Christopher J. Dawe is the principal of the Hurtwood House International School in Qingdao, China and is a PhD candidate at University College London, where he studies the history of Sino-American educational exchanges.

The effects of rapid deforestation shocked China in the summer of 1917 when massive flooding impacted over ten thousand villages. Torrential rains inundated an area devoid of trees whose roots once absorbed excess rainfall. Daoyang Ling, an early Chinese environmentalist and a graduate of two New England colleges, wrote a report on the flooding, which was widely reprinted in American newspapers of the time. According to Ling’s firsthand account, the effects of this flooding were devastating: thousands died, and over five million were displaced or starving.

Ling was among hundreds of Chinese students educated in the United States in the first decades of the last century. Many, such as Wellington Koo and H. H. Kung, would become well-known and highly influential politicians, business leaders, financiers, and industrialists in the Republic of China. Daoyang Ling, while not forgotten, does not carry nearly the same fame. This is a shame because he and the New England education he acquired have had a lasting impact. After all, on March 12, China annually celebrates Zhíshù Jié or Arbor Day, an American holiday that Ling transplanted to his native land.

Ling arrived in New England in 1910 to study at the Massachusetts Agricultural College (today’s UMass Amherst) and, according to the college yearbook, established himself as a popular student with “many friends.” In a 1913 article written for the Chinese Students’ Monthly, Ling encouraged other Chinese students to get into “the full swing of American life” and avoid being “mere grinds.” This he did with relish: as an undergraduate, he was well-known for his athletic and academic achievements. Indeed, the April 30, 1912 edition of the Agricultural College’s College Signal featured Ling in two front page articles — one for taking the first round of an oratorical competition and the second for winning a doubles tennis match. The paper commented that he played his “usual brilliant game.”

Athletics aside, Ling was a top student, and the Boston Globe noted that he was one of the “six best scholars elected to the Phi Kappa Phi Society.” After graduating from the Agricultural College, he continued his New England education and moved to New Haven to learn conservation techniques at Yale University. Environmental conservation was a new movement in the United States, and Yale’s Forest School had only begun in 1900, with an endowment from the family of Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the United States Forestry Service.

After graduating from Yale, Ling returned to China, a nation whose forests had been ravaged by wars and deforestation. Ling used lessons learned in New England to help further China’s nascent conservation movement, lobbying President Sun Yat-sen to enact environmental protections. This included helping to draft China’s first forest protection law and ensuring that forest conservation was a part of the Republic’s national strategy.

Ling recognized the need for mass citizen participation and wrote several influential books on forestry for the population at large. Moreover, he was one of the key proponents of the creation of China’s Arbor Day. Of course, people from every nation have recognized the importance of planting trees and maintaining forests. The idea, however, of setting aside a day each year to encourage citizens to plant trees was uniquely American in origin.

The first Arbor Day originated with newspaper editor J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska in 1872; by the 1880s, Arbor Day had become a fixture in schools across America. Today, the Arbor Day Foundation reports that it is celebrated in all fifty states. Ling introduced the holiday to China, helping establish a day during the Qingming Festival in April as the Chinese Arbor Day. Following the death of Sun Yat-sen, the date was fixed as March 12, a way to commemorate the Father of the Chinese Republic with a constant renewal of sylvan growth.

Following the Chinese Civil War, the holiday fell into disuse in mainland China. In 1979, however, the “Resolution on the Unfolding of a Nationwide Voluntary Tree-planting Campaign” was introduced, and Arbor Day began again on March 12. The government reaffirmed the importance of reforestation and conservation with the 2019 “Forest Law of the People’s Republic,” and the day is now a popular date for newly married couples in China to plant trees.

Ling Daoyang is a powerful example of the impact of American education on international students who return to their homes eager to improve their nations. Ling’s time studying conservation and forestry techniques in New England gave him skills and inspiration to help establish China’s first Arbor Day; a century later, this holiday, with its American origins, is still celebrated in China.

China’s Arbor Day and reforestation efforts continue Ling’s conservation vision, which developed during his time as an international student. Millions of trees have been planted because of his efforts, showing the lasting impact that can come through open educational exchanges. Ling Daoyang represents the immense potential that comes when America and our schools eagerly welcome students worldwide.