Nankai was originally a private school, featuring a western-style college-preparatory curricula instead of a traditional Confucian curriculum.

[1] Before his work at Nankai, Yan Xiu was an intellectual with a strong understanding of traditional Chinese culture who had held positions at the prestigious Hanlin Academy earlier in his career, and in both China's provincial and central governments.

The difficulties that confronted China in the late nineteenth century led Yan to become interested in Western and Japanese models of education, to which he attributed the contemporary strength of the West and Japan.

Yan's experiences working within the Chinese bureaucracy led him to believe that only the most progressive reforms could save China from further decline.

After the Qing dynasty was abolished in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, Yan was offered several high-level government positions, but refused them all in preference to devoting his time and energy to the establishment of Nankai.

By the time of his appointment, Zhang had already gained a reputation as a progressive modernist, advocating the inclusion of Western sciences and physical exercise into the Chinese curriculum.

After his appointment as Nankai's principle, Zhang gained a reputation for pioneering educational methods that would be widely emulated throughout China within his lifetime.

[1] After his appointment as principle, Zhang Boling implemented a synthesis of Japanese and American methods that were grounded in traditional Chinese concepts of self-cultivation.

Zhou's skill in literature and composition won him several awards and scholarships, and caught the attention of Nankai's founder, Yan Xiu.

Zhang's teachings of gong and neng had been so deeply ingrained in Zhou that he left the school with a great desire to pursue public service, and to acquire the skills necessary to do so.

[5] Several other national leaders were also graduates from the school, including another Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, several university presidents, and more than sixty academicians.

Since established in 2001, seven recipients of the annual Top National Scientist Awards were Nankai High School graduates, including Liu Dongsheng (2003), Ye Duzheng (2005), Wu Liangyong (2011) and Zhang Cunhao (2013).