<p>A rather “sanitized” history, it strikes me, given the account of Yale’s relationship with China written in Brooks Kelley’s more balanced “History of Yale”. </p>
<p>Yale’s focus on China intensified after Horace Tracey Pitkin ('92) a Christian missionary, was beheaded during the Boxer Rebellion. Many other young Yale grads then headed off as latter-day crusaders, to convert the heathen! They set up a series of schools for proselytizing, but were later forced out by the Chinese Communists - withdrawing to Hong Kong.</p>