Science Society of China

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the subsequent national crisis sparked a "science to save the nation" (科学救国) movement among Chinese intellectuals. The Qing dynasty and later the early Republic of China government sent large numbers of students abroad to the United States, Japan, and Europe, many of whom pursued engineering and natural sciences.^[5] However, China at the time had no systematic civil scientific organization and lacked a comprehensive periodical for disseminating modern scientific knowledge to the general public. It was in this institutional vacuum that overseas Chinese students began planning an academic organization modeled on Western scientific societies.^[5]

In 1914, nine Chinese students at Cornell University founded the "Science Society" (科学社), taking the American Association for the Advancement of Science as their organizational model and its journal Science as the template for their own publication. The founding members were Ren Hongjun (H. C. Zen), Bing Zhi (P. C. King), Zhou Ren, Hu Mingfu, Zhao Yuanren (Y. R. Chao), Yang Xingfo (H. C. Yang), Guo Tanxian, Zhang Yuanshan, and Jin Bangzheng.^[1]

In January 1915, the first issue of Science (科学) was published in Shanghai. The inaugural editorial declared that "science and democracy" were the twin foundations for China's renewal and that the journal's mission was "to spread the world's latest scientific knowledge."^[1] Later that year, the organization was renamed the "Science Society of China," and Ren Hongjun became its first president.^[1]

As the founding members gradually returned to China after completing their studies, the Society moved its headquarters to Nanjing in 1918, operating from Nanjing Higher Normal School (later National Southeastern University).^[6]

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) were successively established, assuming functions that had previously been performed by civil scientific organizations. The Society's journals, libraries, research equipment, and other assets were gradually transferred to CAS, Science Press, the Shanghai Science Popularization Association, the Shanghai Library, and other state and local institutions.^[11] The Science Society of China formally dissolved in 1960, after approximately 45 years of existence.^[11][6]

The founders and participants of the Science Society of China were a group of intellectuals who shared the conviction that science could save the nation. They not only translated and disseminated modern Western scientific knowledge but also, at both the ideological and practical levels, advanced the institutionalization of science and technology in China. Their work laid the foundation for the establishment of multiple modern academic disciplines, the development of higher education, and the formation of a national scientific research system.^[3][4][12]

The student group associated with the Science Society and its journal Science has been recognized by scholars as China's "first generation of scientists."^[13] The journal Science continued publication for over half a century, systematically introducing international advances across the natural sciences while cultivating public awareness of and interest in science—making it a landmark publication in the history of modern Chinese science.^[14]

• Science (journal)
• Academia Sinica
• Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Former site of the Science Society of China and Mingfu Library
• History of science and technology in the People's Republic of China
• History of science and technology in China