NOTES AND QUERIES
221
(4) Diocesan BOYS SCHOOL AND LA SALLE College, KOWLOON
SATURDAY, 4 May, 1974
The purpose of this visit is to see and enjoy the grounds and buildings of these two major Hong Kong schools and thereby to learn something of the history of education in the Colony. The visits are entirely due to the courtesy and cooperation of their Head-masters.
The sites are extensive (23 and 10 acres respectively) and the buildings are of interest.
'DBS', as it is familiarly known, originated in 1869 with the Diocesan Home & Orphanage for English, Eurasian, Chinese and other scholars (male and female) which links with an earlier body, the Diocesan Native Female Training School of 1860-68. (From 1880 no more girls were received as boarders, though they still remained as day scholars. All girls left when Fairlea Girls School was opened in 1892. In 1900 a Diocesan Girls School was opened.) Located for many years at Bonham Road, the school moved to its present site in 1926. It may be truly said that its history is that of Hong Kong itself.
The La Salle College is much newer, opening in 1932. However, its connection with Catholic education in the Colony is much longer. The La Salle Brothers had a record of 42 years' work in St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong when they opened their Kowloon Branch in 1917, and after two of the Fathers had 'gone together over the hills and lowlands of Kowloon' (as they then were) they found and purchased a 10-acre site by auction in 1928.
Its premises are architecturally striking. As the then Roman Catholic Bishop said at the time, “Great though my hopes and expectations of the Christian Brothers were, I never dared to expect from them such a magnificent building as La Salle College."*
Among the points to be specially noted on the visit are the following:
DBS
1. the extensive grounds and playing fields (also made available to primary schools from resettlement estates).
*Thomas F. Ryan, The Story of a Hundred Years: the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.) in Hong Kong 1858-1958. (Hong Kong, Catholic Truth Society, 1959) p. 199.