in England is of course not as
famous as Harvard, but they have a famous professor in geography who has also a
great knowledge of the geography of China, Professor Percy Maude Roxby. After
research by our school it has been decided to send you there next autumn to advance
on your historical geography.” Professor Hung had close ties with the Harvard-
Yenching Institute, and had always sent research students from Yenching's graduate
school of history to Harvard for further study, but because of my special interest, he
recommended me to go to the University of Liverpool to specialise in historical
geography. The following year war broke out in Europe, and I couldn't go. When
after the great war had ended I was fi nally able to go to the University of Liverpool,
Professor Roxby had retired, but his successor, Sir Clifford Darby, infl uenced me
deeply. The theories and methods on historical geography initiated by him were
introduced by me in China for the fi rst time, and I made my own contribution to the
development in the fi eld of Chinese historical geography. When talking now about
these matters, I cannot but think of the opportunity Yenching University gave me in
the fi rst place.
Just now I have given a few examples of how William Hung guided and trained
me, but it was not only Professor Hung who let me share in his knowledge in my
years of study at Yenching. There were two other full-time professors at the
Department of History: Gu Jiegang and Deng Zhicheng. Both of them were
renowned historians, although they were not as good at English as William Hung,
who had a thorough knowledge of both Chinese and Western topics. If William
Hung's appointment as professor at Yenching had a historical origin, for he was a
Christian convert and had close ties to the founding of Yenching, it needs to be
pointed out that Gu Jiegang and Deng Zhicheng were not Christian converts nor
profi cient in English, but because the two of them had made special contributions to
the world of Chinese historiography, they were employed by Yenching University.
Professor Deng Zhicheng guided me in my research on Chinese historical treatises,
and Professor Gu Jiegang deepened my interest in researching Peking's historical
geography (I will talk about that later in more detail). Just like Professor Hung,
Professor Gu Jiegang had been employed at the Harvard-Yenching Institute's
Peking offi ce, where William Hung even had been in charge. I should add that with
fi nancial help of the Harvard-Yenching Institute the magazine
Yanjing Xuebao
was
edited and published at Yenching, recognised in China and abroad to be one of the
leading academic journals on the research of Chinese literature, history and philoso-
phy. Also, there were the publications in volumes of the Yinde collection, about
traditional Chinese topics and records, esteemed equally in the academic worlds of
both China and the West as the
Yanjing Xuebao
. Professor William Hung contrib-
uted enormously to the establishing and printing of the Yinde collection. It has to be
added here that although after the merging of Yenching University and Peking
University in 1952 the above mentioned publications came to a halt, reprints contin-
ued to be in circulation. More signifi cantly, the Alumni of Yenching University in
Peking and the Second Campus of Peking University started co-operating in 1993
and established the Yanjing Graduate Institute, in order to continue and expand the
