Peking on this subject he was appointed a member of a committee to draft regulations for a nationwide school system. Recommendations were presented to the throne in January 1904. Although the accompanying memorial asserted that various kinds of school systems had been studied, the plan was obviously based on the Japanese model. In order to facilitate the growth of the new school system, Chang supported the abolition of the time-honored civil service examinations, which was finally decreed in 1905. In 1904, after Chang returned to Wuchang from Peking, he successfully opposed both the land tax plan of Sir Robert Hart (赫德, 1835–1911) and the gold exchange standard plan for currency of J. W. Jenks (精琪, 1856–1929). In 1906 he was active in the movement which resulted in the edict announcing that the sacrifices to Confucius should be placed on equality with those to Heaven and Earth. He also established in 1907 a school to study only the Chinese classics, history, and literature to balance the trend in the modern schools where these subjects were neglected. These acts were viewed by many as a final repudiation by Chang of his reforming zeal, but actually were entirely consistant with his lifelong emphasis on Confucianism as the heart of Chinese civilization.
In 1907 Chang's long career as a provincial official ended. He was called to the capital and made Grand Secretary and Grand Councillor. He was given special charge of supervising the new Ministry of Education. His last important post was as superintendent-general of the sadly confused affairs of the Canton-Hankow Railway. Complicated negotiations for the financing of the line led to an agreement in June 1909 between Chang and British, French and German capitalists, But the insistence of the United States that its bankers have a share in the loan re-opened the question, and at the time of Chang's death discussions were under way for a four-power agreement. The deaths of the emperor and the Empress Dowager in November 1908 and the subsequent dismissal by the Prince Regent of such able officials as Yüan Shih-k'ai (see under Yüan Chia-san) and Tuan-fang [q. v.] left Chang as the most eminent figure in the declining Manchu régime. However he was already exhausted by a long and strenuous career and died on October 4, 1909. He was canonized as Wên-hsiang 文襄.
Though an opportunist on occasion, Chang was in many respects an embodiment of the Confucian ideal in official life. He was benevolent toward his subordinates and to the populations under his charge. He was frugal and honest in financial matters, and died a poor man in a period of increasing official corruption. He was noted for his phenomenal memory, for his mastery of the Confucian classics, and for his brilliant literary style which could carry conviction even when the content was rather thin. In his effort to protect the Confucian core of Chinese life by an armor of occidental devices he often initiated projects the technical details and implications of which he knew little. But enough of his innovations took root to give real substance to his reputation as a pioneer in the modernization of Chinese economic life. In 1928 his collected papers were issued in 229 chüan, under the title 張文襄公全集 Chang Wên-hsiang kung ch'üan-chi. It contains, among other biographical material, a number of sketches of his life as scholar and statesman, entitled 抱氷堂弟子記 Pao-ping t'ang ti-tzŭ chi, so named after a hall, Pao-ping t'ang, erected in Wuchang by his subordinates after he left there in 1907. In his last days Chang himself used the hao, Pao-ping lao-jên (老人).
Chang Chih-tung's son, Chang Ch'üan 張權 (T. 君立, H. 聖可, 1859–1930), was a chin-shih of 1898 who served as a secretary in the Chinese Legation at Washington from 1904 to 1906.
[1/443/3a; 2/64/36b; 10/7/1a; 6/2/8b; 26/4/23a; Nan-p'i hsien chih (1932) 8/15a, 51a, 62b, 10/2a; 湖北通志 Hupeh t'ung-chih (1921) 54/1a–22b, 121/35a; 東方雜誌 Tung-fang tsa-chih, Sixth Year, nos. 10, 11; Bland, J. O. P., Li Hung-chang (1917) p. 191; Bland, J. O. P. and Backhouse, E., China Under the Empress Dowager (1910) pp. 140–41, 220, 504–05; Kann, E., The Currencies of China (1926), pp. 315–16, 388; Kent, P. H., Railway Enterprise in China (1907), pp. 32–34, 91–92, 120; Morse, H. B., The International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1910–1918) II, ch. XVI, III, p. 417; Steiger, G. N., China and the Occident (1927) pp. 246, 248; China's Only Hope (1900), translation by S. I. Woodbridge of the Ch'üan-hsüeh p'ien; Wagel, S., Chinese Currency and Banking (1915), pp. 55–57, 102–06; Yung Wing (see under Jung Hung), My Life in China and America (1909), pp. 225–26; Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, China No. 1 (1899), China No. 3 (1900), China No. 1 (1901), passim; United States Foreign Relations, 1905, pp. 124–35, 1909,
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