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Assistant Master procuring from England.
The suppression of the outlying Schools in which Chinese education was alone imparted has in no way tended to lessen the necessity of an Assistant in the English Department of the Central School : where additional Class rooms are being created and a considerable accession of Masters and pupils learning the English language may be confidently expected.
I am also instructed to submit to His Excellency that the Headmaster's energies are already over tasked, and that the possible failure of Mr. Stewart's health and his consequent absence from Hongkong through sickness (a contingency which must never be lost out of sight or entirely unprovided for in such a climate as China) would in the want of an Assistant English Master be certain to issue in the disorganization of the Schools and the undoing of much of the benefits of his past labours.
These considerations are strengthened by the fact that Mr Stewart is compelled to be sometimes absent from the Central School when he makes his journeys of inspection to the other Schools in the Island.
I have &c.,
(Signed) J. C. Power,
Honorary Secretary.
(True Copy :)
W. M. Alexander,
Acting Colonial Secretary.