Tamsui Middle School and the Girls' High SchoolTamsui Middle School and Tamsui Girls' High School

In January 1937, two months after Tachikawa Yoshio had served as acting principal, Arisaka Issei (有坂一世), who had taught at Tainan First Middle School and served there as kyoto (dean of academic affairs), was invited by Imagawa Fuchi (今川淵) to come to Tamsui as principal of both Tamsui Middle School and the Tamsui Girls' Institute.

Arisaka was an enlightened scholar, rich in ideals and ability. Having himself come from a mission school, he had considerable respect for the two schools' former church background. After taking office he set to work with vigour, sweeping away the enfeebled state left by the period of Japanese suppression. The two schools revived, and, drawing together their former foundations and traditions, entered another period of distinction.

As soon as he took office he undertook a sweeping reorganisation, using his own connections and every possible channel to secure resources. Besides obtaining funds from the Taihoku Prefecture Education Section and the Governor-General's Bureau of Education to improve classrooms and enrich teaching equipment, he recruited outstanding teachers from Japan proper to strengthen the teaching staff, in place of the two schools' original teachers who had left one after another under Japanese management. Aono Osuke (青野翁助), Mr. Lee Teng-hui's homeroom teacher in his fourth year, was one such scholar, who had studied in Europe and America.

At that time the schools not only completely renewed their sports facilities and replaced their science laboratory equipment, but also added teaching and activity buildings one after another: a martial arts hall, a gymnasium, dormitories, a pavilion, a farm, a greenhouse, a sumo ring and an archery range.

In 1938 (Showa 13) the Governor-General's Office of Taiwan revised the education ordinances to permit the founding of private middle schools. The Tamsui boys' and girls' schools were at last granted accreditation, and were renamed 'Private Tamsui Middle School' and 'Private Tamsui Girls' High School'. To mark this long-awaited event, the name 'Private Tamsui Middle School' was recarved above the main entrance of the Octagonal Tower, and Alexander palms were planted along both sides of the road to that entrance.

That same year, in accordance with the agreement made by both parties at the transfer two years earlier, Principal Arisaka began building the 'Dr. Mackay Memorial Library'. The funds for it came from a resolution of the Northern Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan in 1931, under which 30,000 Japanese yen had been raised throughout Taiwan. The Canadian Mission made this stipulation with the Japanese so that students in later years would understand that the school had been founded by Dr. George Leslie Mackay.

Another thing that deeply moved the teachers and students of the day was Principal Arisaka's refusal to discriminate against Taiwanese students. Under the long-standing inequality of Japanese segregated education, the public schools in Taiwan were almost monopolised by the Japanese, while the private Tamsui Middle School and Tamsui Girls' High School were almost entirely Taiwanese. To encourage his students to learn and to raise the schools' competitiveness, Principal Arisaka not only recruited teachers from public schools to teach at Tamsui Middle School, but also transferred his own three sons from public schools to Tamsui Middle School to study alongside Taiwanese students, as a demonstration of fairness.

This did indeed foster a vigorous school spirit, with outstanding results in both academic work and sport. Not only did students compete to enrol, but the rate of advancement to higher schools rose sharply, and the Japanese of the day took notice. Principal Arisaka's earnest devotion to running the school, and his influence, have been deeply admired by later generations.

After Japan took control of Taiwan, it sought to consolidate its superior position not only politically and economically but also culturally and educationally. To keep the Taiwanese from becoming an obstacle to Japanese interests of rule, a policy of segregated education was applied to Taiwanese students, and their opportunities to go on to middle school were further restricted, still less higher and university education, which was almost entirely monopolised by the Japanese. Very few Taiwanese broke through these many barriers to receive higher education.

In April 1932 students of the Taipei Theological College in Tamsui performed the sacred drama 'The Pilgrim's Progress'; this may be called the height of the mission schools. During the war the college moved to Shuanglian and became the school that consolidated all the Presbyterian educational institutions in Taiwan.

In an education system centred on the Japanese, Taiwanese students were already at a disadvantage in language ability and background; at primary school they were already subject to planned discriminatory limits in curriculum, system, facilities and opportunity to attend; and the middle school entrance examination further included an unfair 'oral questioning' and an investigation of family background (naishinsho), so that they could hardly compete with Japanese candidates.

Former President Lee Teng-hui has spoken of how strongly he felt this unfair treatment at the time, and of how hard he worked, making Tamsui Middle School the place where he broke through the barriers and was able to go on to higher education. From their founding the two Tamsui schools were unable to obtain accreditation, because the Japanese conditions for establishing a school were harsh, yet they were a rare avenue of schooling for Taiwanese students; after accreditation, and after Principal Arisaka's several effective reforms, they became schools that Taiwanese students competed to enter. As boarding schools in particular, they recruited from all over Taiwan, and so gathered the elite and produced talent in abundance.

The fourth-year Chung (忠) class, winners of the 1941 inter-class tennis tournament, photographed in front of the Dr. Mackay Memorial Library. Lee Teng-hui was the class monitor (front row, first from the right), and seated in the middle (second row, third from the right) is their homeroom teacher Mr. Aono Osuke.

Take the student Lee Teng-hui as an example. Although he graduated with excellent results from the well-known Tamsui Public School (today's Tamsui Elementary School), he studied for two years in the higher course at Tamsui before passing into Taipei Kokumin Middle School. That school was a second-grade school made up mainly of Taiwanese students, from which one could not sit the examinations for the higher schools. In April 1938, on the welcome news that Tamsui Middle School had been formally accredited, he transferred there, and in its good environment he studied diligently; in 1940 he served as class monitor, and he was also keen on tennis, kendo and gardening.

In 1941, while still only in his fourth year, he skipped a year and passed into 'Taipei Higher School' (the forerunner of today's National Taiwan Normal University). The school was extremely hard to enter and was the regular route into Taipei Imperial University (National Taiwan University). This was a great encouragement to the teachers and students of Tamsui Middle School, since no student from a private school had ever passed. Besides Lee Teng-hui, the graduates of that time who entered prestigious colleges and universities or went to study in Japan proper were the largest in number and the finest in quality since the founding of the school.

Besides excelling academically, the students were not behind others in sport. In kendo, archery, horsemanship, track and field and other events they repeatedly achieved fine results in the island-wide middle school competitions. Several Tamsui Middle School athletes represented Taiwan's middle schools in competitions in Japan. This period is therefore often called the golden age of Tamsui Middle School, and the achievement is owed to Principal Arisaka's careful management of the school and to the educational spirit of equality, universal love and teaching without distinction with which he brought on long-suppressed Taiwanese students.

After Tamsui Middle School and the Tamsui Girls' Institute were taken over by the Japanese, the Women's School and the Taipei Theological College, formerly run by the Canadian Mission and already handed over to the northern Presbyterian church, developed separately.

After its premises were requisitioned, the Women's School moved its classes to the missionary residences opposite; from 1937 it was gradually wound up, and in 1940 it was converted into the 'House of Peace' (安樂家), a rest home taking in destitute women, elderly women and those from broken families. The 'House of Peace' continued until it was disbanded in 1942.

The Taipei Theological College, which held its classes in Oxford College, also moved at the end of 1937 back to its former college premises at Shuanglian in Taipei. With the loss of the Tamsui Girls' Institute, the Women's School had also been forced to close. Wishing to revive this educational work, to raise the level of women believers and to train women evangelists, the church authorities in 1940 used the former missionary residences and Oxford College in Tamsui to add a 'Girls' High School Department of Taipei Theological College', with the Japanese Okawa Tadashi as principal.

The following year, in order to unify it with the women's school and the theological college in southern Taiwan, which were in the same situation, it was moved in May to the missionary residences at Shuanglian in Taipei, with Chen Neng-tung (陳能通), who had taught at Tamsui Middle School and Chang Jung Middle School, as head of the girls' department. During the war this Taipei Theological College at Shuanglian may be called the school that consolidated all the Presbyterian Church's educational institutions in Taiwan.

With its educational centre moved to Shuanglian in Taipei, the northern church rented the four missionary residences and Oxford College in Tamsui to Tamsui Middle School and Tamsui Girls' High School. Principal Arisaka converted Oxford College into a girls' dormitory named 'Mei-liao' (Hall of Beauty); together with the girls' school building named 'Shan-liao' (Hall of Goodness) and the Women's School named 'Chen-liao' (Hall of Truth), these formed the three girls' high school dormitories of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. At the same time the four missionary residences were converted into boys' dormitories, named from east to west 'Xuanwu', 'Baihu', 'Zhuque' and 'Qinglong', the four dormitories of Tamsui Middle School.

In June 1944, following the instructions of the Taihoku Prefecture Education Section, the Girls' High School Department of Taipei Theological College was separated from the college and became the three-year 'Taipei Miyanomae Girls' School' (Shuanglian was called 'Miyanomae-cho' in the Japanese period). The principal and the directors were, of course, all Japanese.

In 1945, after the war, Taipei Miyanomae Girls' School was renamed 'Chungshan Girls' Middle School' (after the war 'Miyanomae-cho' was renamed Chungshan North Road), and only in 1947 was it merged into the girls' department of Tamkang Senior High School.

This very short-lived girls' middle school was a transitional school set up by the church in response to the takeover of the two Tamsui schools and the Tainan Girls' School by the Japanese; in scale and results it naturally could not compare with the two Tamsui schools under Japanese management. But it carried the significance of the church continuing Dr. Mackay's work of founding schools, and it is of course a part of Tamkang's school history.

Although the Japanese ran the two Tamsui schools with notable success, it cannot be denied that their main purpose in taking such pains to seize the two middle schools was to make them bases for Japanese militarism's kominka movement. Kominka meant instilling the 'Japanese spirit' through education, seeking to 'Japanise' the minds of the Taiwanese and, driven by a doctrine of aggression, to make the Taiwanese contribute as much as possible to the expansion of Japanese militarism. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 Japan grew still more radical, launching the so-called 'General Mobilisation of the National Spirit' and 'Industry Serving the Nation' movements, and Tamsui Middle School and Tamsui Girls' High School were naturally swept into the storm.

After taking over Tamsui Middle School and the Tamsui Girls' Institute, the Japanese immediately changed the teaching content and replaced the existing teachers. Students were placed under Spartan management, with dress, bearing and daily routine all militarised, and were required to cultivate the spirit of bushido through kendo (naginata for the girls) and archery. Military training was also strictly enforced: besides regular rifle drill and target practice there were bayonet examinations and long armed marches, to build fighting strength.

On 13 October 1941 Lieutenant General Honma Masaharu, commander of the Taiwan Army, came to Tamsui to inspect the results of Tamsui Middle School's military training and to assess the quality of the students, in order to judge the possibility of conscripting Taiwanese youths into the Japanese imperial army.

Besides military training on campus, the Japanese used Shinto worship to change the spiritual content of the two schools and to strengthen patriotic thinking. Every year Principal Arisaka and the military instructors led the teachers and students of both schools to worship at the Tamsui Shinto Shrine and the naval cemetery. The new Tamsui Shrine, at Yuchekou, was completed in 1939 and enshrined Amaterasu Omikami, the Meiji Emperor, and Prince Yoshihisa (能久親王), the war deity of the conquest of Taiwan. The naval cemetery lies above today's sports park (the former Tamsui First Cemetery) and commemorates eight Japanese sailors who died for their country at Tamsui harbour in 1895, whose deeds were regarded as a symbol of the Japanese martial spirit. Besides the solemn regular ceremonies, students were encouraged to go voluntarily at other times to clean the grounds. On the countless occasions when they went to worship at the naval cemetery, the column of teachers and students passing through the streets of Tamsui, imposing, well drilled and full of spirit, left a deep impression on the people along the way.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, as the fighting developed, the schools further intensified the instilling in students of the belief and resolve to be imperial subjects. Every week Principal Arisaka personally presided over a 'Certain Victory Training Meeting', and the students formed a 'Service Corps' that went outside the school to assist with civil defence and disaster drills. In the winter and summer holidays students also had to go to the countryside for 'labour service'; most middle school students of the time went to Yilan to build an airfield, while some worked on roads and in coal mines near Taipei. Tamsui Middle School was unusual in being assigned to build a 'dentan' (radar) station at Shuijiantou, working by day and sleeping at night at Shuijiantou Public School (today's Shuiyuan Elementary School), which was extremely hard. In the last stage of the war the Japanese authorities further shortened the middle school course from five years to four, so that students could be sent to the front sooner. On 15 August 1945 Principal Arisaka and the students heard the Showa Emperor's 'Jewel Voice Broadcast' at Tamsui Middle School and learned that Japan had been defeated and had surrendered unconditionally; this also announced the end of the era of Japanese management of the school.

After Tamsui Middle School completed the Octagonal Tower building, its next building project was a library that would also serve as a memorial hall to Dr. Mackay. From 1931 funds were raised from all quarters towards a target of 30,000 yen, but when the Japanese government forcibly took over Tamsui Middle School in 1936 the library had not yet been built. For the sake of teaching needs, and so that later generations would not forget the school's founding history, the Mission left the money it had raised for the Japanese to build the library and the bronze statue of Dr. Mackay after taking over the school, and made this a condition of the transfer.

Another condition of the transfer of Tamsui Middle School was that the Japanese should appoint a Japanese Christian as principal; as a compromise the Japanese sent Arisaka Issei, who had come from a mission school, as principal. Principal Arisaka completed the 'Dr. Mackay Memorial Library' and the memorial bronze statue of Mackay as agreed, and an unveiling ceremony was held on their completion in April 1939.

Tamsui Middle School had been a mission school, but after the Japanese takeover it became a place of kominka education. The library's opening ceremony was no longer a worship service but a Japanese Shinto rite. It was conducted that day by two Japanese priests, with zigzag-patterned decorative paper and an offering table at the library's main door (on the table were sake and mochi; each student received one red and one white mochi that day as a celebratory gift). It happened that George William Mackay and his wife were away on furlough at the time; otherwise, how could they have borne to see this missionary hero commemorated in so incongruous a manner!

The bronze statue of Dr. Mackay met with no end of vicissitudes either. Less than two years after its unveiling the Pacific War broke out, Britain and America became enemy countries, and a statue of a British Canadian naturally became a highly sensitive object. But Principal Arisaka was a scholar of English, and far from rejecting it he made it a symbol of the spirit of Tamsui Middle School. Only in the last stage of the war did he realise that keeping the statue, even if it brought no trouble on the school, could hardly escape the fate of being taken away as raw material for weapons; he therefore had it taken down and hidden in a storeroom. After the war, when George William Mackay returned to Taiwan to look for the Mackay statue, he found that it had been stolen and had disappeared.

But history turns. In 1957 all the graduates of that year gave donations and commissioned the sculptor Chang Fu-lin (張福霖) to make a new bronze statue of Dr. Mackay, modelled on the earlier one. On 9 March, the school's anniversary day, the re-erection of the statue of Dr. Mackay and a commemorative service were held in front of the Mackay Library, and George William Mackay and his wife and other members of the Mackay family were invited as guests of honour.

Because the 'Dr. Mackay Memorial Library' stood apart from the classroom area of the Octagonal Tower, a music room was placed on its north side; the teaching of Japanese 'yokyoku' chanting there was an important part of kominka education. After the war the 'Dr. Mackay Memorial Library' remained in use until 1983, after which a second storey was added with the legacy donated by Miss Tu Tao-li (杜道理姑娘). After the library moved to a new building in 2000, the interior of this building was renovated into classrooms, giving it its present appearance.

This building is the only Japanese-style building still standing on the Tamkang campus. The marble plaque carved at its completion, reading 'Dr. Mackay Memorial Library', still stands at the door (the character 記 is simply the Japanese usage, not a mistake), for later generations to remember.

The Octagonal Tower of Tamkang Senior High School, the most representative building in the history of education in Taiwan, is not only the focus of the spirit of generations of Tamkang people but also the emblem of Tamkang's century of history and tradition and of its campus culture.

From the time when Dr. Mackay's son George William Mackay returned to Tamsui to found Tamsui Middle School, how to plan an ideal campus was a question of great concern. In 1913 the Canadian home church sent the missionary Kenneth Dowie (Mr. Kenneth Dowie, B.Sc.) to Taiwan to engage in educational and youth religious work. A graduate of the faculty of engineering of McGill University in Canada, he had a background in architecture, and later took charge of the design and construction of the middle school's new premises.

Part of the land on which the school was built at Tamsui had been Dr. Mackay's own property; he bought 5,000 ping of land in 1896, and the Mission later bought neighbouring land piece by piece. After submitting its plan for the school, it obtained the Japanese Governor-General's permission to raise funds for building it.

In May 1923 the gymnasium, the first building of Tamkang Senior High School, was completed first of all; work on the Octagonal Tower, the campus's main building, then began in November 1923 and was finished on 9 March 1925 (the school anniversary), with the dedication and opening ceremony held on 1 July that year.

The Octagonal Tower is acclaimed as a classic Taiwanese building blending Chinese and Western styles (in Japanese, kanyo setchu). Its architectural form derives from Santa Monica High School in California and the California Institute of Technology. Dowie successfully fused the features of the two schools' architecture and used local Taiwanese building materials. Laid out as a three-sided courtyard, the classroom wings step down in turn (a second storey has since been added), ending at the front in octagonal flanking towers (also called wing towers); the three towers enclose a green forecourt, with a red-brick path running up the middle to the main entrance. The front of the main tower and the upper parts of the flanking towers alternate red brick and white render, and the balconies and classroom ventilation openings all have graceful green-glazed tile windows, most elegant. The main doorway has a Guanyin-stone lintel carved with brackets and palace lanterns, showing local colour, and above the door are the three characters 'Faith, Love, Hope' in seal-clerical script by Wu Ting-fang (吳廷芳), plain and dignified.

When first built, behind the main tower were the chapel and the dining hall; behind them a beautiful covered walkway ran to the gymnasium, and in it a plain red-brick arch served as the entrance to the Mackay cemetery, forming a graceful and unified campus.

The Octagonal Tower was named the 'Tower of Faith, Hope and Love', from 1 Corinthians 13:13 in the Bible: 'Now these three remain: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.' The main tower is 60 feet high and was then the tallest building in Tamsui. A balcony was set beside the tower; in earlier years there were no buildings in front of it, and from here, facing south-west from the north-east, one looked ahead to Guanyin Mountain, to the left to Datun Mountain and to the right to the mouth of the Tamsui River, mountains and water all around and the scenery of Tamsui taken in at a single glance.

The Octagonal Tower premises were designed to hold five hundred students. The main building is of two storeys: on either side of the main tower the ground floor was administrative space and the upper floor student dormitories; at the rear the ground floor was the chapel and dining hall, and behind that the kitchen and other service spaces, with dormitories upstairs as well. The east side of the wings held ordinary classrooms, the west side special teaching spaces such as laboratories and a tiered lecture room; beside the two wing towers, besides classrooms, there was a porch in front serving as an entrance hall.

Tamsui Middle School was a mission school, and the religious character its campus gave off was naturally not tolerated by the daily expanding Japanese militarism. After repeated pressure, the Japanese authorities forcibly took over the school in 1936; besides altering its church character and changing the school badge, motto and song, the campus too was changed. After the school was raised in status and accredited in 1938, the new name 'Private Tamsui Middle School' was recarved on the door lintel; in 1941, to celebrate the third anniversary of accreditation, Alexander palms were planted along both sides of the forecourt road, and a design of three palm leaves replaced the old school badge. The three characters 'Faith, Hope and Love' were retained, but a small statue of the Japanese national hero Kusunoki Masashige was erected to the left front of the main entrance to strengthen Japanese spiritual education, and the meaning of the Octagonal Tower had been transformed into that of a tower symbolising Japanese militarism.

The appearance of the Octagonal Tower also changed at this time. As student numbers rose sharply and the classrooms were insufficient, a second storey was added to the classrooms on the east side of the Octagonal Tower in 1943, and at the rear, beside the gymnasium, a two-storey building was newly built, today's senior high classroom block.

After the Second World War Tamsui Middle School returned to the Presbyterian Church, but had to change its name again to comply with new regulations; in 1954 a wooden board reading 'Taipei County Private Tamkang Senior High School' was hung on the door lintel of the Octagonal Tower. Two years later the boys' and girls' schools merged, and the Octagonal Tower became a '38th parallel', for a time dividing the campus into a boys' section and a girls' section.

Behind the main tower was originally the chapel, and the wall of the entrance hall beneath the tower had three arched windows. Chen Ching-hui used these windows to design stained-glass windows: the light-admitting one in the centre bore the school badge, the left a Canadian maple leaf, and the right an old pine representing China; from then on they were a famous sight on the Tamkang campus. After the great chapel was completed and opened in 1966, the small chapel was converted into classrooms (today's academic affairs office and the classrooms behind it).

After the two schools merged and student numbers grew, the appearance of the Octagonal Tower changed further: not only was a second storey added to the west-side classrooms (1960), but the porches beside the two flanking towers and the first-floor dormitories were also extended into classrooms one after another; after the great chapel opened, the former chapel on the ground floor at the rear of the tower was likewise partitioned into classrooms; in 1983 classrooms were added at the rear, some even with a third storey. Finally, as traditional Taiwanese red tiles were hard to maintain, from 1992 the Taiwanese red-tiled roofs were gradually replaced with the present corrugated metal sheeting.

But what really makes the Octagonal Tower differ from the time it was built is the change in its surroundings: cold modern high-rise buildings have risen on every side, and it grows ever harder to avoid those discordant views of old and new.