The school's symbolsSymbols of the School Spirit

21 March. George Leslie Mackay was born in the village of Zorra, Oxford County, Ontario, Canada.

Mackay graduated from the Toronto Normal School and taught at the Maplewood and Maitland elementary schools. Seven years later he entered Knox College, the theological college of the University of Toronto, and Princeton Theological Seminary in the United States for further study, and volunteered to serve as an overseas missionary.

June. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada met in Quebec, approved Mackay's offer to serve as an overseas missionary, and decided that China would be his field of service.

19 September. On behalf of the General Assembly, the Presbytery of Toronto ordained Mackay as a minister at Gould Street Church.

19 October. Mackay took leave of his family and boarded a train at Woodstock, setting out to preach in China.

1 November. He sailed from San Francisco for China aboard the steamer America.

29 December. He reached Taiwan aboard the two-masted schooner Kin-ling and landed at Takow (Kaohsiung).

9 March. The Reverend Mackay came ashore at Tamsui at three in the afternoon from the British passenger ship Hai-lung, and chose Tamsui as his base for mission work in Taiwan.

10 April. He rented a house in a back lane of Tamsui and learned Taiwanese from country cowherds and local people, beginning his arduous work of preaching and healing. On the 25th of the same month he gained his first student, Yen Ching-hua (嚴清華), and over the following eight years he gained more than twenty students in all. This was the school's pioneering period (Ltinerant College), called in the school's history the 'Peripatetic School' (逍遙學園).

9 February. The first five converts in northern Taiwan were baptised, and the Tamsui Church was founded.

27 May. The Reverend Mackay married Chang Tsung-ming (張聰明), a woman of Wu-ku-keng, and so became a son-in-law of Taiwan. The Reverend Mackay and Chang later had two daughters and a son.

14 September. The Hobe Mackay Hospital was completed.

The Reverend Mackay returned home on furlough for the first time with his wife and children, travelling west by way of the South Seas, India, the Middle East and Europe before reaching Canada; in the same year Queen's University in Canada conferred on him an honorary doctorate of divinity.

October. The people of Oxford County, Dr. Mackay's home district, held a farewell gathering for him at the Methodist church in the county town of Woodstock, and gave him donations of 6,215 Canadian dollars to help him build a school after his return to Taiwan.

22 January. His only son, George William Mackay, was born in Tamsui.

26 July. The college building 理學堂大書院 was completed; in gratitude for the kindness of the people of Oxford County, it was given the English name Oxford College (牛津學堂). It opened on 14 September of the same year with eighteen new students enrolled, and was the birthplace of modern education in Taiwan.

3 March. The Tamsui Girls' School opened, the first school for girls in all Taiwan and the beginning of this school's girls' department.

5 August. The Sino-French War broke out. The churches of the north suffered great destruction, and church buildings were badly damaged.

3 July. The Chinese-Western Dictionary (中西字典) compiled by Dr. Mackay was printed in Shanghai.

6 September. Dr. Mackay and his whole family sailed aboard the steamer Empress of India for his second furlough; after his return he served as Moderator of the 20th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He also wrote the book From Far Formosa (published in 1895).

Japanese troops attacked Taiwan, and Taiwan became a Japanese colony. Dr. Mackay and his family arrived in Taiwan at the end of November.

Governor-General Nogi came to Tamsui to visit Dr. Mackay and viewed the museum room in his school, afterwards sending someone here to photograph it for the record.

31 May. Dr. Mackay was gravely ill; before the end he even rang the bell in the middle of the night to call the students to class in the college. Unable to make a sound because of throat cancer, he wrote what he meant on the blackboard, until the students, unable to bear it, helped him back to his bed.

2 June. At four in the afternoon Dr. Mackay died of his illness in Tamsui; three days later, on the 5th, he was buried in the Mackay family cemetery.

9 May. The Presbyterian Church in northern Taiwan submitted a proposal to the mother church in Canada concerning girls' education for the new age and the founding of a middle school.

The Tamsui Girls' School resumed teaching in the buildings of the former girls' school, with Miss Janne Kinney as its first principal. This was the beginning of this school's secondary education for girls.

The buildings of the Tamsui Women's School opened and came into use. It took in married women who had missed their schooling, and was the forerunner of women's education and of care for disadvantaged women in Taiwan. Miss Hannah Connell was its first principal.

4 December. Having completed his studies, Dr. Mackay's only son George William Mackay was appointed a missionary by the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and returned to Taiwan with his newly married wife, the elementary school teacher Jean Ross, to prepare for a formal middle school in Taiwan.

9 March. Official permission to found the school was obtained from the Japanese government. This day was also the anniversary of the Reverend Mackay's landing at Tamsui and founding of a school 42 years earlier, and was later fixed as the school's Foundation Day. On 1 April the Tamsui Middle School formally opened at Oxford College, with George William Mackay as its first principal.

The new buildings of the Tamsui Girls' School were completed and came into use with the opening of term on 1 June, and the school was renamed the Tamsui Girls' High School. Those buildings were used as classrooms and dormitories by this school's girls' department right up to 1999.

February. In response to new regulations of the Japanese government, this school's boys' and girls' departments were renamed the Private Tamsui Middle School and the Private Tamsui Girls' Institute respectively.

May. The gymnasium of Tamsui Middle School was completed and came into use. The first rugby team in all Taiwan, formed by Chen Ching-chung (陳清忠) — the Tamsui Middle School rugby team — was founded.

The Octagonal Tower, the new building of Tamsui Middle School, was completed; on 1 June the students moved to the new site for their classes, and have remained there to this day.

November. After several years of pressure from the Japanese government's imperialisation education policy, the boys' and girls' schools were forced to hand over their management to a foundation organised by the Japanese.

Under the determined management of the Japanese principal Arisaka Issei, official accreditation was obtained from the Japanese government, and this school's boys' and girls' schools were renamed the Private Tamsui Middle School and the Private Tamsui Girls' High School respectively.

Autumn. In keeping with what both parties had agreed at the time of the transfer, the Japanese school authorities built the Dr. Mackay Memorial Library and erected a bronze statue of Dr. Mackay.

The Presbyterian Church in northern Taiwan again established the Girls' Higher Department of the Taipei Theological School, within the missionary residence in Tamsui. In May of the following year it moved to Miyamae-chō, Shuanglian, Taipei, and was afterwards renamed the Taipei Miyamae Girls' School.

Japan surrendered, and the three schools — Tamsui Middle School, Tamsui Girls' High School and Taipei Miyamae Girls' School — returned to the Presbyterian Church in northern Taiwan.

16 April. The boys' and girls' schools merged and, under the new regulations, were renamed the Private Tamkang Middle School, divided into a boys' department and a girls' department. In September the former Miyamae Girls' School, by then renamed the Private Chungshan Girls' Middle School, was also incorporated into the girls' department of Tamkang Middle School.

July. The boys' and girls' departments were run separately, and the girls' department was renamed the Private Chun-te Girls' Middle School.

July. The music department of Chun-te Girls' Middle School was expanded into an arts supplementary school, divided into four departments — music, fine art, home economics and early childhood care — the earliest specialised middle school in Taiwan. The Chun-te Kindergarten was attached to it in the same year.

6 October. The boys' and girls' schools formally merged as the Private Tamkang Middle School, with Chen Su-ti (陳泗治) as the first principal after the merger.

March. The boys' dormitory was completed and came into use.

20 July. Dr. George William Mackay, founder of Tamkang Middle School, died of illness and was buried in the Mackay family cemetery on the Tamkang campus.

9 March. This school's main chapel and religious activities centre was completed and came into use.

May. The school took the name Private Tamkang Senior High School, which it bears to this day.

Meikei Gakuen High School of Japan visited, opening Tamkang's international exchange. Schools in Japan, the Philippines, Canada, Korea and other countries afterwards became sister schools of this school one after another.

1 September. The girls' classroom building (today the first-year senior high building) was completed and came into use at the start of the new term.

August. Music and fine art classes were established. This was the beginning of the school's development along diverse lines.

This school established a comprehensive high school. Besides the academic programmes in the sciences and in social studies, there were programmes in information technology, commercial art, early childhood care and business economics, as well as foreign language programmes in English and Japanese, in order to carry out this school's educational aim of teaching according to ability and developing each student's aptitude.

4 March. The Integrated Teaching Building was completed and formally came into use. It was this school's flagship construction as it crossed into the twenty-first century.

27 June. Principal Yao Tsung-jung (姚聰榮) led a tug-of-war team of teachers and students to Canada in search of the school's roots, and helped Tamsui Township and Oxford County become sister municipalities. Besides calling on Woodstock City Hall and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, they met four of Dr. Mackay's grandchildren. The visit was moreover this school's leading step towards internationalisation and a wider field of education.

2 June. On the centenary of Dr. Mackay's death, the Directorate General of Posts issued a commemorative stamp, and a series of commemorative events was held in Taiwan. Dr. John Mackay (偕約翰), of the third generation of the Mackay family, returned to Tamkang Middle School to take part in the memorial events.

15 December. The Chun-te Kindergarten buildings and early childhood care classrooms, converted from the girls' gymnasium built in 1925, were completed and came into use, forming the 'Tamkang Early Childhood Care' teaching campus. It was the first of this school's historic buildings to be reborn from the fire.

March. The George William Mackay Memorial Park was completed; the History Gallery, the Taiwan Rural Life Museum, the practice shop Roots Garden and the indigenous slate house within the park all opened formally on the same day, unveiled in person by George William Mackay's third daughter, Ma-lieh Mackay (偕瑪烈).

August. This school strengthened bilingual teaching, bringing in foreign teachers and adopting streamed English classes.

March. This school marked the 80th anniversary of rugby, and the monument to the first kick-off of rugby in Taiwan was completed.

March. To mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of this school's boys' middle school department, the Tan Chung Garden (淡中園) and the Puting Bell Tower were completed, and President Lee Teng-hui unveiled them and rang the bell.

February. This school built a climbing tower to promote adventure education.

March. The 80th anniversary of the completion of the Octagonal Tower was celebrated with Foundation Day commemorative events.

June. At the first growth camp, second-year senior high students went rafting on the Laonong River in Kaohsiung, changing the former form of the graduation trip.

March. On the 90th anniversary of the building of the Chun-te Building, the premises of the former girls' department, a thanksgiving service was held.

March. On the 60th anniversary of Taiwan's 228 Incident, this school erected the Puting 228 Memorial to those who suffered, in remembrance of the teachers who died for the school.

March. An elementary department was founded, and the former Chun-te Building (the Shan Building) was renovated as its premises.

March. The Arts Building and the heated swimming pool were completed and came into use.

4 June. The elementary department's newly built classroom building, Chun-te Fort (純德堡), was completed and came into use.

March. A series of events celebrating the centenary of the founding of Tamsui Middle School was held.

Reconstruction work began on the woodland classroom (the Banyan and Maple Pavilion).

The Humanities and Social Sciences class was launched, rooted deeply in the local community and looking out to the world through a vision of 'care'.