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with facts observed out of school. For instance, every boy must have seen the mail steamers which enter and clear the port every few days. But the great majority were unable to shew on a map where they come from and whither they are bound. The study of China in Classes IV B and C was much better, doubtless owing to the fact that the Chinese masters were themselves more interest- ed in the subject; in IV A, on the other hand, where the master is a European, only a very few boys were able to give a reply to the question "What is a treaty port" although in other subjects this Division was considerably the strongest of the three. Europe is taught in Class IV. No doubt the subject is a hard one for Chinese masters. Nevertheless they should endeavour not to solve the difficulty by teaching mere lists of names to their scholars. And some omissions seem hardly excusable. Out of 4 boys asked in III B, two said that Gibraltar belonged to Spain, one to England, and one to Portugal. Few boys in III C knew what the source of a river was. On the other hand, the general nature of the Governments of England, France, Russia, Germany, was well known. Class IV A under an English- man shewed a very different state of affairs. There alone we obtained some sort of a description of the physical features of Switzerland, and an intelligent deduction from the well-known large sale of Swiss milk of the fact that that country contains much pasture. The Geography lessons in Class II (C and B) ap. eared to suffer from similar defects of method. It is a significant fact that the tributaries on the right bank of the Thames "Kennet, Wey, Mole and Derwent" were very generally known by the scholars (though not by their examiners), but no idea could be elicited as to the nature of the scenery along the banks. A wall-picture of a hay- making scene-brick farm-house, wagons, country-lane-would have taught so much more than that barren list could. In Class II 4 a very intelligent apprecia- tion of the connection between the coal fields and the neighbouring manufacturing centres was elicited. The physical nature of the country was well understood. Class I took India. The master of I objected to some of the questions asked, on the ground that they were hardly Geography. And yet it is hard to see how India can be profitably studied by a class of young men for a year without considering these and kindred matters. The truth appears to be that the Oxford Local, in requiring a very detailed knowledge, assumes a general knowledge which cannot safely be assumed in the case of Chinese students. In Class I 4, 13 boys out of 21 passed; and in Class I B only 17 out of 33. The questions asked were :-- 1. What makes the North-West Frontier important to India? 2. From what part of India do the Hongkong Police mostly come? 3. What was the Indian Mutiny? Did it affect Madras?
4. What are the Native states ?
(Fairly correct answers to the 1st, 2nd and 4th questions or to the 3rd and one other gave a pass.)
History. History is correctly taught in Class I, by the means of well con- sidered dictated notes. We did not set a paper, but looked through one set by the The result was good, but the tendency of the boys was to depend too much on the notes, and to reproduce them by memory.
master.
We heard an interesting lesson on the reign of John by the master of III 4. It might have been thought somewhat discursive, but we are not prepared to condemn this as a fault. A great difficulty in teaching History is to make the subject sufficiently interesting to Chinese boys.
Translation. (Chinese to English, English to Chinese.) --- The Lower School was examined in these subjects rira vere, the upper portion by means of set på ers. It was difficult to elicit much from the Lower School; a few simple sentences or words were set for translation into Chinese, but the knowledge of English in this part of the school is so limited, that it seemed useless to set unseen sentences for translation from Chinese into English. Many of the boys were ignorant of what one would im- agine that every boy would know. The majority asked were unable to translate cor- rectly into Chinese the phrase "The Governor of Hongkong"; only 2 boys, out of four Classes to whom the question was put, knew the English equivalent for the Chinese
R
(Registrar General). In one Class eight boys were asked to write down the Chinese for "It will not rain": half of them wrote When asked, the boys admitted that the phrase had no meaning in Chinese ;