492
(Enclosure No. 2.)
Referring to your para. 5, believing as I do that a principle of the utmost importance is here involved, which the Secretary of State does not yet fully understand, a few words are necessary. The real point at issue is: Can Chinese boys, who are ignorant of English and attend school in order to learn it, be educated satisfactorily along with boys who already know colloquial English and do not want to learn it?
+
The Bishop in his petition (ee Report of the Committee on Education, p. 31, the last para.) answers this question by an emphatic negative. "As regards the acquirement of knowledge, this mixture of races operates very injuriously upon "the European." And agaiu (note to p. 32) he says: "A young English boy "who goes to Queen's College and is placed in a low class is compelled to sit "idle under a Chinese Assistant, who teaches his Chinese pupils in the Chinese "language. Could any plan be devised more calculated to render a boy listless and "inattentive throughout the rest of his school course?" This, I think, is the right ground to take. His Lordship in introducing the question of morals, (the petition, p. 32, second para.)-"Chinese children are fully conversant with many matters which are purposely kept from the knowledge of European "children" K. T. not only confuses the issue, but exposes himself to a charge of inconsistency while in his own Diocesan School, Chinese and European children share the class-rooms, play-grounds and dorinitories.
66
Dr. WRIGHT, in his very interesting Memo. on the Committee's Report, justifies the admixture of races on very startling grounds. In his 5th para. he states that "in combined classes it is rare for non-" Chinese boy to be among the first dozen." That is to say that the Chinese boy, handicapped as he is by the enormous task of mastering English can yet beat the other. But it is a de- monstrable fact that even the top Chinese boys cannot write a page of English without gross mistakes. In what then does this alleged inferiority consist? It cannot surely be maintained that non-Chinese boys take a whole school course and then cannot write English! Surely my second extract from the Bishop's petition sufficiently explains any apparent inferiority. They are idle and listless and inattentive because the instruction given is not suited to their needs.
If it were they should surely be able to master their own language.
What history is taught in these mixed schools? English history. And why? Surely a detailed knowledge of the Wars of the Roses is not much use to a foreigner -especially an Oriental? The answer of course is that the history which should be taught to different nationalities is different, or rather it should be taught from a different standpoint. What must be taught in detail to one, may be lightly sketched for another. And how can this be done when the two nationals are sitting at the same desk, like water and oil in one vessel ?
That it is more economical to educate Chinese and non-Chinese separately is,
I think, demonstrable from a single example.
Take a group of average non-Chinese boys and average Chinese boys, each group being about to join an European school.
The following points of difference can safely he predicated :--
Non-Chinese Boys.
They will average from 5 to 7
years of age.
They will have received little or
no education.
They will most of them under-
stand spoken English well. Their first year's education will
consist of lessons tending to cultivate memory, to teach them the elements of arithmetic, and to read and write. It will be broken into short lessons and will be combined with "action- songs, &c."
Chinese Boys.
They will average from 11 to 13
or 15
years of age. They will have received at least 4 years' severe mental training in their own language. None of them will understand
English.
It will consist of the mastery of
the art of reading and writing, and as much colloquial English as they can assimilate with a little arithmetic in which they will soon be far beyond the non-Chinese class. They will also be pursuing the study of their own language.