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education of each scholar enrolled in 1891 was as follows:-in the Government Central School for Girls (including rent of hired building) $29.13 per scholar, in the Victoria College (not including cost of building) $16.38 per scholar, in the Departmental District Schools (including rent of hired buildings) $6.19 per scholar, in the Grant-in-Aid Schools $3.83 per scholar. The latter Schools, however, or rather the Missionary Societies conducting them, spent from their own private resources, in the year 1891, the sum of $51,444.11 on the education of 5,132 scholars, or $10.02 per scholar, receiving from the Government as Grant-in-Aid for 1891 (after deducting the bonus paid to the teachers) the sum of $16,933.03 or one third of their actual expenses, (strictly speaking 32.97 per cent.). The Grant-in-Aid system, as compared with the system of promoting education by means of Departmental Government Schools, commends itself not only by its comparative cheapness, as the above figures show, but by its being more elastic, in adopting its work to the varying needs of the people, and more in touch with their demands. A Grant-in-Aid School, for instance, cannot force unserviceable subjects upon unwilling scholars as a Government School can do, nor can a Grant-in-Aid School refuse to turn itself into a distinctly Commercial School when public needs demand it. A Grant-in-Aid School takes up secondary education at the precise time, and to the exact extent, called for by the actual demand of the public, and I have no doubt whatever but that the Grant-in-Aid system of Hongkong is capable of supplying all the educational needs of the Colony in proportion as they arise or expand. In England there are no Departmental Schools, but all departmental educational efforts of the Government are confined to giving aid to existing voluntary national schools and to encouraging the starting of such voluntary secondary schools or classes as are needed for technical, industrial or artistic purposes. This is what I desire for Hongkong in the dim future. But this cannot possibly be done here for some years to come. For the present, I think, the Government must, whilst expanding by all available means the system of aiding voluntary efforts in education, continue all or most of its Departmental Schools, all of which are really elementary. But whilst the promotion of elementary education is continued by means of both Departmental and Voluntary Grant-in-Aid Schools, the promotion of secondary education must be encouraged exclusively by the cheaper Grant-in-Aid system and not by means of Departmental Schools. What I recommend therefore is in effect to assimilate the educational system of Hongkong, so far as principles are concerned, to that of England, by expanding the system of Government Grants-in-Aid in favour of all forms of education and confining accordingly Departmental Schools strictly to their present legitimate sphere of elementary education.
In my last Report I quoted the precedent set by the Indian Government, because, like the Government of Hongkong, it had of necessity at first to start Departmental Schools. Since 1883, however, the Indian Government now seeks to correct the anomaly of the Government's assuming the schoolmaster's rôle, and endeavours by gradual and cautious steps to assimilate the educational organization of India, so far as its root principle is concerned, with that of England, by stimulating private effort in every branch of education and confining the educational work of the Government (with the exception for the present of the sphere of elementary education for which Departmental Schools are still needed) to giving Grants-in-Aid and general supervision to effective schools of all grades that require it, whilst continuing Departmental Schools for secondary education only in places where voluntary effort will not or cannot supply what public interests require, or only until such Departmental Secondary Schools can safely be handed over to private efforts.
8. NATURE OF THE EDUCATION GIVEN IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE COLONY.-As regards the 117 Schools with 7,672 scholars under the supervision of the Education Department in the year 1891, 20 Schools gave to 2,873 scholars of English, Portuguese, Indian or Chinese extraction an English education (combined with classical Chinese teaching in the case of 9 of these Schools with 1,879 scholars, mostly Chinese); 4 Schools gave to 184 Portuguese children a European education in the Portuguese language; 3 Schools gave to 171 Chinese children a European education in the Chinese language; and 90 Schools gave to 4,444 Chinese children a classical Chinese education in the local Chinese vernaculars (Punti or Hakka). In other words, among 7,672 scholars under instruction in the year 1891 in Schools under the supervision of the Education Department, 12.94 per cent. received a purely English education, 24.49 per cent. received an English education combined with instruction in the Chinese classics, 2.39 per cent. received an elementary European education in the Portuguese and 2.22 per cent. in the Chinese language, and finally 57.91 per cent. received a purely Chinese education. As all these schools were either entirely supported by the Government or aided on the basis of payment for results ascertained by examination, it may be of interest to state the proportion of public funds devoted, in the year 1891, to the support of those several branches of education. For the promotion of purely English education the Government paid in the year 1891 the sum of $6,185 ; for the promotion of English education combined with Chinese instruction $25,504; for the promotion of European education in the Portuguese language $1,253; for the promotion of European education in the Chinese language $1,170; and for the promotion of Chinese education (in the Chinese language only) $17,750. The English education above referred to, though mainly elementary, trends, in the higher classes of seven local schools, upon the subjects of secondary education, as ineluding not only Drawing, Music, Latin, Algebra, Euclid and Physical Geography, but also Book-keeping, Chemistry and Animal Physiology. Two local Schools (St. Joseph's College and Diocesan School) which, as stated in my last Report, lately turned into distinctly commercial schools, in response to local needs, have added to their programme, one the subject of short-band and the other the working of a type-writer.
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