K'uang Fu-cho (1869-October 1938), known as Fong Sec, chief editor of the English department of the Commerical Press (1908-29), noted for his English-language textbooks. He won almost comparable distinction as a leader in Christian, civic, and philanthropic activities in Shanghai. Born into a peasant family in the Sunning (Hsinning, later Toishan) district of Kwangtung, Fong Sec began his primary education at the age of eight in a village school. Four years later he decided to join an uncle who had gone to the United States to work on railroad construction crews. On his first trip to Shanghai Fong Sec failed to secure passage, but the following year he was successful. In 1882, at the age of 1 3, he found himself a friendless immigrant in San Francisco at a time when anti-Chinese sentiment on the West Coast of the United States was high. Exclusion laws barring Chinese immigrants had been passed in 1881, but had not been enforced.

Through his uncle's efforts, Fong went to live with a family in Sacramento, California, where he worked for his maintenance and pocket money. He also studied English in a Chinese night school. Fong soon was befriended by Chin Toy, the pastor of a local Chinese mission, who converted him to Christianity and encouraged his interest in study and selfimprovement. Fong Sec joined the Salvation Army in 1889, at the age of 20. -For the next seven years he worked with the Salvation Army along the length of the West Coast, attracting attention as "a Chinese Christian speaking English.'" During the latter part of this period Fong, who had learned shorthand in night school, served as secretary to the chief officer of the Salv'ation Army on the West Coast. This position gave him a wide range of social contacts, rapidly improved his English, strengthened his selfassurance, and stirred his desire for further education.

In 1897 Fong met young Edwin Hahn, a student at Pomona College, to whom he confided his desire for formal education. Hahn, the son of a prominent Pasadena businessman, introduced Fong to Cyrus G. Baldwin, then the president of Pomona College, who arranged for him to enter a preparatory academy and to earn his way through school. (Fong named his first son "Baldwin" in recognition of all that Cyrus Baldwin had done for him.) After five years at Pomona, during which he completed high school and first-year college courses, Fong transferred to the University of California for three years of study, receiving his B.A. degree in 1905. He then went to New York, where he studied at Teachers College, Columbia University, and received an AI.A. in 1906. As Fong Sec prepared to return to China, Liang Ch'eng, then the Chinese minister at Washington, recomraended him as a teacher to the Kwangtung Provincial College at Canton. On arriving in Canton, Fong joined the staff of that college as professor of English in its school of foreign languages. After teaching for a year, he secured a government post at Peking and served for a year in the ministry of communications. In 1908 he resigned his post and moved to Shanghai. He soon was appointed chief editor of the English department of the Commercial Press, a post which he was to hold for 21 years.

The Commercial Press had been established in 1897 to meet the acute need for new textbooks throughout China. Because of the rapid transition from the traditional Chinese educational system to a modern curriculum incorporating new fields of Western knowledge, Chinese schools at all levels required large numbers of textbooks on a wide variety of subjects. Most of the new texts were in Chinese {see Chang Yuanchi). After a time, however, a significant number of English-language books were pub lished because English had become a required second language for advanced students in modern schools.

The Commercial Press was distinguished among the larger Chinese business firms in Shanghai by the fact that its founders were Protestant Christians. Many of the staff had received technical training in publishing in the Presbyterian and Methodist mission presses in Shanghai. In addition, they had grasped the importance of efficient business management. Fong See's long tenure at the Commercial Press coincided with the period of most rapid expansion in textbook publishing in republican China and with the development of branches of the Commercial Press in many cities. In addition to writing on problems of modern education in China, he prepared many English textbooks himself and supervised the production of others. During most of this period, Fong Sec and Chou Yueh-jan of the Chung Hwa Book Company, the chief competitor of the Commercial Press, were the most prominent writers of English textbooks in China.

Fong Sec also became a respected member of the Shanghai business and social community. He was active in many Christian, civic, and philanthropic organizations. He served on the national committee of the Y^ICA in China for 30 years, first as a member of its executive committee and later (1919-25) as its chairman. During these years, the YMCA grew rapidly in membership and in the variety of its activities. Fong also served as chairman of the Shanghai YMCA for more than ten years.

An enthusiastic Rotarian, Fong Sec became a director of Rotary International and succeeded C. T. Wang (W'ang Cheng-t'ing, q.v.) as governor of the district comprising China and Hong Kong. In 1922 he was a delegate to an international Rotary convention held at Los Angeles. While in the United States in 1922, he received an honorary LL.D. degree from Pomona College which had previously granted the degree to only two other men, the founder of the college and the president of the University of California. That summer, Fong Sec went to New York and took courses at Teachers College "to keep abreast of modern educational movement." Among the other civic and educational institutions in which Fong Sec was active and held positions of leadership were the China Christian Education Association, the Pan- Pacific Association, the Red Cross Society, the National Child Welfare Association, the Institute for the Chinese Blind, and the Chinese Mission to Lepers. He was a member of the boards of Shantung Christian University and the Nanyang Commerical Academy. He was also a member of the China Continuation Committee, later the National Christian Council, and an elder of the Cantonese Union Church in Shanghai. Fong Sec devoted much time and energv- to the direction of these many private organizations. Following his retirement from the Commercial Press in 1929, he devoted all of his attention to these activities. He died in October 1938 at the Dah Wha Hospital in Shanghai.