During the Boxer Rebellion, Jingshi University was closed for two years. When the Republic of China was founded in 1911, it became Beijing University. It went through several school presidents, none of them very memorable. It was only in 1916, when Tsai Yuan-pei took over as school president, that this university began to take center stage in the drama of history.
庚子拳亂，大學堂停課兩年，到一九一二年民國肇造，改制為北京大學，前後經歷過幾任校長，但沒有多少人記得他們的名字，一直到一九一七年，蔡元培出任校長，這個學校才站在歷史舞台的中央。