Yan Xiu was no revolutionary. A classically trained Confucian scholar who had served in the prestigious Hanlin Academy, he understood traditional Chinese culture deeply. But the humiliations of the late nineteenth century convinced him that only the most progressive reforms could prevent China's further decline. In 1904, he founded Nankai as a private boarding school that replaced the Confucian classics with Western-style college-preparatory subjects. The following year, Yan joined a group of reformers who petitioned the Qing government to abolish the imperial examination system entirely. When the dynasty fell in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Yan refused every government position offered to him. He had already chosen his cause: Nankai. By 1919, the school had spawned Nankai University, which would become one of China's most prestigious institutions.

Zhang Boling, who ran the school's daily operations, was an unusual figure in Chinese education. He ate meals with his students. He participated in their physical exercises. He personally instructed them in hygiene. In an era when teachers kept a formal distance from their pupils, Zhang broke every convention, modelling the school on British boarding school discipline while infusing it with his own belief that physical activity was essential to intellectual development. He worked to overturn traditional Chinese contempt for manual labor and exercise, enforcing strict daily schedules of activity alongside rigorous academics. His close relationship with students was remarked upon as extraordinary, and many of his graduates reportedly carried deep admiration for him throughout their lives.

The alumni list borders on the absurd. Zhou Enlai, premier of China from 1949 to 1976. Wen Jiabao, premier from 2003 to 2013. Mei Yiqi, president of Tsinghua University. Wu Dayou and Qian Siliang, successive presidents of Academia Sinica. Zhu Guangya, the first president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. More than sixty academicians. Seven recipients of China's Top National Scientist Award since the prize was established in 2001. The dramatist Cao Yu, the poet Mu Dan, and the playwright Lao She all had connections to Nankai as students or faculty. Between 1998 and 2005 alone, four Nankai students won gold medals at the International Physics Olympiad, with additional golds in mathematics, chemistry, biology, and informatics.

Today Nankai is a public school, and its reputation rests largely on its extraordinary success in preparing students for the Gaokao, China's National College Entrance Examination. Graduates regularly enter the country's top universities and leading institutions worldwide. The main campus still occupies its site at 22 Nankai 4th Road in Nankai District, though two additional campuses have opened in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City and Haihe Jiaoyu Yuanqu. A centennial monument on campus marks the school's passage from Yan Xiu's gamble on modernity to its present status as one of the most celebrated secondary schools in China. What began as one man's conviction that education could rescue a failing empire has become a living institution that continues to shape the nation's leadership.