Who's Who in China (3rd edition)/Wang Shih-cheng

Mr. S. C. Wang

王世徵字義菜

(Wang Shih-cheng)

Mr. S. C. Wang was born at Ming-hou Hsien, Fukien province, in 1873. In his young days he attended the regular Confucian school and studied in the Nanyang College in a Special Class of faculty students in 1901. He became a Metropolitan graduate in 1920 and then was admitted to the Hanlin Academy. After having made the necessary preparations at that Academy, he went to England in 1904. He studied Law at Lincoln's Inn and was admitted as a Barrister-at-Law. In 1907 he returned to China. Then he began his official career. Under the Ching Regime he was legal advisor to the Board of Communications and the Board of Navy. He was concurrently a member of the Board of Education and a compiler of the Law Bureau in the Cabinet. After the establishment of the Republic in 1912, Mr. Wang became Secretary to President Yuan Shih-kai. In that capacity he was the author of many of the regislative papers promulgated by Yuan Shih-kai. In March 1914 he was appointed to be concurrently a member of the Conference called by Yuan Shih-kai purposely to revise the Provisional Constitution. In May 1914 Yuan created his Advisory Council and Mr. Wang became a member of it. In 1915 he had to leave Yuan's secretariat because he was unwilling to support Yuan's monarchical movement. However, with great reluctance, he translated Dr. Goodnow's famous article advocating a limited monarchy for China qualifications. For sometime Mr. Wang lived in retirement and devoted his leisure time to writing on current topics for the press. During 1917-18 he was editor of the Kung Yen Pao, the best known daily paper at Peking at that time. He was also managing editor of the Peking Daily News, an English daily paper. In August 1918 he became a Senator of the New Parliament, created by the Anfu Ministry. At the same time he was advisor to the Cabinet and the Ministry of Communications. After the dissolution of the New Parliament in 1920, he lived in a quiet life until the spring of 1922 when he organized the Sheng Pao (Star) with several friends in Peking with himself as editor-in-chief. His literary style as displayed in the editorials of this paper is highly admired by his contemporaries and the information his paper contains every day is always first hand.