Peiyang University site

The Peiyang University site (北洋大学堂旧址) is the surviving ground of the school founded in October 1895, after Sheng Xuanhuai memorialised the throne, as China's first state-run higher school. It opened on 18 October 1895 on the site of the former Bowen College, with more than a thousand applicants and only a dozen admitted; its motto was seeking truth from facts. In September 1902 Yuan Shikai handed over the buildings of the Xigu arsenal and the school resumed classes there in April 1903. Three buildings survive inside the campus of Hebei University of Technology: the Tuancheng, the South Building and the North Building. The site was upgraded to a national key protected cultural relic in May 2013.