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view that those boys "who passed a certain standard (i.e. at the technical school) would then be really fit to enter for a university degree course at the Hong Kong University from which they would emerge, qualified, educated, practical engineers. Even those who did not qualify for a university course would be practical educated men who would be of use to, and readily find a job with, Chinese undertakings or foreign firms, and be the article which we have all been in vain trying to produce by starting from the top."
Chancellor's
38. The Vice Chancellor was away on leave when this letter from Messrs. John The Vice Swire & Sons Ltd. was received and dealt with. After his return the Vice Chancellor review. reviewed the position in a letter dated the 16th June, 1930, which he addressed to Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, Hong Kong. This letter has been placed before us and we quote as relevant to the problem before us the following passages from it :—
"I was, and still am, a zealous advocate of the recruitment of boys of the artizan class to the Engineering Faculty of the University, if that be possible. But even with the modified Matriculation Examination which the Senate is pre- pared to accept in the case of such students, I am exceedingly doubtful whether any but the most exceptionally gifted apprentice would ever get to the Univer- sity via his apprenticeship and the evening classes of a school for apprentices, however efficient that school might be...
Your Principals want practical men and they are not I imagine, only thinking of graduates. We must, I think, concede that it is only the rare apprentice who
+
would rise to graduate rank, but even so, an apprentice not capable of be- coming a graduate, might if he had a better general education and a working knowledge of English make a capable foreman or something of that kind. That is where your technical school for apprentices should come in. But technical schools can not be conducted by the University
.....I feel strongly that the aim of your Principals will not be fully achieved, unless the educa- tional needs of the artizans are considered and met
.I have dealt at some length with the problem of producing in Hong Kong effective and practical engineers of various grades, not only because it is in my opinion vital to do something to
do something to orientate educational influence (and the rush in Hong Kong into schools is now a flood) away from the clerical into the mechanical, but also because it is just this aspect of the general educational problem of Hong Kong which the administrative machinery of the Colony is so ill-adapted to tackle. The educational system of the Colony has grown up round a few Government Schools for general education.... The University of Hong Kong did not grow out of the school system; it was rather superimposed on it."
39. The Vice Chancellor endorsed the view of Messrs. John Swire & Sons Ltd. that a university course in mechanical engineering was not calculated to produce the required article, unless that course was supplemented by a course of practical training in a commercial workshop but he saw that the solution of this difficulty advocated by Messrs. John Swire & Sons Ltd. would involve the closing of the University's mechanical engineering course altogether; that if the Engineering Faculty was to be recruited, so far at least as mechanical engineering was concern- ed, from apprentices alone, students would not be forthcoming, unless the whole standard and purpose of the Faculty as part of a British University were reduced in status a remedy which he regarded as impossible. Turning to the question of the practical training of such boys who come from the ordinary schools of the Colony to the Faculty of Engineering with a view to qualifying as mechanical en- gineers the view recorded was:
"It seems to be beyond question that such training as the University can give, even though that training includes workshop training as obligatory cannot be regarded as a a process which can be expected to produce qualified practical engineers. To do this, the University course must be supplemented by a definite system of apprenticeship covering a reasonable period in well- equipped and efficiently controlled works under effective supervision. university course in the world can be regarded as an adequate substitute for this period of apprenticeship. I think that the Engineering Faculty should do everything in its power to render the practical work which the student is com- pelled to do in the University workshop, as thoroughly effective as possible and
No