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their seventh to their tenth or twelfth or fourteenth year attended a Chinese School, were withdrawn from school to be apprenticed to some trade or industry or to contribute towards the support of their respective families in some way or other. I believe, however, that there may be about 10,000 children in the Colony who never attend school at all and most of them are, no doubt, girls and among the girls it is chiefly the purchased servant-girls and the daughters of the boat-population who receive no education whatever.
11. RESULTS OF THE ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS.-As far as the 95 Voluntary Grant-in-Aid Schools are concerned, the detailed results of the annual examinations of these Schools will be found summar- ized in Table XIV, appended to this Report, where the percentage of scholars, passed in each School in 1892, is stated and compared with the results of the preceding year, and in Table XV which records the percentage of passes gained by those Schools in each subject. As regards the Depart- mental Government Schools, the reports of the Headmaster of Victoria College and of the Headmistress of the Government Central School for Girls have been published in the Government Gazette and the Departmental District Schools will be found classified and arranged, in the order of their efficiency, in Table X. I subjoin, however, a few general observations with regard to these several Schools.
12. VICTORIA COLLEGE.-In my report for the preceding year I suggested that the educative methods and whole organization of the College require a radical reform. No material change, with the exception of more attention devoted now to the teaching of English Colloquial, appears to have been made as yet; but a Committee, consisting of the Registrar General (as representing the Chinese com- munity), the Head of the Education Department and the Headmaster of the College, has repeatedly met, during the year 1892, considering questions of reform and taking some evidence. As regards the question of the conduct of the annual examination of the College, I am thankful to say that the recommendations of my last report have been approved and the general test examination, which is the natural duty of the Head of the Education Department, has been separated now from that annual examination, at the end of each year, which properly belongs to the Headmaster alone.
13. GOVERNMENT CENTRAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.-Cramped by want of space, bampered by unpro- pitious situation and injured by several sudden changes in the Staff, the Girls Central School bravely held its own, raised its standard of teaching, and materially improved in moral tone. I am happy to say the example, which the Government set (in 1890), in opening this School with particular refer- ence to the neglected Eurasian girls in the Colony, has had the effect of stimulating private education- ists to make some efforts (in 1892), in bringing more Eurasian children under the influence of education. The wholesome competition which has thus arisen in 1892, has happily somewhat reduced the number of children attending the Girls Central School which was rather overcrowded. Once more the author- ities of the School have been laid under obligation by the interest which Lady ROBINSON takes in, and the encouragement thus afforded to, the promotion of female education in the Colony.
14. DEPARTMENTAL DISTRICT SCHOOLS.-The number of the Departmental District Schools (out- side Victoria College and Girls Central School) has been considerably reduced with the close of the year 1892. During the preceding year the Shauki-wan Anglo-Chinese School and the San-ts'ün Chinese School were closed owing to the falling off of the attendance. In June 1892, the Government decided that Departmental Schools having fewer than 25 scholars in average attendance should be closed unless there should be no other School in the immediate neighbourhood. In accordance with this resolution, 10 Departmental District Schools were abolished at the close of the year 1892, viz., the Schools at Little Hongkong, Hok-tsui, Shai-wan, Wongkok-tsui, Tsat-tsze-mui, Taihang, Hung- hom, Hok-ün, Matau-chung and Matau-wai. But as at the same time measures were taken to ensure the immediate opening of a number of new Grant-in-Aid Schools to replace the closed Departmental Schools in places where there was urgent need for them, this seemingly drastic measure will prove beneficial. The two Departmental Schools at Tokwawan, though badly attended, have not been closed for the present, pending the erection by a Manager of a suitable building for which a site has been granted by the Government. The Punti Division of the Tanglungchau Departmental School being badly attended, the Master was transferred to Mongkoktsui, whereupon a private School at once took the place of the Departmental School at Tanglungchau without any expense to the Government. regards the Anglo-Chinese Schools of the Government, four of them (those at Saiyingpun, Wantsai, Wongnaichung and Stanley) have done very efficient work and enjoy very good attendance; but the Yaumati School has exhibited rather poor results, and the School does not appear to be much appre- ciated by the neighbourhood.
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15. GRANT-IN-AID SCHOOLS.-Fourteen new Grant-in-Aid Schools were started at the commence- ment of the year 1892, viz. :-3 English Boys Schools, 7 Chinese Girls Schools and 4 Chinese Boys Schools. The annual examinations of all the 95 Grant-in-Aid Schools shewed satisfactory progress in almost all the branches of Chinese and English teaching, and in many cases there is now a strong tendency to superadd the main features of a secondary education to the curriculum of Schools which were formerly purely elementary. There is at present no strictly speaking secondary School in the Colony, but there are six Schools the highest or special classes of which are now devoting their energies entirely to secondary education. This natural development has led to renewed demands on the part of Managers for a corresponding revision of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme. The addition of Arithmetic to the pensum of Schools giving a purely Chinese education, the addition of elementary science teaching in the case of Schools giving a European education in the Chinese language, and a revision of the gradation of both class subjects and special subjects in the case of English Schools, were, next to the