About 1850 this plan was furthered by bringing the grant-in-aid schools under the supervision of the Bishop of Hongkong as chairman of the Educational Committee, and they served, we are told "as feeders for St. Paul's College." That most of these schemes were not destined to operate as expected must have become obvious about then, for in 1849 the Morrison Education Society's school on Morrison Hill, already mentioned, had to be closed for want of public support. The English Children's School, which was in charge of a Mr. Drake, also closed down in 1849, and an effort made by a Miss Mitchell to revive it failed definitely in 1853, so this institution, the first attempt to provide something of an English school here, came to an untimely end.
The Roman Catholic mission meanwhile opened a number of small schools, apparently in preference to concentrating, in those early years on one large establishment. In these the pupils included numbers of Portuguese boys who had come over with their parents from Macao, and they were given an elementary education in English which enabled them to obtain clerkships in the big firms, a system which has lasted until to-day.
The Chinese up to the Fifties were still fighting shy of the local schools, and sending their sons to Canton and elsewhere to be educated along traditional lines.
It was towards the Sixties that the education of girls received its proper attention, due to the pioneering efforts of a Miss Baxter, who started what were known as the Baxter Schools, where Chinese girls probably had their first insight into western learning. Miss Baxter unfortunately died, in June 1865, when her work was just bearing fruit, but the schools this lady had founded were carried on by a Miss Oxlad, and then Miss Johnstone. They continued to do good work for some years. In 1874 we read in a press report of an examination held by the Government Inspector of Schools in the Baxter Vernacular Girls' School, in Staunton Street, conducted by Miss Oxlad. It is noted that 28 pupils passed out of a total of 37. In this effort we see the beginning of the Diocesan Schools of to-day (see 14-11-33), there being originally an institution (opened in 1860) intended only for Chinese girls, which was thrown open from 1868 to 1890 to both sexes and all nationalities, and separated into two institutions, for boys and girls, in the latter year.
It was in the Sixties also (see 30-11-33) that the big Roman Catholic school, at first mainly a commercial college, was opened under the name of St. Saviour's, and later changed to St. Joseph's College.
To digress for a spell, we might follow the fortunes of the original Board of Education, which came to an end in 1865, being superseded by what appears to have been some kind of dictatorship vested in Dr. F. Stewart as head of the Education Department, which gave him jurisdiction over both the Government Central School (predecessor of Queen's College)
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