905
5.
Is this out of the question for Hongkong? We think we can show that a New Central School such as we have lightly sketched could be secured with much trouble, and at comparatively slight expense. We, therefore, recommend to consideration of the Government what appears to us a practical and economical solution of the Central School difficulty. House property, and good sites, centrally situated, have lately acquired an almost fabulous market value in Hongkong. The present School, and the proposed site for the new edifice, would realise at public auction something very near a quarter of a million dollars. Such is the opinion of experts. There is plenty of ground belonging to the Government higher up the hill which could be utilised for the purposes required, without difficulty, suitable in every respect and, moreover, which would cost next to nothing. With the proceeds of the sale of the old building and site, a Central School could be erected, without entailing a single cent of extra taxation on the ratepayers, which would prove worthy of Hongkong and the age of progress we live in. Nay, even more, a large surplus would remain in hand, which could be applied to a sensible endowment of the school, as might be arranged hereafter.
What prophetic comment! Evidently this able newspaper criticism and excellent suggestion were not taken notice of, with the result that Queen's College stands to-day amid the noise and grime of one of the least salubrious parts of the city.
Here are some notes based on interesting extracts from a recent issue of the Peking and Tientsin Times, which are of much interest in connexion with Old Hongkong education:
A great river has many sources, but sometimes a single spring or brook seems the chief, if not the only, source of the river's mighty flood. So with the immense stream of Western Education that has been pouring into China for the past hundred years the source has been traced to the "island of the fragrant stream." In other words Hongkong can proudly claim that through its educational pioneers and finances the first two Chinese students were sent from China to study in Yale and the University of Edinburgh about 1849. To trace the earliest Chinese educational mission abroad one has to make references to the formation in the Colony's earliest days of the Morrison School under the direction of the late Rev. Samuel Robbins Brown. Through three Chinese boys from this school was begun the influence of western education, both in China and in England and America, which has had such a determining effect on the development of present day China.
Samuel Robbins Brown, a graduate of Yale University in the class of 1832, had been invited to become the principal of the Morrison School by a Committee of British and American merchants who were interested in the education of Chinese youth on Western lines. The Morrison Education Society had been formed in 1835 in Macao with the object of establishing and supporting schools in China "in which native youths shall be taught, in connection with their own, to read and write the English language, and through this medium to bring within their reach all the varied learning of the western world. The Bible and books on Christianity shall be read in the schools. The Morrison School opened its doors in Macao in 1839, receiving six boys as the first pupils. Mr. Brown had accepted the principalship with but twelve days' notice of the date of sailing, October 17, 1838. In that short period of time he made all