Number of the same scholars remaining
at the close of the Chinese
in the
year ending
1860
beranged....
Additions.
Total..
62. 37 21 114At the beginning of the present month, the teacher of the Stanley school having voluntarily resigned, we were enabled to appoint for that place a Christian teacher, highly recommended, who, it is hoped, may be able to conduct the school on principles somewhat sounder than those upon which his predecessors acted. The teachers of the other schools remain the same as before; they are those whom we found at first engaged in education, whom the inhabitants had themselves selected before the Government grant was made, and whom it was considered undesirable to remove. Under these circumstances, all the three teachers up to the present month having been Confucians, no interference in the system of instruction has been attempted; and hearing a few of the boys read, or seeing them write out of their school books, and asking them a few simple questions on our visits, constitute all the supervision which we have been able to give. Mr. Stanton has occasionally distributed Christian books for their voluntary reading.
We believe the progress made by the scholars has been equal to that in Chinese schools of the same class generally.
He begs again to record our conviction that the establishment of schools for the education of the Chinese population, and the exhibition otherwise of a desire to provide for their educational wants, to which they themselves justly attach so great an importance, are the most effectual means to conciliate the native inhabitants and to render our Government popular among them.