The Chinese reformer and scholar Wang T'ao (1828-1897) was a pioneer of modern journalism in China and one of the earliest advocates of economic and political modernization.

On Nov. 10, 1828, Wang T'ao was born in Kiangsu Province, near the city of Soochow. Wang endeavored in his youth to become a scholar, like his father, and he studied the Confucian classics in preparation for the civil service examinations. He successfully completed the first examination in 1845, but he failed in the second, or provincial, examination the following year. This was his last attempt to find a career in the state bureaucracy.

In 1848 Wang went to Shanghai, where he met several foreign missionaries, one of whom invited him in 1849 to become Chinese editor in the publishing operations of the London Missionary Society. He remained in this position until 1862, when he had to flee Shanghai after being accused of passing information to the...