Yu Jih-chang (25 November 1882-22 January 1936), known as David Yui, general secretary of the YMCA in China from 1916 to 1932. The son of a Christian minister in Hupeh, David Yui received his early education in the Chinese classics at Wuchang and his higher education at two mission institutions, Boone University at Wuchang and St. John's University at Shanghai. He received a B.A. degree from St. John's in 1905. In 1908 he went to the United States for graduate study in education at Harvard University, where he received his M.S. with honors in 1910, together with the Bowdoin prize for his essay "Schools in Old China." In the autumn of 1910 David Yui was appointed associate general secretary of the Chinese Student Christian Association in the United States, but illness in his family required him to return to China in November. His first appointment on his return to Wuchang was that of headmaster at the Boone School. He also served briefly as commissioner for foreign affairs in Hupeh province. In 1912 he was associate editor of the Peking Daily News, the semi-official organ of the republican government in Peking. He also became private secretary to Li Yuan-hung (q.v.), the first vice president of the new government at Peking and a fellow provincial from Hupeh. In 1913 Yui was appointed secretary of the lecture division of the national committee of the Young Men's Christian Association. He devoted the next two years to lecturing in major cities throughout China to promote interest in YMCA programs designed to extend modern education. At the same time he cooperated with Huang Yen-p'ei (q.v.) in establishing the influential Kiangsu provincial education association. When John R. Mott, founder and foremost leader of the international student Christian movement, visited China in 1913, Yui accompanied him on his speaking tour, sharing interpreting duties with Ch'eng Ching-yi (q.v.). In 1915, at the invitation of Chang Chien (q.v.), then minister of agriculture and commerce in the Peking government, Yui served as adviser and honorary secretary to a Chinese trade commission touring the United States. For almost two months (May-June) the commission visited principal centers throughout the country under the auspices of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Pacific Coast. During the first five years of his career in China, David Yui demonstrated abilities which led to his appointment in 1916 to the highest administrative post in the Chinese YMCA. After four years as secretary of the lecture division and as acting head of the education division, he became, at the age of 34, acting general secretary of the national committee of the YMCA. He soon advanced to the post of general secretary, succeeding C. T. Wang (Wang Cheng-t'ing, q.v.). He held that post for the remaining 16 years of his active career. In the 1920's and the early 1930's the YMCA developed rapidly as it responded to abrupt and radical changes in Chinese life. At the time of the Washington Conference of 1921, the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Educational Associations organized a league of foreign relations to send two observers to the meeting. The league commissioned David Yui and Chiang Monlin (Chiang Meng-lin, q.v.), who left Shanghai on 15 October 1921 as "citizens' representatives" to ensure that Chinese interests were adequately interpreted and considered. Yui and Chiang were particularly involved in the protracted negotiations over the disposition of the Kiaochow-Tsinan railway in Shantung. Despite the active opposition of the Chinese premier at Peking, Liang Shih-i (q.v.), the presence of David Yui and Chiang Monlin encouraged the official Chinese delegation, headed by Sao-ke Alfred Sze (Shih Chao-chi, q.v.), to accept the Japanese proposal that China redeem the railway with funds to be raised in China. David Yui, aware of the divided counsel at Peking and of the Chinese government's disinclination to enter into such a commitment, was confident that private groups within China, given adequate leadership, could guarantee the necessary funds. Thus the task of raising the equivalent of ¥40 million fell largely to him. He organized a society for the redemption of the Shantung railway and personally administered its fund-raising drive. The full amount, in Chinese government treasury notes, was remitted to Japan in 1922. When the National Christian Council of China was organized in 1922, David Yui was elected chairman. He continued to hold this position, in addition to his YMCA duties, for the next ten years. At the same time, he served as an officer of the World Student Christian Federation. In June 1923, when he was just over 40, Yui's health deteriorated to such an extent that he was obliged to restrict the pace of his work drastically. Nevertheless, he continued to bear heavy responsibilities, and his influence bore directly upon many activities of international significance. As a founder and chairman of the Institute of Pacific Relations in China, he led the Chinese delegation to the second international conference of the I PR at Honolulu in 1927, where, according to the North China Herald, "the Chinese delegation dominated all others. Dr. David Yui was the outstanding personality of the Conference. He developed such a keen interest in Chinese affairs that many of the delegates took a new view of the Far Eastern situation." In 1928 he was a prominent figure at the Jerusalem conference of the International Missionary Council. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, David Yui undertook a special mission to the United States in 1932 in an attempt to arouse American support for China. While in Washington for conferences with Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on 4 January 1933. After resting for a few months in the United States, Yui returned to Shanghai in August 1933, where he remained, largely incapacitated, until his death in January 1936.

Two major principles underlay David Yui's philosophy of life and work. He believed that individual character was the key to the solution of national problems. He thought that adequate and widespread programs aimed at individual character development among Chinese youth a generation earlier would have greatly aided the Chinese nation as he knew it in the republican period. "National salvation through the development of individual integrity" (jen-ko chiu-kuo), a phrase attributed to David Yui, gained wide acceptance in China during the 1920's and 1930's. Yui's second basic principle was that the YMCA was an instrument for the development and strengthening of China, not an end in itself. Throughout his career in the YMCA, he promoted training in citizenship for all age groups. In the early 1920's, when there was general skepticism of the possibility of extending literacy on a mass basis, David Yui invited James Yen (Yen Yang-ch'u, q.v.) to join his staff and provided both personal encouragement and congenial working conditions while Yen planned a long-range program to attack the problem of illiteracy in China. David Yui's deliberate commitment to the ideal of the YMCA as a service organization devoted to the national good of modern China led him to decline many offers of important posts in government, education, business, and banking. Significantly, his active career was spent in directing an organization whose program included an explicit definition ofmoral principles and in which his contribution to the welfare of individuals and of China depended solely upon the force of personal influence and persuasion.