Lanzhou University

As the earliest institution of advanced learning and higher education in Northwest China,Lanzhou University was previously named Gansu Law and Politics School in 1909. Then the school developed to become Lanzhou Sun Yat-sen University in 1928. Deng Chungao, a clever academic with rich experience and a wish of saving the nation through developing education as well as the thought of reform, took the position of president and director of Lanzhou University from February 1929 to May 1936, which were the most significant years for development since the university was established. As Gansu province suffers from natural disasters and poverty, the university is a university with the least allocated funds in China. However, Deng Chungao developed it steadily while striving for survival through his arduous efforts, collecting funds and increasing the income and decreasing expenditure at the same time. Through his efforts, the basic facilities of the university were added and the instruments and models were purchased year after year; the grand library ranking the first among Lanzhou’s universities and colleges with abundant books was built up; a printing works was set up; special funds were put to use to start academic magazines and numbers of important works were published. Besides, the number of teachers became larger and larger. In 1946, Xin Shuzhi worked as the first president to establish State Lanzhou University. He continued to hunt talents and employed large numbers of experts and scholars from Beijing, Shanghai and so on. Lots of learned persons were gathered at the university. Therefore, it gained a good reputation day by day, and became an influential advanced learning institution in northwest China, and a base promoting advanced thought and developing cultural education.