Eva Dykes Spicer (1898–1974), who, under the auspices of the London Missionary Society, taught at Ginling College from 1923 to 1951. Spicer was one of the very few non-Americans on the foreign faculty at Ginling. Spicer’s background was not that of a typical missionary. Daughter of a solidly middle-class, even wealthy, family, she was educated at socially elite and expensive private schools. In 1917 she went to Oxford, where she studied history at Somerville College. At the university, she was an active member of the Student Christian Movement and, in her final year, was elected Senior Student of her college. Almost immediately after graduating in 1920, she wrote to the secretary of the LMS, inquiring about opportunities for missionary service. After teacher training at the London Day Training College, later the Institute of Education, and a spell at Mansfield College, where she took courses in pastoral and teaching work, she left for China in August 1923. She had been appointed to teach religious studies and to assist in directing religious activities at Ginling College in Nanking.