The harsh realities of the Opium Wars, the unequal treaties, and the mid-century mass uprisings of the Taiping Rebellion caused Qing officials to recognize the need to strengthen China.
[1] The Tongzhi Restoration was a direct result of the Self-Strengthening Movement led by the statesmen Zeng Guofan (who became viceroy) and Li Hongzhang to revitalize government and improve cultural and economic conditions.
Foreign-language schools were established in 1862 in English and French, but enrollment was quite small because ambitious young men preferred to immerse themselves in preparation for the examination on Confucianism.
Their products performed very poorly in wars against European powers, but did give the government superior firepower against peasant uprisings.
There was no attempt to exploit Western ideas or methods, and so it "barely scratched the surface of modernization, without achieving a breakthrough in industrialization."