 In the late nineteenth century, in response to several military defeats against western powers, the government of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) sent several missions abroad to study western culture and institutions.Several members of the first Chinese diplomatic mission, which sold to the United States, England, France, and other countries from 1111 to 1870, recorded their views of western libraries, noting that they attracted a large number of readers.Journalist Liang Qichao (1873–1929), who became a prominent exiled intellectual after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, wrote about the Boston Public Library and the University of Chicago Library, praising their openness to the public and the virtue of readers who did not steal the books that had been lent to them.