关键词: 鸦片战争; 洋务运动; 外语教育; 外语学堂

Abstract: After the Opium Wars, China was troubled by interior and exterior risks. To get rid of this situation, the Chinese government of the Qing Dynasty carried out the Self-Strengthening Movement by way of learning advanced technology from Europeans. However, lacking in foreign language training in traditional education system, few could take the responsibility of developing industries. So, inspired by Japan, advocates of the Self-Strengthening Movement established foreign language training schools and sent children to America simultaneously to foster talents for foreign language teaching and foreign affairs. Among these foreign language training schools, the School of Combined Learning is the first exemplary official one which only Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau can put itself in the same league during the same period. Among the students that studied in America, many of them took the career of developing industries, but few were devoted or related to translation, and they basically held office in the embassy or consulate, responsible for internal connection and external affairs between the Chinese government of the Qing Dynasty and foreign countries. In a word, the two approaches not only represented the prelude of sending students to study abroad and establishing foreign languages training schools by the government, and accelerated the formation of foreign language education mode in the period of Westernization Movement, as well as marked the inception of the foreign language education in modern China.

Keywords: Opium War; Self-Strengthening Movement; foreign language training; foreign languages school