Mei Yiqi

Also known as Yue Han

Mei Yiqi, courtesy name Yuehan, came from Tianjin and studied at the Nankai school before winning a place in 1909 among the first Boxer Indemnity scholars sent to America. He graduated in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1914. From 1915 he taught physics at Tsinghua College, became its dean in 1926, and in 1931 was appointed president of National Tsinghua University, telling students at his inauguration that a university is made by great teachers, not great buildings. During the war with Japan, when Tsinghua, Peking University and Nankai merged in Kunming as Southwest Associated University, he ran it as a standing committee member. In 1955 he set up a Tsinghua institute of nuclear science at Hsinchu, the origin of National Tsing Hua University there, and from 1958 he was also minister of education. He died in Taipei in May 1962 and was buried in the Mei Garden on the Hsinchu campus.