Chapter 18: Research
THE research programme at the University of Hong Kong has been continued during 1957.
Current research projects in the Department of History include work on aspects of the political and social history of South-East Asia since 1870, on the history of Hong Kong with special reference to constitutional development, on the history of problems of language communication between the English East India Company and Chinese officials at Canton in the early nineteenth century, and on the beginnings of modern Chinese industry in Shanghai. A new History of Hong Kong has been completed and is in the press.
The Department of Geography and Geology is continuing with research on land-use in the colony and on the extent and characteristics of local clays, sands and tungsten minerals, and a printed memoir on land-use in Hong Kong will be published early in 1958. A major project has been started with the re-mapping of the geology of the New Territories on a scale of 1:20,000.
In the Department of Education fields of research which have resulted in publications during 1957 include comparative education, mental health problems in education, and the educational implications of the processes of cultural and ethnic fusion in communities in the tropics. Progress has also been made in the study of comparative mental health problems and in juvenile delinquency, as well as in certain teaching techniques and the construction of teaching aids from local materials.
In the Department of Economics and Political Science research projects have been carried out with the support of the Government of Hong Kong, the Asia Foundation, the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the United