Kan En Vong (born 1899), also known as Grace Kan or Grace Sweet, was a Chinese kindergarten educator.

Early life

Kan was a little girl in Hangzhou when she joined the household of American Baptist missionaries Rev. and Mrs. William S. Sweet; it was said that she was sold by her biological father, an

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addict. Later the Rev. A. E. Harris of Philadelphia was described as her foster father. Kan En Vong graduated from high school and trained as a kindergarten teacher under American missionary teacher Helen Rawlings in Hangzhou. Kan later attended

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

in the United States, to study music and education. She graduated from Oberlin in 1922.

Career

Kan was superintendent of the Union High School kindergarten in Hangzhou. In 1923, Vong taught at a Baptist missionary kindergarten in

Shantou Shantou, alternately romanized as Swatow and sometimes known as Santow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern coast of Guangdong, China, with a total population of 5,502,031 as of the 2020 census (5,391,028 in 2010) and an administrative ...

. In 1921 Kan spoke about China at the Women's American Foreign Baptist Missionary Society gatherings in 1921 in Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York, and lectured in other American and Canadian cities. "Our children sing songs and play games, just as children of your country do. But I don't think American children can possibly enjoy their work as Chinese youngsters do," she told audiences. "The idea is so new in China that as first the mothers did not know what to make of it. The children come two hours early they are so eager to get to the kindergarten."

Personal life

She was engaged to a Chinese student at Columbia University in 1921. She later married Lawrence Liu.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kan En Vong Educators from Hangzhou Chinese Baptists Oberlin College alumni 1899 births Year of death missing Chinese schoolteachers Heads of schools in China