This remarkable revival of educational zeal among the Protestant leaders was aided, and to some extent outstripped since 1860, by a contemporaneous renewal of educational activity on the Roman Catholic side. The arrival of Father (subsequently Bishop) T. Reimondi was more or less responsible for this revival, for the young Italian priest occupied at once among the Catholic educationists, the same prominent and fruitful position which Dr. Legge, whom he resembled in character and shrewdness, occupied among the Protestants.
Bishop Raimondi, however, became the strongest opponent in the Colony of that educational secularism which Dr. Legge had established and to which the Protestant missionaries submitted for many years thereafter.
From the time of Bishop Raimondi's arrival, the English Roman Catholic Schools which had previously commenced to supply local offices with English-speaking Portuguese clerks, re-doubled their efforts. The Italian and French convents also extended their operations in the line of female education and an industrial reformatory for vagabond children and juvenile offenders was started by Bishop Raimondi in September, 1864.
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In these days, denominational and secular education flourish side by side. Each fulfils its own purpose, enjoys perfect freedom, and serves its own section of the community.
The following article is taken from the Hongkong Telegraph files for 1902 and, following on yesterday's articles, completes the story of early denominational education in Hongkong.
The Roman Catholic Church Mission Schools continued to flourish during the years 1849 and 1850. There were three Portuguese Boys' Schools, two in Wellington Street (one taught by Mr. R. Freire and the other by Mr. J.A. Pereira) and a third located in Stanley Street, taught by Mr. J.J. Souza and Mr. S. Souza. An English Boys' School in Staunton Street under a Mr. Rowland, who had an average of 25 boys under instruction, was commenced in September, 1860. This institution furnishes the first recorded example of a school enjoying exemption from payment of police and lighting rates. This extraordinary revival of the Roman Catholic educational movement, though stimulated no doubt by the reviving energy of the Protestant Mission, was principally due to the educational zeal and energy which ever distinguished the Rev. Father Raimondi.
The R.C. Mission made, in the year 1865, a great step in advance by amalgamating, on the principle of the Government Central School, their several English, Portuguese and Chinese schools, hitherto located under separate management in Wellington Street, into one institution, thenceforth known as St. Saviour's College. This new school, situated in Pottinger Street, assumed a novel and most appropriate feature in constituting itself expressly