Focal Point The first Chinese student to graduate from an American university

What to know: This statue of Yung Wing (1828-1912), the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university, was donated to Sterling Library by his home city of Zhuhai, China. It commemorates the 150th anniversary of his graduation from Yale College in 1854.

As a Yale student, Yung donated a translation of the Chinese historical novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” to the Brothers in Unity, a campus literary and debate society, for which he also served as an assistant librarian. In 1877, he made a larger donation to Sterling Library — over 1,200 books from his personal collection. These volumes established Yale’s Chinese Collection, the first of its kind at an American university.

From the expert: “Due to Yung’s strong recommendation, Yale established the first professorship in Chinese studies in the United States in 1877,” says Michael Meng, head of Yale’s Asian Studies Group and librarian for Chinese Studies. “His generous donations laid the foundation for the world-renowned East Asia Library at Sterling and Yale’s global reputation for Chinese studies.”

An ambassador for exchange: Yung went on to become a diplomat and, inspired by his time at Yale, founded the Chinese Educational Mission, which connected Chinese scholars with educational opportunities in the United States. Several of these students studied at Yale — including Zhan Tianyou, who is known as the father of China’s railroads.