915
15.
see 1-9-33) of which he was headmaster, and the smaller Government educational establishments, which were fourteen in number in 1865 but increased to twenty-five within a few years. Dr. Stewart, it might be noted, urged upon the Government the introduction of an education tax and also a law for compulsory school attendance, but the authorities would not consent to either measure. The Central School, then situated at Gough Street, which had received only Chinese boys at its inception in 1862, was thrown open to all nationalities in 1866, this being another pointer to the gradually widening scope of local education, and its weaning from purely missionary enterprise.
We have already noted (see 18-12-33) that the Hon. Mr. Ryrie in 1872 urged the need for a public school for the education only of the children of Europeans of moderate means. This resulted in a public meeting held in the City Hall in June that year which was attended by the Governor himself, Sir Arthur Kennedy, who spoke strongly in favour of a non-denominational scheme. Eventually the Victoria English School was established at Hollywood Road under Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Hanlon; but it was taken over after a while by the Roman Catholics, and as recently as June, 1884, there is a newspaper reference to the annual distribution of prizes, at this place, at which Bishop Raimondi presided. It was then described as Mr. and Mrs. Hanlon's Victoria School.
On the suggestion of Dr. Stewart, a change in the grant-in-aid scheme was introduced in 1873, making the plan operative only with schools willing to give four consecutive hours a day exclusively to secular teaching, with the result that while there were, at the end of 1876, eleven Protestant schools in the grant-in-aid scheme, the Roman Catholic institutions had entirely withdrawn.
As regards school attendance, it might be noted that whereas in 1872 there were 1,480 scholars in institutions under Government supervision, the number had risen to 2,922 in 1876. In religious education, St. Paul's College was coming again to the fore; and the Roman Catholics, under Bishop Raimondi, were making great strides, their schools increasing from only one in 1858 to eighteen in 1874.
It was in the Seventies that we thus find a definite revival of interest in educational matters and an increase in the number, and growth in the importance, of scholastic institutions.
In 1878 the Governor appointed what was known as an Educational Conference, which urged the increased teaching of English and an Education Commission was formed in 1880 (which suggested various reforms) consisting of Messrs. F. Stewart, E.L.O'Malley, J.M. Price, Phineas Ryrie, W. Keswick, E. J. Eitel, and E.R. Belilios, all of them men prominent in official or private capacities. A Normal School for the training of Chinese teachers of English was established in 1881, but received no support and was condemned by the Education Commission.