Courtesy Cornell University Library/Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections

An early portrait of Hu Shih.

One hundred years ago, a small group of Chinese students changed the history of Cornell University Library.

In December 1911, nine students from four classes donated about 300 volumes to the library. About 200 of them were literature, classics and sacred writings; about 100 were history books, written in English and Chinese.

Hu Shih, Class of 1914, spearheaded the donation. He went on to become China's ambassador to the United States and a representative to the United Nations -- and "the most famous Cornell alumnus Americans have never heard of," according to University Archivist Elaine Engst -- but at the time of the donation, he was simply a Cornell sophomore. Along with the other students, Hu Shih donated books he had brought with him from China, on a monthlong journey by ship, to provide for the future of Chinese study at Cornell.

"These students were thinking about what a great library at a great university represented and what it needed to have to support a Chinese program," Engst said. "These books were meaningful to them, too, but they wanted to provide for the future of their library. It was a beautiful, important, personal gift they gave us."

The donated books weren't rare or valuable, but they were the kind of books that a student would need, Engst said. The library would have had very few Chinese-language books at that time; Cornell offered its first Chinese language course in 1879 but was not teaching Chinese when Hu Shih was a student; the courses resumed decades later.

Very little was added to the students' donation until 1918, when the library received the Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia. Hu Shih's Chinese books were incorporated into Wason, which included 9,500 volumes and endowment funds.

Wason's first curator, Gussie Gaskill, began buying Chinese books extensively and planned for the carefully considered development of the Chinese collection. Today, Wason's Chinese section includes more than 330,000 items -- one of the largest segments of the collection. Some of the most notable pieces include five manuscript volumes of the Encyclopedia Maxima (dated 1547) and the famous Jade Book (1661) of Emperor Kangxi.

Hu Shih's own papers also reside in the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. After graduating from Cornell, Hu Shih revolutionized the Chinese language by initiating a movement to change the tradition of literary writing from a strict classical style to a more modern, vernacular style. The development allowed people to communicate more easily and spread new ideas.

The library's collection of his papers includes writings by and about Hu Shih, correspondence, photographs, manuscripts and news clippings. It also boasts an original copy of a biographical sketch of Ezra Cornell in Chinese, which Hu Shih wrote in 1911 and published in 1915 in Chinese Students Quarterly.

"Almost every Chinese visitor who comes to Cornell wants to see the Hu Shih collection, and it's part of almost every tour the library gives to Chinese guests," Engst said.

In October 1911, Hu Shih wrote a letter to University Librarian George Harris offering the original 300-volume donation: "As long as Cornell has Chinese students, this collection, I believe, will increase every year … . It is our great pleasure to see the library of this university become one of the greatest college libraries in America; and it is also our duty to do our best to help the library grow."

Gwen Glazer is the staff writer/editor for Cornell University Library.