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MINUTES.
A.-ADMISSION: 1. Nationality.
1. Though personally I view the provision of different schools for different nationalities as opposed to elsewhere universally approved educational and Imperial policy, and as liable to produce racial ill-feeling, now happily unknown, I confine myself to the effect on Queen's College of the suggestion to restrict its advantages to boys in Chinese dress.
2. From 1867, or 15 years before my arrival, no boy has been excluded from Queen's College on account of his nationality and I stoutly maintain that this proper course should be continued that parents should not be compelled to send their boys to a school, with which for any reason they are dissatisfied. A certain number of English, Portuguese, Italian and German boys actually prefer the course of education at Queen's College, and I see no objection to their parents' complying with this reasonable desire; any more than I raise objection to boys' leaving me for other schools.
3. The suggestion of the Committee is that Portuguese boys shall attend St. Joseph's College ($27), British boys Victoria British School or Kowloon British School (§17), Chinese and Eurasiaus Queen's College, while schools will hereafter (§14) be provided for Mohammedans (a large community), Parsees, Jews, &c. No alternative in case of dissatisfaction is provided or permitted.
4. In recommending the abolition of the non-Chinese classes (§36) that have existed for a dozen years, the chief purpose of the Educational Committee is to enable one English Master to be connected with the three sections of each class. As however the Normal Master will be in constant supervision of the six sections of the Preparatory School, there only remain for the eight English Masters, at the utmost, six classes of three sections each. Two masters can well be spared for the two non-Chinese classes, and leave six for sixteen sections, which is more than sufficient for the purpose the Committee has in view. The Committee recom- mends the appointment of ten English Masters in addition to the Head Master, but wisely calculates on the constant absence on leave of at least one of them (§72), I therefore only deal with nine.
5. Some misapprehension appears to exist as to my motive in forming these classes; it was because I observed that two or three nou-Chinese boys in each section throughout the College suffered in their education, because in compet- ing with Chinese boys, they were so completely outdistanced, that they lost the necessary stimulus of emulation. In combined classes, it is rare for a non- Chinese boy to be amongst the first dozen. His Excellency Sir HENRY BLAKE was strangely misinformed, when he wrote (Gazette 227, §3):-
"European scholars are obliged to regulate their progress by that of their "Chinese classmates who are painfully endeavouring to assimilate Western "education taught to them in a foreign language."
As a matter of fact, in combined classes, Chinese are more rapidly qualified for promotion, and leave behind them in the lower class non-Chinese boys.
6. In recommending ($36) that the abolition of these non-Chinese classes should take place at once, the Committee overlooks the fact that 25 non-Chinese boys in these classes have paid an aggregate of $227.50 as Entrance Fees for the Oxford Local Examinations in July next, which sum must in equity be refunded by the Government if these boys are compelled to leave before the expiration of the present term (5th August).
7. I would beg to recommend that the non-Chinese classes be permitted to continue, until (if ever) they become extinct in natural course, by changes effected elsewhere, ., when I report at the beginning of any school year, that less than 50 boys are attending these classes, there being at present 56.
A. ADMISSIONS:-2. Entrance Examination,
8. 317 boys out of nearly 500 applicants have been admitted since 5th March last. Of these I doubt that 100 could pass even the test suggested by the Com- mittee ($38A), viz., fair Chinese composition of a narrative, and ability to read a news columu of a native paper.