Nanjing University a center of Confucian thought and humanistic scholarship. During this period, Nanjing University was known as the foremost "Oriental Education Centre" and recognized as an academic and cultural exchange centre for east and west. Many scholars visited and instructed there, including the American educationist Paul Monroe, W. H. Kilpatrick, E. L. Thorndike, philosopher John Dewey, British philosopher Bertrand Russell, German philosopher Hans Driesch and the Indian (also Bengali) poet Rabindranath Tagore. The university became the capital national university after Nanking was made the capital by Nationalist Government, initially renamed National Dyisyi Chungshan University (or called National Nanking Chungshan University) in
John Fuller Russell John Fuller Russell John Fuller Russell (1814–1884), was a priest in the Church of England, a writer, mostly on theological subjects, especially religious ritual, and a notable art collector. He was a member of the committee of the Ecclesiological Society and had close connections to the High Church Oxford Movement. Russell was born on 18 August 1813, the son of Thomas Russell, a Congregationalist minister, whose surname was originally Cloutt. Arthur Tozer Russell was his brother. He was educated at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, where he read civil law. He became one of the first sympathisers with the Oxford movement at