Start 1861: I just inherited the Dutch throne

Chapter 1159 Qing Dynasty Student Program

Kingdom of the Netherlands, 1882 November 11.

On the campus of the University of Sydney in Sydney, the largest city in the world.

William IV was quietly listening to the lecture, and there were only a few people around him, including the school's principal, Hermann van Perron.
“Since the British Empire, Sydney’s status in Australia has been second only to the capital Melbourne.

Since our Dutch rule, especially after the Dutch capital moved from Amsterdam to Melbourne, the whole of Australia has entered a stage of rapid development.

Melbourne has become the political center of the entire Netherlands, while Sydney has become the economic center of the Netherlands. After taking over British rule, it became the first city with a population of one million in the Netherlands after 20 years of development.

In terms of population, it may not be as big as the capital of the Qing Dynasty, or even as big as Kyoto in Japan, but in terms of GDP, it is definitely the first in the East."

Hua Wei is a second-generation immigrant from the Qing Dynasty in the north. His father was originally an ordinary official of the Qing Dynasty, but that was 5 years ago.

Four years ago, with the help of my uncle's family, my family left the Qing government and came to Sydney.

Thanks to my excellent high school performance and hard work in Rotterdam, I was admitted to the University of Sydney, the most famous university in the world, two years ago.

Driven by the Dutch government over the past 20 years, the University of Sydney now has 18 disciplines in three colleges, with a very wide range of courses to choose from, and many courses are flexible and variable in terms of college structure.

In this world-class university, you can choose the courses you want to study according to your interests, from popular accounting to niche indigenous studies, from mechanical science to criminal law, from marine research to music, and from humanities to Chinese and Japanese.

The University of Sydney is currently the university with the most disciplines in the world. It has dozens of disciplines including economics, business, mechanics, humanities and arts, education, psychology, sociology, medicine, nursing, veterinary medicine, law, engineering technology, etc.

As a first generation Australian citizen, Warwick is very satisfied with his current life.

Especially when the parents are still around.

"Warwick, if you become the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, what would you like to do first?" On the podium, Peter, a university politics teacher in Class 3, Grade at the University of Sydney, was teaching a politics class. He was just talking very seriously about the various achievements of the Netherlands in developing Australia after it took over from the United Kingdom. However, he found that Warwick, who always listened attentively in class and, in Peter's opinion, was very interested in politics, was not in good shape today. This made Peter very puzzled.

At the same time, I was also annoyed that I was distracted from my courses. This was really wrong, considering that not many people could go to college in 1882.

What's more, sitting next to him as an auditor was not only Sydney Principal Van Perron, but also King William IV of the Netherlands. With such an opportunity to show off, Warwick was distracted by his own course, which was absolutely annoying for him.

William IV saw the change in Peter's expression and felt a little understanding of his feelings.

The penetration rate in the Netherlands is a little higher, but for other countries, especially those along the Pacific coast, going to university is definitely the best of the best. You should know that at that time in the Qing Dynasty, the only people who could truly be considered a college student were Imperial College students, and then international students.

Historically, due to the poor quality of the Qing Dynasty in the late Qing Dynasty and the constant oppression from the Western powers, the Qing Dynasty was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. In order to reverse the situation at that time, the only way was to rely on advanced technology to upgrade the industrialization of the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, under the suggestion of Yung Hong, the action of learning from the foreigners and using their own technology to defeat the foreigners, which was supported by Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang, was officially approved and put on the itinerary.

Many people may not know Rong Hong, but he was the first Chinese student to study in the United States. He graduated from Yale University and is known as the father of Chinese students studying abroad.

Rong Hong, the father of overseas students in the Qing Dynasty, did two things that were recorded in history. The first was to create the earliest and most complete machine factory in the Qing Dynasty, bringing the Qing Dynasty into the process of industrialization. The second was to propose and organize the first batch of publicly funded overseas students in the Qing Dynasty, which had a crucial impact on the later fate of the Qing Dynasty.

Now and in the past, more than ten years have passed. The Qing Dynasty, with the support of Rong Hong, has also carried out government-funded sending young children to study abroad at a very young age.

In this day and age, people who are sixteen or seventeen years old start getting married and having children. They are already adults, and their vision has begun to slow down and their attention has become dispersed.

So according to the history books of the previous life, the reason why Yung Hong sent younger students abroad was that the younger they were, the better they could focus on learning Western knowledge.

Therefore, the Qing government required that the age of these children must be between 10 and 16 years old. After the final selection was completed, the age limit was set at around 12 years old.

William IV glanced at the person beside him.

Then Herman Van Perron beside him explained softly:

"This is an international student from our strategic partner country, Qing."

William IV looked at Van Perron with pretended doubt, as if waiting for the latter's further explanation.

As the president of the University of Sydney, Herman van Perron was very impressed by Warwick, especially his serious attitude towards study.

"Huawei is from the list of students who were part of the Qing Dynasty's study abroad program a few years ago. Let's put it this way. The earliest students sent to the United States by the Qing Dynasty were required to be very talented. I dare not say that every one of them was a child prodigy, but at least they had to be smarter than ordinary children. The entire study abroad program lasted for fifteen years, which means that these children had to stay in a foreign country for fifteen years, and there was no way for them to cross the Pacific Ocean and return to the Qing Dynasty."

Van Peilong said: "In the study abroad plan, the Qing Dynasty will send 500 people to the Kingdom of the Netherlands each time. So far, more than 10 years have passed and a total of 5000 people have studied in the Kingdom of the Netherlands."

"These outstanding children were selected from the public. Rong Hong was the principal of the preparatory school for them to study abroad in Qing Dynasty. He taught the children the languages ​​of various countries. The children would be sent to study in various countries only after they passed the exams."

William IV understood and nodded in agreement.

After all, they were all children, and they couldn't speak the language over there at sea. If they didn't lay a good language foundation in Qing Dynasty, they wouldn't understand anything when they went to study abroad in other countries, and they would definitely not be able to learn anything.

"However, Qing Dynasty should not be responsible for the safety of these international students!"

Herman Van Perron nodded and said, "Your Majesty is right. The Qing Dynasty is not responsible for the safety of overseas students."

Upon hearing this, William IV understood that the Qing Dynasty was helpless. There was nothing he could do because the Qing Dynasty was in a weak period and the Western powers would not give him much face.

William IV could not see far ahead and relied on Warwick. These overseas students might be the hope for the rise of the Qing Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)