education-in-hong-kong-pre-1841-to-1941-materials

in its enrolment of 21.
12 elementary Chinese (sometimes described as Confucian) schools
were reported to be in existence, with an average attendance of 181 Chi-
nese boys.
1847: After protracted correspondence with the British Government,14 the deci-
sion to provide 'moderate' grants for Chinese village schools was an-

VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
nounced. An ad hoc committee was therefore appointed 'to enquire into the present state of the Chinese schools at Victoria, Stanley and Aberdeen, with a view to measures being taken to encourage one Chinese school at each of the aforementioned places under government supervision' and to 'report upon the method which in the opinion of the Committee may be most beneficial for the appropriation of the... grant ($10 per month)'. The Committee (Chief Magistrate, Registrar-General and Colonial Chaplain) reported in some critical detail about the Chinese schools, selected three to be aided and recommended the introduction of Bible Study in these schools, the appointment of a Committee of Supervision, the issue of regulations to all government aided schools, and the allocation of grants according to attendance.15
6 December marks the date of the formal appointment of the Commit-tee of Supervision (generally known as the Education Committee).
1848: On 23 February, Tsue Shing Cheung at Victoria, Lo Ah Man at Stanley and Man A Yuh at Aberdeen were appointed to three schools for Chinese children, these schools receiving $10 per month from the Government.16
The Report of a Committee of the House of Commons on Commercial Relations with China included the recommendation for an increase of education in the Chinese language both for Chinese and non-Chinese in Hong Kong. Little action was, however, taken in Hong Kong.
Three Sisters of the Order of St. Paul de Chartres arrived in Hong Kong to take charge of an orphanage ('Asile de la Sainte Enfance').17
required more explicit information, before they were willing to recommend that the Treas-ury approve financial aid for education in Hong Kong. Such information required included especially the number of children likely to benefit, the control over teachers and the curriculum, and the prospect of sectarian disputes. Grey made it clear that he objected to the idea of assisting Stanton's school because it was a private school and therefore, the Hong Kong Government would be able to exercise little control over the mode and matter of instruction. The parents of prospective or actual pupils were mainly in Government service and were, therefore able (and expected) to pay the expenses of their children's education themselves; this was another objection. On the other hand, as Grey pointed out, 'with respect to the Chinese Schools, the case is different, the amount of assistance is extremely moderate and religious difficulties are not likely'. See CO 129/19, pp. 239 ff., and, for Sir John Davis' despatch of 16 March 1847, Evidence 5(b) below. The importance of parsimony remained instrumental in policy decisions about education in England, as well as Hong Kong, for some time. See for example, Evidence 8(b) and 17 in this chapter below.
15.
See Evidence 8 in Chapter 1 above.

16.
Legally, they were 'appointed' to these schools. In fact, they had already been running the schools for some time and were now supported by the Government.

17.
This institution has strong claims to be regarded as the direct ancestor of The French Convent, St. Paul's Convent School and St. Paul's Secondary School. See Almost As Old As Hong Kong (Hong Kong: St. Paul's Convent, 1973), pp. 3-4.


1849: St. Paul's College, under James Summers as Headmaster, was opened and became the leading Anglican educational establishment. On 15 October, the Archbishop of Canterbury approved the statutes of 'the Hongkong Missionary Institution known as St. Paul's College'. According to Eitel, these statutes defined the objects of St. Paul's College as 'training a body of native clergy and Christian teachers for the propagation of the gospel in China according to the principles of the Church of England'.18
The Morrison Education Society School was closed, at least partly because, according to Eitel, it 'had by this time lost its hold upon the sympathies of the foreign community, and in spring 1849, a class of seven boys was transferred... to St. Paul's College, thereby raising the roll of the latter institution to 34 Chinese boys under the tuition of Mr J. Summers.'19
Stanton's 'Children's School' (i.e., the school for European children) was also closed.
1850: The Rt. Rev. George Smith, the First Anglican Bishop of Hong Kong arrived. He was soon active as a teacher at St. Paul's College and as a strong influence on the Education Committee.
A futile attempt was made to revive the Morrison Education Society School.
The Roman Catholic schools seemed to be in a flourishing condition, especially the Seminary at Queen's Road, the three Portuguese Boys' Schools in Wellington and Stanley Streets, and the School for Chinese in Taipingshan.
The Colonial Secretary, William Caine, reminded the Education Com-mittee that there should be no interference with the 'religious prejudices of the natives', but did not rescind the appointment of a new Chinese Christian teacher to one of the Government-aided schools.
1851: The Bible and Bishop Boone's Catechism were listed as textbooks for use in Government aided schools.
The annual grant of $1,200 which the Superintendent of British Trade in China had formerly given to the Morrison Education Society School was now transferred, with the approval of the Foreign Office, to St. Paul's College.
In order to motivate teachers at the Government-aided schools to
secure better attendance of pupils, the Education Committee deducted
from the salary of each teacher a certain sum for each scholar less than 30,
18.
Eitel, op. cit., p. 317. Nowadays, however, the College chooses to advance a more modest claim for 1851 as its foundation date.

19.
See E.J. Eitel, 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong', The China Review XIX


(5)(1890-91), 317. See also Evidence 6(b) below.
and used the money thus saved for the purchase of Chinese books on Astronomy and Geography.20
The Hong Kong Cricket Club was founded in June 'on the piazza [praya]' below the Murray parade ground.21 The first members were officers from the various regiments stationed in Hong Kong and a few government officers and merchants.
1852: Bishop Smith was appointed (March) the permanent Chairman of the Education Committee. Soon after (July) Bishop Smith recommended that the Government should, itself, build school-houses for a small outlay. Half-yearly examinations were introduced into the Government-aided schools (now five in number) partly to test the quality of the teachers' work and partly to select boys to be transferred to St. Paul's College.
1853: James Legge was appointed to the Education Committee. Soon after this, a plan was issued offering the pupils of each Government-aided school half-yearly prizes. The tariff of the payments fixed in this plan is included in Eitel's 'Materials'. It reads:
greatest proficiency in Scripture knowledge, $1.50; in the English language, $1.00; in the Four Books of Confucianism, $1.50; in Geography, $1.00.
English teaching was introduced into two of the Government aided schools under pupil-teachers from St. Paul's. According to Eitel, this important change was a direct consequence of Legge's appointment to the Commit-tee.22
1854: In January, the Education Committee recommended that 'the study of English should in this English Colony be encouraged as much as possible'. Eitel comments that 'this recommendation was in harmony with a strong feeling now arising once more among the European residents who fre-quently complained that the whole educational energies of the Colony served almost exclusively to benefit the Chinese and promoted Chinese literature, whilst the children of European and other non-Chinese resi-dents were (owing to their unwillingness to attend what were virtually
20.
CO 129/39, p. 127, which includes the 'Report of Government Schools for the Past Year, dated 24th December 1851', in the Blue Book, 1851, p. 11. See also Evidence 9 below.

21.
An early photograph of a game being played on this site is reproduced as Evidence 19(b) below.

22.
Eitel, op. cit., p. 322.


Chinese schools) almost entirely neglected.'23 The Government did not,
however, take any action on the Committee's recommendation.
1855-59: These years marked a decline of missionary schools (e.g., Ying Wa closed in 1856). This was caused partly by the anti-English feelings stimu-lated by the Second Anglo-Chinese War, partly by competition from Government-aided schools which had increased to 19 in number by 1859. British success in the war and, especially the further concessions gained in the Convention of Peking, 1860, contributed, especially after 1860, to an increase in the number of missionaries in the area and to a revival of missionary activities in education.
1855: St. Andrew's School was established, after a public meeting on 6 March, by prominent local residents (mostly Europeans) who disliked the relig-ious character of missionary schools and the schools under the Education Committee. Prominent at the public meeting was Mr Andrew Shortrede, Editor of the China Mail, who declared that 'it was not very creditable to Hongkong that, though it had existed for twelve years as a British Colony, it was without a Public School for instruction in English, so that the children of our countrymen were less cared for, growing up in greater ignorance, than the Chinese.' St. Andrew's School, financed from public subscriptions, offered instruction in English to over 100 children of 10 nationalities. The school was supported, at first enthusiastically, by volun-tary contributions. It closed in 1861.
1856: Ying Wa was closed at the end of the year 'owing to the results not justifying its continuance'. The objective of training Chinese youths to become Christian ministers ready to serve the purposes of the London Missionary Society in China had not been achieved. There was little problem about initially attracting pupils because the curriculum of Ying Wa featured English studies prominently. Once a certain amount of facil-ity in English had been gained, however, the pupil tended to become more interested in opportunities in commerce and Government (as clerks and translators) than in the religious field. An awareness of this situation seems to have had a significant influence on James Legge, who, from about this time, became an energetic leader of the 'secularist' movement.24
1857: Yielding to pressure from the Education Committee, the Governor, Sir John Bowring, agreed to appoint the Rev. W. Lobscheid (of the Rhenish Mission) as the first Inspector of Government Schools. After some negotia-tion, it was settled that Lobscheid should work full-time as Inspector, but
23.
Ibid.

24.
See for example, Evidence 12 below.


that he should not be a member of the reconstituted Education Commit-tee, which would make annual reports to the Government having itself received half-yearly reports from the Inspector.
Under this new system, the government-aided sector increased. By the end of the year there were fifteen 'Government schools' in operation, with 568 pupils reported as being in average attendance (among whom there were now, for the first time, 26 girls).
1858: Fr. (later Bishop) Timoleone Raimondi arrived in Hong Kong. His influ-ence was to lead to increased Catholic activities in education. Apart from the 'Government' schools, there were, according to Eitel, about nine private schools on Hong Kong Island entirely supported by Chinese. A Government Gazette Notice of 27 November informed parents and guardians that 'Schools for gratuitous instruction had been established by the Government of Hongkong, within the City of Victoria, and through-out the Island, wherein the Chinese Elementary Books, their Classics, Geography etc., and the English language is well taught by competent Na-tive Teachers.'25
1859: St. Andrew's School seems to have changed significantly in purpose and composition. The principal attendants at this School are Portuguese and Chinese, besides some Parsees and children belonging to other coun-tries.'26 The Diocesan Native Female Training School was founded by Mrs Smith, wife of the first Anglican Bishop at the end of the year. Bishop Smith informed the Government on 12 December that this school was about to be expanded into a boarding school under a lady teacher ex-pected from England and that he intended to place the institution under the supervision of the Education Committee. He asked the Government to grant 'a site and funds' for building a house for the accommodation of the Chinese girls and the residence of the English mistress. The Government placed one of the houses in Albany Terrace at the disposal of the Educa-tion Committee and the Diocesan School was temporarily located there.
1860: The Education Committee was replaced in January, by a stronger Board of Education which included in its membership James Legge. The powers and duties of the new Board were defined by the Colonial Secretary to en-compass the appointment, transfer, suspension and dismissal of school-
25.
See Evidence 11 below.

26.
Cited in Eitel, op. cit., p. 339. Eitel comments that 'these words appear to indicate that Mr. Shortrede's original idea in starting this School for the particular benefit of the children of English residents in the first instance, had by this time been found to be impracticable'.


masters and the fixing of their salaries, as well as the general supervision and control of all Government schools. Lobscheid immediately resigned, withdrew his resignation after a few weeks and then, five months later, finally resigned as Inspector. In July, Dr Legge introduced his scheme to consolidate Government schools to the Board, at first orally. The Board resolved that Dr Legge be invited to submit his scheme in writing, and in September, unanimously recommended that the scheme be approved.27
Miss Baxter, Miss Magrath and Miss Legge opened schools for Chi-nese and Eurasian girls in this year and the next.28 Three Canossian Girls' schools were opened on Caine Road in May, under the recently arrived Italian Sisters'.
In September, a small Roman Catholic school for European boys was
opened in Staunton Street. This later became St. Saviour's College and still
later was renamed St. Joseph's College.
1861: Legge's scheme was approved by the Governor (9 January) and the Legis-lative Council (25 March). The Board of Education was authorized to find a suitable appointee for the joint post of Headmaster of the Consolidated (Central) Government School and Inspector of Government Schools. James Legge was empowered by the Board to draft a circular letter to be for-warded (10 April) to the Registrar of London University and to the Princi-pals of the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, requesting them to recommend candidates for the post to Bishop Smith, who was then in England and who was to make the final selection. As might be expected, the circular contained expressions characteristic of James Legge's think-ing. For example, in describing the existing Government schools, it is noted that 'they are not religious schools, but the Sacred Scriptures in Chinese are used as a class book'. Legge's own pre-occupations and ideas are also reflected in the following comments:
The Headmaster will be expected to acquire the Chinese lan-guage, without a knowledge of which he cannot fill the situation efficiently.
Under the right man the Institution will not only benefit the Chinese population of this Colony but tell powerfully on the enlight-enment and progress of the adjoining Continent.
27.
See Evidence 12 below for more details of the scheme.

28.
See Eitel, op. cit., pp. 342-43, and Carl Smith, op. cit., pp. 5 and 208. Miss Sophia Harriet Baxter (the best known of these philanthropic young women), Miss Magrath and Miss Eaton came out to Hong Kong in response to an appeal from Mrs Smith, the Bishop's wife, to the English Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East. Miss Legge was James Legge's daughter.


151
The Legislative Council authorized the purchase of premises for the new 'Central School' in Gough Street for $20,500 and the erection of additional buildings on the same site.
The Diocesan Native Female Training School, 'being a Christian School and constituted differently from the Government Schools', was removed by the Board of Education from the list of schools receiving financial aid and supervision.
Mr J.J. Mackenzie, prominent merchant, was appointed to the Board of Education.
James Legge became Acting Chairman of the Board of Education. Near the end of the year, Bishop Smith informed the Board that he had selected Mr Frederick Stewart, M.A.(Aberdeen), as Headmaster of the Central School.
The first volume of James Legge's translations of the Chinese Classics was published.
1862: The Government Central School opened during February29 in premises on Gough Street. Mr (later Dr) Frederick Stewart, Headmaster of the Central School and Inspector of Government Schools, arrived in March. On 3rd June, J.J. Mackenzie presented a memorandum to the Board of Education which, supported by Stewart and endorsed by the Board (8 October) was published as 'Regulations for the Government Schools in Hongkong7. These regulations excluded elementary Chinese from the Central School's curriculum, permitting Chinese pupils to be admitted only after an examination in Chinese. By this provision, the other Govern-ment schools, which did offer elementary Chinese, became feeders for the Central School. Children of Hong Kong residents were to be admitted to the Central School free of charge, but those of outsiders were to pay fees. At the request of the Board, Stewart drafted some Ttegulations for the Better Administration of the Government Schools (outside the Central School)', which were amended by the Board on 17 November and pub-
29. As Ng Lun Ngai-ha and, earlier, Gwynneth Stokes note, there has been a slight differ-ence of opinion about the exact date of the opening of the Central School. Frederick Stewart always regarded the day of his own arrival, 10 March, as the real opening date. On the other hand, the 'Report of the Board of Education for 1862' (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1863,
p. 87) states that the school was opened in the month of February. There is some support for this in an article in the Yellow Dragon, the school magazine of Queen's College, written by the second Headmaster, Dr Bateson-Wright. Bateson-Wright, then in retirement, wrote: 'In February last occurred the Jubilee of The Central School'. To confuse the issue a little, Eitel claims that Stewart actually arrived in Hong Kong on 18 February 1862 (Eitel, op. cit., p. 345). Endacott, in his History of Hong Kong (p. 140) further complicates the matter by stating, without acknowledging any sources for the information, that 'the Central School was opened on the 1st January 1862'. See G.G. Stokes, op. cit., p. 19; Ng Lun Ngai-ha, op. cit., n.34, p. 44.
lished in Chinese translation. These fixed the school-hours at seven and three-quarters a day, with four hours 'for the study of the Bible on Sun-days �X when desired by the parents of at least six scholars'. Loud bawling at Chinese reading was forbidden.30
Frederick Stewart was authorized to sign all vouchers of educational expenditure as Tiead of the Education Department7.
1863: The Diocesan Native Female Training School moved into a newly erected building on the corner of Bonham Road and Eastern Street. Miss Baxter was running four separate schools, two for Eurasians and two for Chinese, throughout this year.
A new Roman Catholic school was opened under the name of 'West-point Chinese Day School'. Eitel claims that this was probably 'the germ from which later on the West Point Reformatory sprang up'.31
A relatively trivial dispute over notices in the Government Gazette possibly indicated the fragility of the position of the Board of Education. A second English master was appointed to the Central School.
1864: The West Point Industrial Reformatory' was opened under Ignatius Ip Uen, James How, Aloy Leang and Asam Wan and taught 45 Chinese boys such crafts as shoe-making, carpentry, tailoring, and bookbinding. This institution may certainly be regarded as the first initiative in technical education in Hong Kong. It later received an annual grant of $1,000 from the Hong Kong Government for its work in dealing with delinquents and was the forerunner (operating on the present site) of St. Louis' College.
Fees were introduced in the Central School, applying to all pupils attending the English classes from 1 January 1865.
The Inspector of Schools was invited to become a member of the Board of Education and, in fact, soon became the most reliable member in terms of attendance.
The Government reserved in perpetuity nine acres of land on 'Gov-
ernment Hill' to the east of Albany Road for the enjoyment of residents as
a botanical garden.
Miss Eaton, Headmistress of the Diocesan Native Female Training School, was stoned by a Chinese mob while she was proceeding by sedan chair to school. The mob apparently associated her with the teaching of English to girls and thereby with their degradation.32
30.
Although (as Eitel commented) this probably astonished many Chinese parents, it was consistent with what Stewart felt about Chinese methods of learning and teaching. See Chapter 1, Evidence 12, above.

31.
Eitel, 'Materials...', p. 347.

32.
See for example Evidence 14 and 15 in this chapter and Evidence 1(a), 1(c) and 10 in Chapter 4. It might be noted that the unfortunate Miss Winefred Eaton of this incident later


1865: St. Saviour's College was opened in two sections (in which the official languages were English and Portuguese respectively) near the Mission House in Wellington Street, with an entrance on Pottinger Street. This was the direct forerunner of St. Joseph's College.
Miss Baxter died on 30 June (of 'Hong Kong fever'). Some of her pupils were transferred to the Diocesan School and others to St. Paul's College.
The Board of Education was dissolved and on 24 June a Gazette Notification announced that Frederick Stewart had been appointed Head of the Education Department in place of the Board. This might be taken to mark the end of a period in which voluntarism held sway in education in Hong Kong and the opening of a period in which the newly established Department of Government Schools (later to be known as the Education Department), though very small, played a very significant part in policy-making.
EVIDENCE
1. Eyewitness accounts.
The first extract below comprises quotations from one of the very earliest eye-witness accounts by a Westerner of conditions in Hong Kong, only weeks after the official landing and ceremony at 'Possession Point'. Edward Cree, a naval surgeon, also recorded his impressions in the form of water colours. One of these is a painting of the northern shore of Hong Kong in April 1841 'before the town was built' (Illus. 3.1).
The second brief extract is from a diary written nearly twenty years later by the well-known Victorian entertainer, Albert Smith. An acute and sympathetic observer, especially of the Chinese, Smith actually published his findings and opinions as To China and Back:
Being a Diary kept Out and Home.
The third extract is rather ironic about and certainly less sympathetic to the 'Celes-tials'. Alfred Weatherhead, its author, was a government clerk in Hong Kong during the 1850s. His description of the games and music of the local Chinese will be recognized by later visitors to Hong Kong. The extracted passage also offers an early version of the 'cultural desert' attack on Hong Kong, a theme which, as other evidence displayed in this book shows, was not invariably supported by the facts.
(a) The Cree Journals: The Voyages of Edward H. Cree, Surgeon R.N., manuscript in
the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. I wish to acknowledge that
became Mrs E.J. Eitel. On the dedication page of his Europe in China, 1895, Ernest Eitel inscribed: To my wife Winefred nee Eaton, in memory of thirty years of wedded lights and shadows, spent in Canton and Hongkong, this book which owes everything to her is affectionately dedicated/
permission to reproduce the text and watercolour below was given by Briga-dier Hilary Cree.
Wed. 7th [April 1841] Anchored yesterday afternoon in Hong Kong harbour. Went on shore in the cutter with some of the 18th. Landed in a pretty, secluded bay and walked up to a village, but the natives are shy. The women all ran away and shut their doors. We passed a herd of buffaloes, not pleasant looking animals. Went into the village school where we saw a lot of moon-faced urchins were acquiring the rudiments of the Celestial learning, and put one in mind of some of our village schools. They seem pretty much the same all over the world ...
Wed. 28th [April 1841] Captain Chilcott of Prince George [transport! sent his gig in which we went on board, then went with him in his longboat to a village on the mainland and walked a few miles. We were well armed and the natives were very civil. We brought some lunch �X ham sandwiches, sausages and ale, which we enjoyed under a banian tree surrounded by a gaping crowd of natives.
Fri. 30th [April 1841] On shore with Bull and his wife to see the new village which is springing up rapidly in Hong Kong and roads are being constructed. Thousands of Chinese labourers are being employed.
Illus. 3.1 Victoria, Hong Kong, in April 1841, before the town was built.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
(b) Albert Smith, To China and Back..., pp. 38-39.
Tuesday, 31st. �X Packing up all the morning for my first lot of baggage home: sawing off all the handles from the arms that had been given to me, and getting them bound together for transit. In the afternoon drew up my first "scheme" of my entertainment, and wrote part of my quick song. Today Mr. Dent gave me several of Chinnery's sketches �X very excellent authorities. Was called on to-day, by several troublesome friends, who had evidently nothing to do, and came to hear what I had got to say, and not to tell me anything.
At four, Rozario came, and we started in chairs to the "Happy Valley," by a road cut through the neck of a ridge leading to a plain opening prettily on the sea. This is the Hong Kong race course. There is a grand stand, and behind it, on the western side, are cemeteries, Catholic, Protestant, and Indian, or Parsee. The English church is temporary, of matting and bamboo; the old one, behind it, having a fallen in. An English cemetery, very far from home, has a very touching aspect. Many of the monuments were for those who had died here on board ship, from disease or in action. Many were mounted with obelisks, and capstans, and anchors, all carved in granite. Then on, up the valley, coming to a little Chinese school, supported by the English, with the pupils at small desks, and the old schoolmaster in the corner, it was a very pleasant sight. There were English maps and alphabets round the wall; and the boys had little double paper books, with Indian ink tablets and pencils. One boy read his Chinese lesson to me, from his book, reading from top to bottom, in a sing-song voice. There was a pretty little village near here, buried in charming foliage, to which two small Chinese urchins were carrying water on a pole, followed by two smaller still, whose hats almost covered them. We walked on with fine cacti making hedges, and belts of mango and lychee trees. Here and there, water rushed down over blocks of granite, with a charming Chamouni sound about it. Kept right round the bend of the race-course, skirt-ing a native cemetery, with quantities of bits of yellow paper blowing about, which are distributed at Chinese funerals to keep the ghosts quiet. Ferns grew plentifully about, and the foliage everywhere was delicious. As we turned to come back, we met several equestrians, and people in carriages, out for their afternoon ride. The whole place was so tranquil, and pretty, and home-like, that I got very low-spirited, and did not care to talk all the way back. A solitary English hearse going to the cemetery, with nobody to follow it, did not improve the spirits.
(c) Alfred Weatherhead, life in Hong Kong, 1856-59' (typescript in the Library of the University of Hong Kong, n.d. but circa 1859), pp. 29-31.
The ways and doing of the natives have been so often and minutely por-trayed by travellers �X that I need not describe them here. On the whole the Celestials may fairly be termed a monotonous set of beings. Their amusements are few, sedentary, and for the most part what we should deem childish. For instance, middle-aged and elderly folks may be seen on favorable afternoons gravely devoting their energies to the entrancing pastime of kite-flying. The said kites, by the way, occasionally display no small variety and ingenuity in construction, being made to represent birds, butterflies, fish, dragons and so forth. In quiet corners of the street under the verandahs you may see small parties disporting themselves at shuttlecock �X the feathered toy being kept up, not with a battledore nor by hand, but by striking it upward with the sole or instep of the foot, or by the more expert with the heel lifted backward. Games of mingled skill and chance, something like our dominoes are greatly in favor with them. They are moreover greatly given to what they imagine to be music, and appear to extract much happiness form very primitive materials in the production of the most monotonous, dreary and inexplicable noises. The whole matter of Chinese music, to Western ears and notions, is a perfect mystery. Over and over again have I listened most attentively to their per-formances, but never could gather anything that we should recognize as an air or tune �X nor distinguish anything like an attempt at harmony �X the per-formers vocal, or instrumental, invariably keeping in strict unison, the singers always of the masculine gender, (females are not allowed to sing or act in public), appearing to consider a screaming falsetto as the acme of vocal excellence. One would imagine that if incapable of composing melodies of their own, they would at all events, as their organs of hearing are quite as acute as ours, enjoy the exquisite results of Western art. But no, in vain, do the military and naval bands give out their choicest strains �X the natives never appear to be in the slightest degree impressed thereby, a few gaping idlers may now and then stop to stare at the performers, but evidently only to watch their mode of handling the instruments. Yet they have an Imperial College at Pekin expressly devoted to the cultivation of music; and in a class conducted for some time at Hongkong on the Hullah system during our stay, two of the members were Chinese, and certainly kept pace with the foreigners, one of them being the best sight-reader in the class. This certainly looks as if they were not altogether hopelessly unmusical. One the other hand all attempts to teach the Chinese school children sufficient of the art to assist the Cathedral choir have failed utterly, though with our Sunday school children no difficulty is experienced with a little patience. The subject of Chinese music is one well worthy the investigation of our amateurs, as affording many points of inter-esting enquiry, but time will not permit me to go further into the matter at present.
Of social amusement there is but little of any kind in Hongkong, No Liter-ary and Scientific Institution, Mutual Admiration Societies etc. A branch of the Royal Asiatic Society exists, or rather languishes there but is confined to a select few. There is, to be sure, a Library and Reading Room, supported by subscription at the high figure of $2 per month �X where the members might play at chess, practise music and get up lectures, soirees, and classes if they liked. But they don't. In the first place such proceedings would involve people
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
157
belonging to different circles meeting each other, which would be highly im-proper and objectionable, and besides would necessitate some exertion of the bodily and intellectual faculties, a thing to be deprecated in a hot climate. Consequently excepting on the arrival of the mail, when the newspapers are fresh �X the rooms are almost deserted, excepting by ship captains, who have the privilege of free admission on the introduction of a member, and have no other place in which to pass their leisure time. At the Club House, that paradise of the select, and temple of colonial gentility, they rejoice greatly in billiards, which game appears to contain the secret of endless amusement, to judge from the unremitting devotion thereto displayed by the youthful mem-bers of the club.
"Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale
Its infinite variety/'
American bowls (skittles are not sufficiently genteel) and a little cricketing in the winter are to be met with. At one time annual regattas were got up but for divers and weighty reasons have fallen into the cold shade of oblivion.
Once a year Hongkong wakes up, determined to be happy for a brief space, even though dollars be neglected �X and the whole population native and foreign give themselves up to unrestricted jollification. The spring races are the colonial carnival. The enterprising spirit and liberality displayed is really astonishing, and the results obtained highly creditable to so small a community. The number of races is sufficient to form a very tolerable pro-gramme for three days �X the race course being the only level piece of ground in the island, named in Chinese Wong Nei Chung or the Happy Valley. There is a Grand Stand, with supplementary refreshment booths, stables and so on, all after the approved model of the Derby and Ascot. At the principal race, for the Ladies Cup, the prize is usually presented to the fortunate winner by the youngest unmarried lady present, accompanied by an appropriate speech. The winding up race is perhaps the most attractive to the general public unversed in stable lore. It is for horses of every kind, mounted by Chinese. Generally the riders are stable boys, who have the care of the animals, and being very indifferent jockeys, about 50% are pretty sure to come to grief at a very early stage.
2. Extract from the first History of Hong Kong from Western eyes, William Tarrant's Hong Kong, Part 1, 1839-44, printed at The Friend of China Office, Canton, 1861.
This extract refers to the first year of Hong Kong's colonial history, 1843. The author's
viewpoint was shared by many European and American merchants, particularly his reser-
vations about missionaries and his criticisms of the Hong Kong Government.
On the 8th of June, proclamation was made (dated the 1 st) of an Order in Council providing that the Court of Justice with Criminal and Admi-
ralty jurisdiction, appointed by order of His Majesty in Council on the 9th of December 1833, should thenceforth be held on the Island of Hongkong, and have jurisdiction over British subjects within the Island, on the main-land of China, or on the high seas within one hundred miles of the coast thereof; �X a Supplementary Gazette on the 22d of the month containing the rules of practice and proceeding within the said court, of which, however, no use was made during 1843.
Among the memorabilia of 1843, was the starting of another newspa-per y'clept the Eastern Globe. �X The fit of spleen which produced 'the wonder' expended its gas in about a quarter. In the same month of June, too, the establishment of the paper theretofore called the Canton Register was brought to Hongkong from Macao, and for a short time was con-ducted by its old Editor, Mr. John Slade, a gentleman of good classical attainments and a Chinese scholar; a shrewd man, too, of the feast of reason and flow of soul school. The Hongkong fever carried him off in the month of August, however, and the editorship devolved on Mr John Cairns, an excellent man, though, if any thing, too kind hearted for a journalist.
The Medical Missionary and Morrison Education Societies had com-menced operations, as before stated, in 1842, and in 1843, Hongkong became the head quarters of the Tae-choo mission, under the Rev, Mr. Dean, and of the London Mission under Dr. Legge. In connection with the latter Society the following appeared in the Colonial Gazette. �X
Connected with Hongkong, we observe an intimation in the daily journals which may not give unmixed satisfaction to Government. It is, that the Missionary Chinese College at Malacca is to be immediately transferred to Hongkong. Since its misunderstanding with the Jesuits and Dominicans, the Chinese Government has been, if possible, more jealous of missionaries than of any other class of foreigners. If it become aware of an intermitting effort of missionary zeal in the Island of Hongkong, the Chinese Government will be hard to be persuaded that the English au-thorities cannot stop it; and our relations with China may be embarrassed on this account. Still no Christian, no philosophical Government, could for a moment dream of refusing missionaries leave to settle in its territo-ries and teach their doctrines to all such as may apply for instruction, or of refusing leave to strangers to come and have access to the missionaries. The duty prescribed to Government alike by reason and religion, of allow-ing the gospel free course, is as clear as their duty to abstain from playing the missionary part in their own persons. In this matter, Government must in a great measure remain at the mercy of the discretion of the missionary bodies. The patrons of missionary efforts must be aware how much the progress of Christianity has at all times been accelerated when those sent to propagate it have been able to communicate new and useful information to the tribes they addressed. They must therefore see the advantage of making their College at Hongkong as complete a seminary
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
of instruction as they can, and of not confining its advantages to neo-phytes. Let them give instruction in the useful and ornamental arts, the sciences, and above all medicine. Let them avail themselves of their inter-course with the students to explain and recommend the Christian relig-ion; but let them not insist upon its profession as a requisite for admission, or for the attainment of such degrees as it may be found admissible to confer. They will thus increase their power for good. The Jesuits, who to a considerable extent acted upon their principle, might have kept their footing in China still but for the rash and vulgar meddling of the medicant orders. Let this example warn against the intrusting of the missionary task at Hongkong to uneducated zeal. The British Government would do well to encourage any inclination that may be evinced by the friends of mis-sions to employ exclusively educated and judicious men at Hongkong, by contributing something to the support of their college on condition that satisfactory evidence shall be given to it of the qualification of every man that shall be sent out. Embarrassments with the Chinese authorities may thus be avoided, and Hongkong rendered a powerful instrument of civili-zation in the East.
The Roman Catholic Church in Wellington Street, dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin, was first opened for worship on Trinity Sunday, while, not to neglect a notice of all persuasions, the Mahometans built a mosque high on the hill, and the Zoroastrians received a free grant of land for a cemetery in Navy Bay, which, however, they never made use of. Only for Buddhism was there no allotment; nor to this day do the Chinese hold a temple excepting on land for which they pay full Crown rent �X the burial places of Chinese being here there and everywhere on the hills. [We must say we do think it a disgrace to the Crown to take toll from idolatry. So long as Chinese are not Episcopalians, they must have facilities somewhere for worshipping the Being they deem God, and these they should have without fee.]
3. Maps of early colonial Hong Kong showing sites of early schools (Illus. 3.2).
The maps below are based upon the first Western-style map of Hong Kong Island
produced by Captain Sir E. Belcher in 1841. Consideration of the more detailed Collinson
map of 1844 facilitated estimates of the locations of villages, etc. The first map suggests where the pre-British schools were sited. Its conclusions derive from Eitel's testimony and other contemporaneous accounts, as well as inferences from population statistics. Extrapolating from the clues left in his Journal, a person could calculate that the school which Cree mentions may have been the one Eitel refers to in Wongneichong Village or it may have been in or near Pokfulam Village or even Heung Kong Tsai. The second map identifies the early voluntary (mainly missionary) schools. Other
evidence in this chapter will enable readers to locate the Morrison Education Society
a Schools recorded by Eitel as in existence lor at least a century before the British occupation of Hong Kong.'
n Locations of pre-British schools extrapolated from other evidence
A. Schools existing on Hong Kong Island before 1841.
�E Anglican
^ Secular (Non-denominational)
B. Schools founded by voluntary associations, 1843-1860.
Illus. 3.2 Maps of early colonial Hong Kong showing sites of early schools.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
C. Early 'Government Schools'.
Illus. 3.2 (Continued)
School, the Anglo-Chinese College, Shuck's short-lived school on Gough Street, St Paul's College, the Roman Catholic Seminary and the school run by the Propaganda de Fide Society, plus the school which was probably affiliated to the Man Mo Temple shortly after its building was completed in 1847. Readers should note that by August 1843, there were several other 'Confucian' or 'native' schools, according to the Chinese Repository, perhaps eight or ten, in various parts of the island, chiefly in Victoria.
The third map shows the earliest Government-assisted schools (i.e., from 1848 to 1859). Note how the siting and distribution of these schools echoed the pre-colonial situation.
4. Extracts from the Chinese Repository.
Thefollowing extracts from the Chinese Repository may provide evidence about both fact and opinion in the very early years of Hong Kong's colonial history.
(a) X (October 1841), 568-69; from Article V, 'The Third Annual Report of the Morrison Education Society, read September 29th 1841'.
This Report begins with a summary of the opening address by the Society's president, Mr. Lancelot Dent. It also includes a quotation from the testimonial provided by Jeremiah Day, President of Yale, in connection with S.R. Brown's appli-cation for the post of Headmaster of the school which the Morrison Education Society
planned to open. The testimonial is very supportive, including, as evidence of Brown's abilities and suitability, reference to the fact that, after his graduation from Yale, he had been successful as a teacher of the deaf and dumb in New York.33 The Annual Report proceeds with extracts from Brown's own brief statement 'respecting his labours up to the 29th April 1840, part of which appears below, and a general description of a school-day in the school which he had opened in Macau on 4th November 1840'.
... At first, the political and commercial troubles in China cast a shade over my prospects; but finding that the president and members of the Society, notwithstanding circumstances so unfavorable to deliberation on any subject not connected with politics and trade, retained their ardor in this cause, it ill became me to be discouraged. The fears, therefore, which had at first arisen, subsided, and I endeavoured to apply myself with all diligence to the study of the Chinese language as a preparatory qualifica-tion for future labour in teaching Chinese youths34...
... I have assigned half of each day to English studies, beginning at 6 in the morning and closing at 9 o'clock P.M. Thus eight hours are given to books, and from three to four to exercise and recreation in the open air. My own study is the school room, and the pupils are therefore constantly under supervision; out of school they are not permitted to leave the premises, where there is ample room for their sports. They have never manifested any displeasure at this degree of restraint, while it excludes from them the many influences abroad which would injure their manners and morals35...
33.
It is interesting that a prominent American academic of the time should consider that experience teaching the physically disadvantaged in New York was a suitable preparation for the task of teaching Chinese pupils in the Orient. Certainly all the pupils involved might have been considered to have shared a major language disability. In the context of long periods of time during which 'Special Education' has had to struggle for attention and assistance, it is even more ironic to note that the first Principal and teacher of the very first Western-type school ever to be established in Hong Kong was something of a specialist in this field.

34.
Many of the other Westerners who, in the early colonial period became teachers in Hong Kong, exercised a similar diligence. Not least in this respect were Charles Gutzlaff, James Legge and Ernest Eitel. The effort was not, however, confined to missionaries. Frederick Stewart, for example, overcame his first language problems in Hong Kong (see Evidence 12, Chapter 1) to become well-known for his fluency in Cantonese. In Hong Kong's later colonial history, there were also several noted Sinophonic teachers �X but they tended to be the exceptions.

35.
While the main impact of this passage may seem to be associated with the long hours and monastic or even prison-like conditions of study, readers might also note the propor-tion of time devoted to recreational exercise and the 'ample room for . .. sports'. In these respects, the current situation is not necessarily an improvement over the 1840s!


(b) XI (October 1842), 544-45; from Article III, The Fourth Annual Report of the Morrison Education Society, read September 28th 1842'.
The report refers to and quotes from the President of the Society, Lancelot Dent's letter of 21 February, 1842, to Sir Henry Pottinger, Superintendent of Trade and first Governor of Hong Kong, applying for a site in Hong Kong for the Morrison Education Society's school, and the very quick reply, signed by J.R. Morrison, Chinese Secretary of the Governor and son of Robert Morrison, on 22 February, acceding to the request.
. . . The site is one every way most eligible for the purposes of the Society. It is a hill having the harbor on the north, the valley of Wong-nachung on the east, the Queen's road on the south, and adjoining it on the west, the lot granted to the Medical Missionary Society, which is part of the same range. In process of time, it will probably be nearly midway between the eastern and the western extremities of the town, occupying a conspicuous yet retired position, elevated and healthy, and commanding a panoramic view of land and water.36 The plan for the building, which is commenced, is in outline as follows. It is to consist of a main body and two wings; the whole one story in height. The first is to be 63 feet in its front length, and 55 deep, divided into 6 rooms, each 20 feet by 25 feet. The wings are each to be 63 feet in length by 24.5 in breadth. The east wing is intended exclusively for a range of apartments for pupils, sufficiently large to accommodate 20 boys and two Chinese teachers, allowing a room for each person, where he will be furnished with a bed and a writing table, that are to be fixtures, and are included in the contract with the builder. The other wing is divided into two rooms, 21 by 25 feet in dimensions, besides a smaller one 10 by 21 feet, for a store-room. Of these larger rooms, one is designed eventually to hold the Society's library, and the other for the purpose of a recitation room.
The trustees have, in the first instance, contracted only for the erection of the two wings and a kitchen in the rear, which will serve as a tempo-rary, though plainly a bare accommodation for the school, and Mr. Brown's family. The room intended for the library and the recitation room will be occupied by the latter until such time as the body of the house can be erected, which should not be delayed. To avoid the expense of another year's rent to the Society, Mr. Brown is making arrangements to give up the lease of the house which he now occupies in Macao, at the expiration of the present year which will be the first of November next. The pupils of the school all express much eagerness to remove to Hongkong, and there is reason to believe that nearly all of them will be able to do so with the consent of their friends...
36. See photographic confirmation of the conspicuous yet retired position of at least the vicinity of this site in Evidence 19(a) below.
(c) XII (July 1843), 362 ff.; from Article IV. 'History of Hongkong: Given in Speci-mens of Composition by Pupils in the School of the Morrison Education Society.
Since the removal of this school to Hongkong, we have repeatedly had the pleasure of attending the examinations of the boys belonging to it. These examinations have been held weekly at six o'clock A.M., and at-tended by one or more of the trustees of the Society, who have usually been the examiners. On these occasions the boys have been closely interro-gated in their respective branches of study �X geography, history, mathe-matics, &c. On the 4th instant, there were present, with two of the trustees, several military gentlemen, and among others some belonging to Lord Saltoun's staff, who were highly gratified with the exercises of the occa-sion. These exercises commenced with the reading of compositions, writ-ten by the boys; the several classes were then examined in their respective studies; after which, assisted by the Rev. Mr. Brown, their tutor, on a seraphine, they entertained their visitors with some charming melodies. The oldest pupils have been in the school less than four years, and have given only half their time to English studies, the other half being occupied with Chinese. The following are specimens of the compositions; they were seven in number, all written upon the same subject, designed to give an account of Hongkong. They were written as prize essays, some books having been offered to those who would produce the best compositions.
. # # ** * * (Fourth specimen)
This island is very ruff covered with hills and there are few level places except the valley of Wonnai tsung, Sokun po and little Hongkong. Although this island is so ruff yet there is a fine large harbor where ships of war and merchantships can be anchored in great numbers. On the north side of the island there is another small island named Kellets island on which a small fort was built mounting four guns about two years ago; this named is derived from a captain in the English navy.
In the year eighteen hundred and forty-one the English commenced to build houses in Hongkong. A few years ago there was not one place which is in China which belonged to the British. It was said that the mandarin had put poison into those streams of water which are in this island, because the last three or two years ago many Chinese who came here got sick and some of them died, therefore they thought so. I think this story was only exaggerated by the Chinese; but now it is more flourishing state, I think it will be better than Macao.
Sometime after captain Elliot had attacked Canton he was called back to England; and the queen then sent sir Henry Pottinger here to manage the Chinese affairs. When he had reached here he fought with the Chinese great many times and many places were taken.
There are several villages on this island, but I cannot tell all about them, as some of them I never saw, but now I am going to write about one of them which is called Wangna chung, it is on the north side of the island. It is surrounded by trees, and some of them produce dillecious fruits. I saw those people's houses every one of which I believe has an idol on top of it, for the heathen people think thus they can protect them from evil things. Their streets are very dirty and narrow.
There are two market places on the north side of this island, one of them is in Chungwan and the other in Hawan37 and both of them are near to the sea side. The first one is larger and cleaner than the latter one, and I think they are nicer than those markets in Macao, for they are almost always mudy.
About three years ago there was not one Chinese governor, who dared to hold a banquet with the English, as they were afraid of them. But now this year in the month of May there were two imperial commission-ers came to this island and visited the British governor and took dinner with him; and one evening they came to the Morrison Education Society school, and Mr. Brown played on the instrument and the boys sung several pieces, and the visitors seemed to be very much please to hear our teacher play and sing; but a few years ago I never heard they did such a thing, and I hope they will gradually become good friends and I that this country will improve.
(d) XII (August 1843), 440-41; from Article III, 'Religious and Charitable Institu-tions in Hong Kong: Churches, Chapels, Schools, Colleges, Hospitals, &c.'
The school of the Morrison Education Society is the only one of any note yet established in Hongkong. There are a few native schools �X perhaps eight or ten, in various parts of the island, chiefly Victoria. To these schools �X and all that may be established for native children �X we would respectfully, but most earnestly, call the attention of the local government. A school committee will, erelong, be desirable. We will not dwell on this subject, for we have reason to know that it will not be overlooked.
(e) XII, pp. 625 ff.; from 'Report of the Morrison Education Society, December 1843, signed by S.R. Brown'.
It was my intention in arranging the studies for the boys last April, to select those best suited to their previous attainments, and to adhere closely
37. Chungwan was (and is) the Cantonese name for what is now known as 'Central'; Ha Wan referred to what is now known as Wanchai. The waterfront's position has, of course, been changed markedly since the 1840s by a series of reclamation schemes.
to these, till they should be finished. Accordingly, the eldest of the three classes into which the school is divided, took up the History of England by Keightly, Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic, and English composition and penmanship. In the first study, viz., history, beginning with the invasion of Britain by the Romans, this class has proceeded by means of minute explanations and illustrations upon each lesson through two-thirds of the volume, which they use as a text-book, as far as the reign of Charles I. Sometimes they have been required, after studying the lessons by them-selves, to answer questions upon them; at others, to read their own ver-sion of the same portion of history written upon the slate. They might have gone on more rapidly, had they been less rigidly examined in every-thing relating to their lessons. It is not with these lads in any study as it is with those who speak English from their birth. A lesson in any book for the first two or three years after one of them enters the school is at once both a lesson on language and on the particular subject of which the book treats. Hence let it be arithmetic, geography, or history, or whatever else, the language must first be made intelligible, and the subject matter must be arrived at by this laborious process. We often find it necessary to spend more time on interpreting the textbook than in merely reciting the lesson. Not only every new word needs to be defined, but every new form of expression, and every particular idiom or combination of words; and it is not infrequently a half hour's task to unravel and expound a paragraph of moderate length so that the pupil shall clearly perceive, not merely what each part signifies, but how all the parts hinge upon one another, and are combined together so as to convey an unbroken train of thought. Unless this were done, the study would be of little avail to the scholar. The rate of progress through a book is not therefore the index of the pupil's general advancement, but only of that which he has made in the particular science taught in it, while his literary attainments are to be decided by other criteria.
If the examiners of a school like that of the Morrison Education Soci-ety bear these facts in mind, they are likely to come to a correct estimate of the pupils, and of the mode of instruction adopted. The boys of the first class have had as thorough a training after this manner as I could give to them, and by it have pretty well mastered the portion of history men-tioned above, with great interest to themselves, and have made in the meantime a steady advance in their knowledge of the English language. They have also finished the manual of Mental Arithmetic, and reviewed it, and have commenced the study of the Sequel by the same author, which is admirably adapted to lead the scholar forward by easy gradations, into the higher operations of arithmetic. In English composition, the above-mentioned historical exercise has been the most frequent, though the pupils have occasionally written upon themes of their own selection. Their penmanship too has been improved by the use of excellent copy books.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
The second class, which has now been under tuition a year and a half, was likewise put to learning Colburn's First Lessons in Arithmetic, and have nearly gone through it; they have also been taught reading, writing, and spelling, and somewhat of composition.
The youngest, or third, class, who entered in April last, have been taught to speak English, and to read and spell it. They are now able to read easy sentences, embracing words of two or more syllables, with some degree of readiness and accuracy of pronunciation; to write pretty well with the pencil; and to understand and speak a little English .. .
During the whole of last year, the morals of the school-boys have appeared to me in general unexceptional. No instance of theft or falsehood in the upper two classes has come to my knowledge. I believe, indeed, that it may be said without the least exaggeration, that they are all habitually impressed with a feeling of contempt for the character of a liar. I have heard them, when some instance of falsehood or low cunning has oc-curred among the natives around them, say with a look of disgust, That is Chinese.'38
5. Official correspondence from Governors of Hong Kong to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The two despatches quoted below offer clear indications of the motives and policies of the respective Governors.
(a) Sir Henry Pottinger, first Governor of Hong Kong, to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 23 August 1843; in CO 129/2, pp. 251 ff.
. . . Your Lordship will see, that my full impression was, that by as-signing a Location for the Morrison Education Society, I had done every-thing that could be justly expected, or required, and I am still of this opinion; and cannot help considering the plans sketched in the letter now submitted39 to be altogether premature and uncalled for, to say nothing of the self evident political objections which exist to some of them.
It seems to me that, it will be quite time enough to talk of founding an Anglo-Chinese College, when the success of the Morrison Education Soci-ety shall have proved that it is likely to be useful, and even then it should in my ideas, be amalgamated with that Institution, as two Institutions of
38.
Did the missionaries in Hong Kong deliberately attempt to create the alienation of their pupils from their own culture, as has been claimed against missionaries in other parts of the world? See Carl Smith, op. cit., esp. pp. 16 ff. for one interesting discussion of this question.

39.
This refers to the application for Government assistance made by the members of the London Missionary Society on 18 August 1843. See Chapter 1, Evidence 3, above.


the sort in a small place like Hongkong �X where I conceive it to be extremely doubtful whether any respectable Chinese will ever voluntarily avail themselves of the intended boon �X will be totally superfluous.
(b) Sir John Davis, second Governor of Hong Kong, to Earl Grey, 16 March 1847; in CO 129/19, pp. 239^1 (Illus. 3.3).
6. Extracts of observations40 from two Inspectors of Schools.
Both Inspectors quoted here began their connections with Hong Kong as German Protestant missionaries. Lobscheid was the first Inspector of Government Schools. Ex-tracts from his 'Notices' appear as Evidence in Chapter 1. These additional quotations may provide as much information about Lobscheidfs own educational views as they do about the 'extent of Chinese education'. Eitel, the third Inspector, produced a general history of Hong Kong near the end of his career, entitled Europe in China. Quotations from this work may help to clarify his opinions, as well as offer interpretations about the vicissitudes of some of the early schools.
(a) A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong..., by the Rev. W. Lobscheid, 1859.
The early studies pursued are those of Reading and Writing. Arithme-tic when taught, which is seldom done, and only at the special request of the pupil's parent, in view of his following a mercantile calling, consists merely of instructions in decimal computation on the Chinese counting board.
The books used are: �X 'The Three Character Classic' and others of its class, rising to the Tour Books' and 'Five Classics'. The hours of instruction are said to be from sunrise to sunset, allowing an hour or more for breakfast at 8 and luncheon at 12.
The daily course of studies seems to be an unvaried succession of learning by rote and writing, and with advanced pupils, explanation. Each pupil learns and recites the lesson separately in a louder voice. There are no classes.
The fishing season is said to commence in the 9th, and end in the 3rd month, of the Chinese Year and the children of fishermen who form a large portion of the scholars, accompany their parents to sea; they are, therefore, under tuition during only half a year. The same custom seems to be followed by children of the Hakka, a race of which the population of these villages seems principally to consist.
40. The observations included here are clearly not direct reports based upon routine classroom inspections but 'observations' in the sense of views or considered opinions based on practical experience.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
fJ'f $y: �GL 23S
~A* $2 4t^ \ ~^ 7^�Xy^�X-
/&* ~4t**J, /sty
IN
^ &�G ^ <yVUj_ CLAJLyUeccttJn^. 4TL 4&ute- fL<4--Li4.y�G~ai*et^
$

dt^iA^&U4^a&rH~ Xe ct&uy (Lfi4A^cetc/r^~ t-/unsCk^
(
Illus. 3.3 Despatch from Sir John Davis, second Governor of Hong Kong, to Earl Grey, 16 March 1847.
yj/firttuAAi.eu'ZZ-AU/Aa�G44re4
Ci4i4{wu i/jRi/i-^vwlJiiAj fyy��e*��i-J stsU-A��AieCtc*j^ fc mu^jnmt-JeArrl-( t&c~ *nt4*y Au**�G.ea4*-/i^AtaA/U4^Udtutr
\--\ / * �E�X,
>* / / /? 4AI-sWz?'4iZficet-Si* dvnt'e/i-$\L~y(ff<m<ia�G-. MfortWvt*****^
Ai<f AAinnAlxl-/& e^ru^iuvUl^ _ (7?L~ 4tz.&�G. AAriAttniA^^tftcS
fflu'ldAett-/f,u "this f^/iet-JA/TH/CC Am. /foau.&A�G~ ufi. i.-
/ . ^fvk ^7A^ctUsCn^ 4fatter jdcvt-M*-/u**t<^t-A4L. MYJ .le/hjtfu A.jsun*-/j.0 OAA-d su*4j%mAt:faewJ^&fc/C^
A* AeaeJi pO m. SO AAf-eAAcvutcuytJ . &' {/ht-44AjlAue�Gi4tH-AJ MLCU^ 0��ton. JvunykAA -JAA44A-JcAmi* XAyn-de^L ait. /i^a/CC&n^ ^VLci^teA-. ^
J-�E ane~ fotea�Ge�ӢG-dUreAaA'tty a^d-aJn^tett.efsz
/XAC
M -

TT T /'
etWidritejL-AVV thine-drxceuaut-f -fiitu^ 4MjL^du�G*t~
f^AAAA^eCu^i^ dJ-fihe-4rvUx<e^ id-cu^iy /UttMiAe&nv. A'A/AaAeAreA-/tVt^cleAJliAKil^ CAA^AAAA>i^ltxOl4^e^/, *
Illus. 33 (Continued)
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
i�G. rf^M**+�G& d-not-d*i~45/te~ /LUAI/J AA<L~ tAfJClisf-VlejL-AJ 0J4<A/i.c^ee-~ /tnt�X ACL^cr^AAtZ su.t<si*<Aj-eA-. d~. ^y& ,0/ ArtAu >4fuu /ftiru^ /VVu-ij A^utittcCt^ <& Ctnt-JiAteAtz tfce�X ^/C/IJ-TC-ru. AiiCAt/y eAz<M<* tr��4yu-/i*y /fi/iAA4~C4AiA.LA f AnCCZ */I/lfe ^ciAAAjnc. ^iceAtisrfo eufesCfa*^
ti druMiAruAL, ._ ^f~0&b&XsPi��~ eATpufhvUutun^
(ttUA^AAAUuAnyf aJ ^hL. <*An*^uAl*it--fj-�X �X ^ .
Jbirv-MAA^A^44At-CL4*l4AttaAA.ee^-._
AeJ&u) J f�Gt4AArZ~ Muvtz **�G&-. AA^fA&Arl-y/cJisHJ AA**^
(UTHArtA^tUtM ~�Gn&-AAMxturt^ /flAT^AAZcCUrh^ . *rA�G^ L4vut�G^^
'txutrt* 4>IA> A-cLrcaMLirtLj /fvLtuxdieej ^/Aa. t Z&i�X
&6UL(lCLlZ4?h~rA4u rthlAlt-f/cA/nrO yCJ /UuZA^Ciy AAA^&*VHij
AATXAAAAU* f OAAAIL a^ej&/rivu�Gj t OA^CL-CL~. ArtAAy �X *�X
If I J /,
AWTTZUAL-/LsAftL /SL tufrV eMzdCL ClA^A%JL-dCLA^^�X
Illus. 33 (Continued)
a.A<L c/rutidi^eiuL-0!<L A%e_^ 4A<^ixti edtaA. /uU^^exAAjtA'. /ylTfA �G, AAll-�GM^*A^*L<MSCAZ. e^vUhAATVLAlint^ A/4/l*<4A'ijt-AC J<4&n_ CLA AAreAtL-A~cm<yf^�G- A/if, /l+ CLAJunL^ SAAAUfiLclAnJe /X. JlAff/ieA-eAA��(n4\XLCheA^<eyt^XlZ AWlxAtt ATX. Q/tsir&i^^ t
fluid lAt~ /lAeyi^cL^eij /4-Xht-AU.<C*J3L d&iciAxxdffnJ
X
>
4-q ^ 1
i
1 <^ i IN
Illus. 33 (Continued)
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
173
When the pupils in a school, therefore, consist only of these classes, the teacher usually returns during the fishing season to his family on the mainland, not more than one or two of the schools being conducted by natives of Hong Kong.
... Six in ten of the present day [teachers] indulge either in the narcotic drug or in other dissipation, or they are so lazy and useless that the corruption of teachers has become proverbial.
.. . So long, therefore, as we have neither the men nor the means necessary for a complete change of the native system of education, or for the introduction into the schools of many of our useful branches of ele-mentary education, so long we must content ourselves with giving them a good knowledge of their native books, of Chinese grammar, of the Chris-tian Religion, and of the elements of the English language, and introduce new subjects as we get the books prepared and printed .. .
(b) E.J. Eitel, Europe in China: The History ofHong Kong from the Beginning to the Year 1882 (Kelly and Walsh, 1895, reprinted by Oxford University Press with an introduction by H.J. Lethbridge, 1983), pp. i-ii, 190-91,247, and 280-82.
... At first sight, indeed, the Colony of Hongkong appears like an odd conglomeration of fluctuating molecules of nationalities, whose succes-sive Governors seem to be but extraneous factors adventitiously regulat-ing or disturbing the heavings of this incongruous mass. But in reality the Hongkong community is solidarity one. Though an unbridged chasm does yawn in its midst, waiting for a Marcius Curtius to close it and meanwhile separating the social life of Europeans and Chinese, the people of Hongkong are inwardly bound together by a steadily developing com-munion of interests and responsibilities: the destiny of the one race is to rule and the fate of the other is to be ruled...
* * .�E * * * *
During the year 1843, the religious and missionary agencies in the Colony bestirred themselves considerably in the general interest. Funds had been raised in 1842 for the erection of a Colonial Church, at first intended to be a sort of Union Church for both Churchmen and Noncon-formists. A Colonial Chaplain having been appointed in England at the request of the local Government, which disapproved the proposed union, services were conducted (since June, 1843) by Naval Chaplains in a tem-porary structure now called the 'Matshed Church/ and a building (the present St. John's Cathedral) was ordered to be commenced at Govern-ment expense and meanwhile dedicated to St. John (October 17, 1843), though building operations were delayed for several years as the Home Government postponed its sanction. It was, however, locally decided that the Colonial Chaplain should have sole charge of the Church. The Chap-lain, Rev. V. J. Stanton, preached his first sermon in the Colonial Matshed
Church on December 24th, 1843. The R. C. Prefect Apostolic, Fra Antonio Feliciani, consecrated the building erected by him at the corner of Welling-ton and Pottinger Streets as the R. C. Church of the Conception, on June 18th, 1843, when a Seminary for native clergy was opened in connection with it. The Mohammedans built (in 1843) a Mosque on the hill thence-forth called Mosque Gardens (Moloshan). The Chinese, who had already four temples from 75 to 100 years old, viz. one at Aplichow (dating from 1770 A.D.), one at Stanley, one in Spring Gardens (Taiwongkung), and one at Tunglowan (Causeway Bay), commenced building their City Temple (Sheng-wong-miu) on the site of the present Queen's College. The Ameri-can Baptist Mission, under Dr. Deane and Dr. Ball, started in 1843 a Chinese (Tiechiu) Church in the Upper Bazaar (Sheungwan Market). In addition to the establishment of the Morrsion Education Society's School on Morrison Hill (opened November 1, 1843), Dr. Legge of the London Missionary Society transferred to Hongkong the society's Malacca Col-lege, opening (November, 1843) a Preparatory School and a Seminary for the training of Chinese ministers, which was (in autumn 1844) located on the London Mission premises in Aberdeen and Staunton Streets as the Anglo-Chinese College (Ying-wa Shii-un). The Colonial Chaplain, Rev. V.
J. Stanton, immediately on his arrival (December 22,1843), made prepara-tions for the opening of a Training School for native ministers in connec-tion with the Church of England, on a site previously granted for the purpose by the Government (May 26,1843), under the name of St. Paul's College. In autumn 1843, the Protestant Missionaries of Hongkong (Legge, Medhurst, Milne, Bridgman and J. Stronach) commenced the work which eventually resulted in a new Chinese translation of the Bible, known as the Delegates Version, the best in style and diction (though not in literal accuracy) that has ever been produced to the present day...
In addition to be three Anglo-Chinese Schools (the Morrison Institution on Morrison Hill, the Anglo-Chinese College of the London Mission and St. Paul's College) started under the preceding administration, a number of smaller Schools was established under the fostering care of Sir J. Davis. An 'English Children's School' was opened, in 1845, by the Colonial Chaplain (V. Stanton), and in emulation of it the Propaganda Society started at once a similar School for Roman Catholic children, which was, however, discontinued in 1847. For the benefit of the Chinese population, which had at this period nine Confucian Schools at work, the Governor devised, early in 1847, in imitation of the English religious education grants then hotly discussed in parliament, a Government Grant-in-Aid Scheme to provide non-compulsory religious education in Chinese Schools under the direction of an Educational Committee (gazetted on December 6,1847), consisting of the Police magistrate, the Colonial Chaplain and the Registrar General. That Sir J. Davis was to some extent a religious visionary,
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
may be inferred from a dispatch (March 13,1847) in which he commended his scheme to the Colonial Office by saying that, Tf these Schools were eventually placed in charge of native Christian teachers, bred up by the Protestant Missionaries, it would afford the most rational prospect of converting the native population of the Island.' Sancta simplicitasl
*******
.. . It appeared that a fund of �G18,000 had been raised in England for the endowment of a Hongkong bishopric, that an annual grant of �G6,000 from the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund had been promised by the Bishop of London, and that an additional sum of �G2,000 was available for the special purposes of St. Paul's College. The latter institution was to be (like Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College) a school for the training of Chinese ministers, and the Bishop was appointed its warden under statutes approved (October 15,1849) by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The College received later on also a small Parliamentary grant to train interpreters for the public service.
With the arrival (March 20,1850) of the Bishop, G. Smith, who conse-crated the new cathedral in September, 1850, a period of increased mis-sionary and educational activity set in, for Bishop Smith possessed stimu-lating energy and looked upon the whole of China, as well as Hongkong, as his diocese. The Jewish Colony at Kaifungfoo (in North-China) received a share of the Bishop's attention, a curious testimony of which is exhibited in the City Hall Library in the shape of a portion of the Hebrew Penta-teuch recovered from Kaifungfoo. The Taiping rebellion and the mission-ary politics connected with it occupied much of the Bishop's time. For the benefit of seamen passing through Hongkong, the lorcha Anne was con-verted into a floating Bethel in charge of a seamen's chaplain (Mr. Holder-mann). The Government Grant-in-Aid Schools were soon brought under the supervision of the Bishop as chairman of the Educational Committee, and worked as feeders of St. Paul's College. The latter was taught (until 1849) by Mr. J. Summers (afterwards Professor of Chinese Literature at King's College, London) and subsequently by the Bishop himself and his chaplains. Though the College produced not a single native minister, nor any official interpreter, many of the best educated native residents of the Colony received their training there. The same may be said of Dr. Legge's Anglo-Chinese College which also failed to produce any native preacher or teacher but trained some eminent English-speaking Chinese. While Bishop Smith was great in religious politics, Dr. Legge made himself a European reputation as the translator of the Chinese classics. On the other hand, some of the scholars of the Morrison Institution, of the Anglo-Chinese College and of St. Paul's College, gained at different times an unenviable notoriety in Police Court cases. Hence the public drew the inference that, in the case of Chinese youths, an English education, even when conducted on a religious basis, fails to effect any moral reform, and rather tends to draw out the vicious elements inherent in the Chinese character. The mercantile community, which had hitherto munificently supported missionary institutions, commenced about this time to with-draw their sympathies form the missionary cause altogether. The Morri-son Education Society's School on Morrison Hill had to be closed, in spring 1849, for want of public support. Mr. Stanton's English Children's School, under Mr. Drake, also collapsed in 1849 and the attempt made by Miss Mitchell to revive it resulted, in 1853, in complete failure. Dr Gutzlaffs Chinese Union of native colporteurs, which had for many years made a greater stir in Europe than in China, ended in October 1849, during the temporary absence of Dr. Giitzlaff, in a miserable fiasco. The London Mission Hospital for Chinese, having for some years past lost its hold on public sympathy, was closed in October, 1850. The London Missionary Society opened, however, a chapel in Queen's Road (May, 1851) where out-patients were occasionally attended to. As the mercantile public be-came severe critics of the labours of the missionaries, the latter now came to look upon Hongkong as 'a stumbling-block to the progress of Christi-anity and civilization in China.' The Roman Catholic Missions, seeking on the quiet the support of Government rather than of the public, continued the even tenor of their way. They started several small schools which gave to Portuguese youths an elementary English education and thus com-menced the work which eventually filled commercial and Government offices with Portuguese clerks. The Chinese population, who were still in the habit of sending their sons to be educated outside the Colony, in Canton or in their respective native villages, cared little for local educa-tion. Public spirit among the Chinese vented itself in guild meetings, pro-cessions and temple-committees. Among the latter, the Committee of the Man-moo temple (rebuilt and enlarged in May, 1851) now rose into emi-nence as a sort of unrecognized and unofficial local-government board (principally made up by Nampak-hong or export merchants). This Com-mittee secretly controlled native affairs, acted as commercial arbitrators, arranged for the due reception of mandarins passing through the Colony, negotiated the sale of official titles, and formed an unofficial link between the Chinese residents of Hongkong and the Canton Authorities.
7. Comments by two leading missionaries.
The first extract is taken from a letter written in 1847 by the Rev. George Smith, who had previously visited China on behalf of the Church Missionary Society to report on prospects for the mission there. A few years later, he was to become the first Anglican Bishop of Hong Kong. James Legge, about whom it was later said that he ruled the Board of Education 'with the ease and grace of a born bishop',*1 made the reminiscences and remarks
41. A comment by Eitel, in his Europe in China (Kelly and Walsh, 1895), p. 392.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
quoted below in a talk which he gave shortly before leaving Hong Kong, about thirty years later than the events he is describing. During this talk he also asserted that he was responsible for suggesting the 'Cadet' scheme.*1
(a) Letter from the Rev. George Smith to Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated Church Missionary House, 16 January 1847, in CO 129/22, pp. 269-70.
.. . The second measure which I venture to propose refers to the de-sirability of Christian Schools established and supported by Government for the intellectual, moral and religious education of Chinese youths. It might at first view appear desirable that educational measures might be undertaken by some of the Missionary Societies in existence, assisted by pecuniary grants from the Colonial Legislature of Hongkong. Such a plan would, I apprehend, be open to objections and many practical inconven-iences. Missionary societies will always have a primary, if not exclusive reference to the object of raising up a body of Native Teachers and Evan-gelists who may, by the Divine Blessing, become the instructors of their fellow countrymen.
On the other hand, the Government must look on the Natives edu-cated by their funds, as the nucleus of a body of Native Interpreters, Writers and subordinate officers. In China, where the language is so difficult, and where Interpreters are consequently so much in request, the demand will for a long time considerably exceed the supply: and in scholastic Institutions under a mixed control there must arise apparent collisions of interests and objects, and various grounds for mutual dissat-isfaction.
The case of the Morrison Education School at Hongkong may be cited in some respects as a instance in point. The practical measure I beg leave to suggest to your Lordship is the
42. This was a method of recruiting higher quality administrative officers for the Hong Kong civil service from England and preparing them for their future responsibilities partly through a course in Cantonese. A prototype of the arrangements was devised by Sir John Bowring in 1854 but the full scheme was introduced by Sir Hercules Robinson on 23 March 1861, and the first three recruits, C C Smith, W.M. Deane and M.S. Tonnochy, were appointed on 3 April 1862. As Lethbridge points out, 'the first three [Cadets], who pio-neered the scheme, were given quarters in the Central School House during their proba-tionary period and learned their Chinese, which was Cantonese, from teachers recruited locally by Government. In 1872, Sir Arthur Kennedy established a Board of Examiners, charged with the duty of examining government officers drawing a Chinese teacher's allowance and with issuing certificates of proficiency to European and Indian police con-stables; but before that date cadets had been examined by an ad hoc committee' (H.J. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 36). It may be interesting to note Eitel first established a reputation with the Government through his work examining civil servants tor their knowledge of Chinese.
establishment of an efficient educational Institution for the benefit of the Chinese at Hongkong, in which a European Principal of Christian zeal and ability might dispense the benefits of an education in the literature, science, and religion of the West. By such a measure not only would an important Christian duty and responsibility be discharged, but also im-portant and obvious advantages of a secular kind would be secured. From among the recipients of this bounty of a Christian Government the Colo-nial Executive might look with justice for a reinforcement of Native Inter-preters; who by the efficiency gained from a European education, and by the principles of moral integrity instilled during the progress of Christian instruction, might be placed in a position to repay the debt of gratitude in some subordinate official trust, and might also effect much towards leav-ening with the influence of Christian loyalty the whole mass of Native Society.
The management of such an Institution might be undertaken by the ecclesiastical representatives of the Church of England in the Colony under the visitorial control of the Governor43...
(b) James Legge, 'The Colony of Hong Kong7, lecture in the City Hall, Hong Kong, 5 November 1872; reprinted from The China Review III (1874), 163-76, in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 11,172-93.
... In the month of May, 1843,1 reached Macao, and, a few days after, came over with my family to this place ...
... Many important measures were carried through in his [Sir Hercu-les Robinson, Governor of Hong Kong, 1859-65] time. In 1860, the Chinese schools, supported by Government throughout the island, were entirely rearranged, and I may claim to myself the merit of having pressed on successive governors the adoption of the present system, which Sir Hercu-les was the first to take up heartily, and give effect to. We are very fortunate in obtaining such a master to inaugurate it, and carry it out with untiring devotion, as Mr. Stewart. He has been doing a great work of education with hundreds of pupils, the benefits of which will be increas-ingly felt by the Colony and by China itself.44
43.
Though actually writing this letter from Church Missionary House, George Smith is here clearly attempting to distinguish between the role of the Anglican Church and the activities of missionaries in such colonies as Hong Kong. The Church of England, as the Established Church, assumed a special connection with the Government. The quite general existence of this attitude may help to explain the earlier alacrity with which the Colonial Chaplain, the Rev. V. Stanton, had taken up the Governor's suggestion about the need to provide schooling for the children of 'inferior Europeans'. It may also help to explain the tendency, already noted, of many Anglican leaders to argue in favour of separate educa-tional provision for the different races. See also Evidence 10 below.

44.
Here, Legge, appears to be offering Stewart his blessing at a time when the controversy


VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
8. Extracts from local newspapers.
Another collection of snippets from the local press focuses mainly on opinion, though
the advertisement also indicates the growing interest by Chinese and Europeans in the
opportunities for interpreters at this time.
(a) The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette, 22 February 1845.
In our advertising columns there appears a notice, calling a meeting of the inhabitants, to make arrangements for giving Concerts in Hongkong. We fear that, however laudable the intention �X and however zealous the parties may be, with whom the idea originated �X in the present state of the colony it will not succeed so well as might be desired. We doubt, whether among the limited number of the European inhabitants, there is sufficient musical talent to make such an affair creditable �X and if there is talent, it is so cut up by the different sections into which society has formed itself that a union is all but hopeless. We fear that at present, the harmony of sweet sounds must be confined to the precincts of the draw-ing room or the salon; but though we despair of any public musical assembly, we will be pleased, should our fears or doubts, prove ground-less.
(b) The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette, Saturday, 26 August 1848, p. 281.
. . . Pensions, Schools, Hospitals, and a Poor House cost Singapore �G3,257 per annum; with all our lavish extravagance, the only [Govern-ment] money spent on educational or benevolent institutions or for chari-table purposes is �G7 10s per annum, which figures in the Estimates as 'Maintenance of an Orphan'. It is true we have Hospitals and Schools �X supported by public contributions; there are few places �X if any �X where so much money is subscribed for benevolent and philanthropic purposes as in Hong Kong. A European population of 400 support a Colonial School, (set a-going by the worthy Chaplain, and for a long time kept up at his own expense), a Hospital for sick strangers of all countries, a Chinese educational Institution, also contributing to a Medical Missionary Institu-tion.
(c) Advertisement in Dixon's Hong Kong Recorder, three times a week from 20 July to 15 August 1853.
WANTED
BY a CHINESE, who has received a thorough English Education, a Situ-
between secular and religious education was at its height. It might be noted that, in the following year, 1873, Stewart introduced his Grant Code, branded by many as secularist.
ation as Clerk or Interpreter. He speaks fluently the Mandarin, Canton and
Fukien Dialects, and has also a knowledge of Malay.
(d) China Mail, No. 1050,30 March 1865, p. 50.
There are great difficulties in the path of education in this Colony; but the greatest of all is the application of English rules and measures, and the endeavour to carry them out by gentlemen who know less of the natives and their language and literature than they do of India and of Sanskrit. The Board of Education has always consisted of excellent men, most of whom were anxious to promote the welfare of the natives; but their ignorance of the natives and their language made them naturally disin-clined to visit the schools, and being much occupied during office hours, when the schools should be visited, it is natural that they remained utter strangers to the schools and their wants, and knew nothing of their exis-tence but on paper.
The only gentleman acquainted with the language, and one who for the space of four years has been a member of the Board, is Dr. Legge. But the public need not be told that his duties in other departments are so multifarious as to exclude any idea of his visiting the schools, so as to recognize the pupils, which alone will enable a member of the Board to exercise a wholesome control over the teachers. There are schools almost within the precincts of Victoria which are visited but once a year, even by Dr. Legge. Should any one of the other members of the Board pass along and just peep in, he is not only unable to do more than record his name, but should he ask a pupil about his lesson, the teacher would be sure to deceive him and allow his pupils to speak perfect nonsense. A visit of that nature, when made officially, does more harm than good. The Inspector of Government Schools, who should be constantly moving among the people in order to acquaint himself with their manners, customs, feelings and inclination, has been made master of as large an establishment as would, even in England, demand his whole talent and energies, without his having to acquire one of the most difficult tongues in the world. If we believe the report of the Chairman of the Board, and take it for granted that excellent teachers are difficult to be got, why then are no measures taken to establish a better and more efficient agency for the supervision of these bad or indifferent hirelings? ...
9. 'Report on Government Schools for 1851, dated December 24,1851', from the Blue Book 1851, in CO 129/39, p. 127.
By the end of 1851, the Education Committee had dwindled to a membership of two
enthusiastic but overworked amateurs. Their willingness to intervene over matters of
curriculum and educational technology is interesting, as is their implicit suggestion that
the Government should be responsible for the erection of suitable school houses and the more effectual supervision of the schools.
.. . We have used our discretion in conformity with the plan recom-mended in deducting from the salary of the teachers, where we deemed it necessary, a certain sum for each scholar less than 30 that the school has contained; by this means some money has been saved and partly ex-pended on the purchase of books and maps; a good map of China having the places noted in the Chinese character has been furnished to each school, and a work on Astronomy has been introduced (we are afraid, however, with very little benefit), to be followed by one on geography and another elementary work on physics.
We should expect much more benefit from these schools if they were placed under more effectual supervision than we are able to afford, and if suitable schoolhouses were erected by Government, the present school-rooms hired by the teachers being very confined and very dirty.
Signed C.B. Hillier,
E.P.R. Moncrieff, LL.D. Committee for Superintending Chinese Schools
10. George Smith, A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of
China (reprinted from the 1847 edition by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 50S-20.
George Smith's suggestion that, instead of supporting missionary educational endeav-ours in Hong Kong generally, the Government should rely specifically on the Established Church of England for the training of much-needed interpreters and translators, appears as Evidence 7(a) in this chapter. Below are extracts from Smith's Narrative, based on his visits to the consular cities and treaty ports of China in 1844,1845 and 1846, an extended excursion intended to 'explore the ground, and to prepare the way for other Missionaries of the Church of England, by collecting statistical facts, by recording general observations, and by furnishing detailed data for rightly estimating the moral, social and political condition of that peculiar nation'. As will be seen, Smith was not backward in recording his observations and particularly his judgement about the disadvantages of Hong Kong as a field for C.M.S. endeavours. His opinions about the calibre of the early Hong Kong population, Chinese and European, are similar to those of Montgomery Martin, the disaffected Colonial Treasurer. As mentioned above, Smith was soon to become the first Anglican Bishop of 'Victoria and South China'.
The moral and social character of the Chinese population at Hong Kong
presents a disadvantage of a very different kind. While in the northern cities on the mainland of China daily intercourse may be held without restraint with the more respectable classes of native society, and a for-eigner everywhere meets an intelligent and friendly population; at Hong Kong, on the other hand, Missionaries may labour for years without being brought into personal communication with any Chinese, except such as are, generally speaking, of the lowest character, and unlikely to exert a moral influence on their fellow countrymen. The lowest dregs of native society flock to the British Settlement, in the hope of gain or plunder. Although a few of the better class of shopkeepers are beginning to settle in the colony, the great majority of the new comers are of the lowest condi-tion and character. The principal part of the Chinese population in the town consists of servants, coolies, stone-cutters, and masons engaged in temporary works. About one-third of the population lives in boats on the water. The colony has been for some time also the resort of pirates and thieves, so protected by secret compact as to defy the ordinary regulations of police for detection or prevention. In short, there are but faint prospects at present of any other than either a migratory or a predatory race being attracted to Hong Kong, who, when their hopes of gain or pilfering van-ish, without hesitation or difficulty remove elsewhere ...
The Chinese who come to Hong Kong are generally unmarried men, or leave their wives and families on the mainland, returning with their savings to their homes after a few months' labour...
Another difficulty, which impresses on Hong Kong a peculiar ineligi-bility as a Missionary Station, is the great diversity of dialects, which pre-vails among its limited population of 19,000 Chinese, and which is neces-sarily produced by the heterogeneous elements of which it is composed. There are the three principal dialects in the island, the speaker of one of which would be unintelligible to the speaker of another. Under these there are other subdivisions of the local dialect, more or less distinct, but pre-senting some features of resemblance ... Not only would a Missionary be hindered in his usefulness by the perplexing variety of dialects, but it would be next to impossible for a foreign student of ordinary talent, who had not previously studied the language in some other part, ever to attain a fluent and correct punctuation of any dialect in Hong Kong.
Two other disadvantages to Hong Kong, however, are the frequent spectacle of European irreligion, and the invidious regulations of police, both of which are likely to exert an unfavourable influence on the future evangelization of the Chinese. It is with unfeigned regret and reluctance that the author states, that scenes frequently occur in the public streets, and in the interior of houses, which are calculated to place the countrymen of Missionaries in an unfavourable aspect before the native mind.45 The opinion is sincerely held and deliberately expressed, that unless present tendencies are happily obviated, the settlement is more likely to prove a detriment than a blessing ...
45. A quite early example of a recognition of the importance of the concept of 'face'.
The Chinese are also treated as a degraded race of people. They are not permitted to go out into the public streets after a certain hour in the evening, without a lantern and a written note from their European em-ployer, to secure them from the danger of apprehension and imprison-ment till the morning. According to a local gazette, the official organ of the Government, the most abandoned classes of Chinese, who form a subject of odious traffic to Chinese speculators, were, at least for a time, under the regular superintendence of local officers, and contributed each a monthly sum as payment toward the expenses of this control...
The most useful Missionary Institution at Hong Kong is the Morrison Education Society's School, which was originated a few years ago by a few benevolent individuals... The school contains about thirty pupils of ages varying from eight to nineteen years; and has been from the commence-ment under the able superintendence of an American Missionary, the Rev.
S.R. Brown, who, with his excellent wife, has raised the institution to a state of efficiency unequalled by any other similar institution in China. The pupils are divided into four classes, two of which are instructed by an assistant master. The mornings are devoted to English studies; and the afternoons are spent in Chinese studies with a native teacher. The course of study embraces the usual branches of a thorough English education; viz. reading, spelling, writing, composition, arithmetic, geography, his-tory, algebra, and geometry. The author has, on different occasions, heard the senior pupils demonstrate some of the most difficult propositions in Euclid with the utmost precision, amid frequent cross-questioning. It was a pleasing sight to mingle in the evening devotions of the Missionary family, and to behold the deep and affectionate attention with which this interesting body of youths listened to the Scripture expositions of their preceptor, so well seconded by the tender kindness and moral influence of his wife. It was no less pleasant than affecting to listen to the hymns, in which they were taught to sing the praises of the Redeemer of mankind...
.. . The only remaining Missionary institution is a Chinese school be-longing to the London Missionary Society, and formerly conducted at Malacca under the title of the 'Anglo-Chinese College'. Here a few boys are educated by the Rev. Dr. Legge, an able Missionary of the same Society; his wife also conducting a school for Chinese girls...
... [The missionaries'] Educational plans for the benefit of the Chinese ought to have a primary, if not exclusive reference to the object of raising a native Christian ministry. Instruction of Chinese youths must necessarily be conveyed either in Chinese or in English. Education in their own language they can receive at little expense, and with greater advantage, in their own schools. Indiscriminate instruction in the English language will only place native youths in circumstances of increased temptation, quali-fying them for situations as interpreters of the lowest class, and leading them, by the hopes of high wages, to abandon the less alluring prospects of quiet connexion with the Missionaries. To devote the time and labour of Missionaries, at least on their first arrival, to the object of imparting an indiscriminate English education to Chinese youths, who neither are the sons of Christian converts, nor evince any signs of a belief in Christianity, is to incapacitate the individual Missionaries from acquiring the language, and to fritter away the energies of the Mission generally on a work of doubtful expediency, which has no necessary connexion with the Mis-sionary enterprise. Such secular education does not properly fall within the province of a Missionary Society ...
11. A Government notification, 1858.
This appeared in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, Vol. 4,1858-59, p. 104. It provides evidence of the objectives of the Education Committee and the additional energy provided (a) by the appointment of the first Inspector of Schools, William Lobscheid and (b) the interest shown in education by the Governor, Sir John Bowring. It might be noted that Eitel inferred the beginning of a fee-system in Government schools from this Notice (Eitel, op. cit., p. 338); while the anonymous author of Dates and Events connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong seems mistakenly to assume from this Notice that 1857 marks the effective beginning of the 'first period' of Hong Kong's history of education
(p. 2). The Notice is more likely to be significant for its confirmation of the Government's belated acceptance of the need to build its own school-houses.
NOTICE
GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Parents and Guardians are hereby informed that Schools for gratui-tous instruction have been established by the Government of Hong Kong within the City of Victoria and throughout the Island, wherein the Chi-nese Elementary Books, their Classics, Geography, &c, and the English Language, are taught by competent Native Teachers.
As the Government provide School-rooms and pay the Teachers' Salaries, no School Fee can be demanded; but a Sum not exceeding 25 cash per Month, in lieu of Tea, will be expected from each Pupil.
Any Parent or Guardian finding the Teachers neglect their duty, by fretting away the time devoted to the instruction of the Pupils, or by any want of consideration to the aptitude of each Scholar, or by refusing to admit them, without sufficient cause, to the advantage of any specified study are earnestly requested to give immediate information of the same either to the Bishop of Victoria at St. Paul's College, or to the Rev. J. Chalmers at the London Mission House, or to J. Scarth, Esquire, J.P., Queen's Road (Chung-wan), or the Rev. W. Lobscheid, on Hospital Hill (Wan-haiy).
Upon an investigation into any of the above grounds of complaint, or into any other irregularities resulting into an unfavourable finding by the Members of the Educational Committee, any Teacher found wanting in any specified or other just requirement, shall be subjected to removal from his School.
Any Parent or Guardian acquainted with able Teachers are particu-larly requested to communicate their names and pretensions in the event of any vacancy, as such recommendations would have due weight in the choice of a Candidate.
Petitions for the establishment of New Schools may also be sent to the
before-named Gentlemen.
The hours of Tuition are, �X
from 6 to 8 o'clock A.M.
do. 9 to 12 do. do.
do. lto past 4 P.M.

�X during which time the Teachers are not permitted to leave their Schools or to receive Visitors without special permission previously granted.
JOHNSCARTH,J.P. Member of the Committee Superintending Chinese Schools
W. LOBSCHEID, Inspector Government Schools.
Victoria, Hong Kong, November 23,1858.
12. 'The New System prepared by the Rev. Dr. Legge', Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1861, pp. 106-107.
jUmes Legge's 'Scheme' was so important in the shaping of the early Government School system that it merits being quoted in full. It might be noted that Legge, then a leading member of the first Board of Education, waited for (or manoeuvred) the resignation of Lobscheid before formally presenting his re-organization plan. Readers may wish to consider how Legge viewed the role and importance of English language teaching.
The Inspector of the Government Schools having resigned his situ-ation, we shall probably be requested by His Excellency, the Governor, to recommend some other gentleman to fill the vacant office, and if a compe-tent person shall not immediately be met with, a more careful supervision of the Schools will devolve upon ourselves. The present seems a favour-able opportunity for me to solicit your attention to some thoughts con-cerning the management of the Schools, and the general promotion of education in this Colony under the auspices of the Government, which have been revolved by me for many years; and if you concur in the propriety and advisability of my views, I would beg that they may be laid before His Excellency, with the favourable recommendation of the Board.
The appointment of a European Inspector was a great improvement on the system by which the schools were previously conducted, and we owe much to Mr. Lobscheid for the increased efficiency of the old Schools under his management, and for the establishment of many new ones. Having been resident in the Colony since 1843,1 have rejoiced to witness how attention to the important business of education has grown, in some proportionable degree, with its general growth and prosperity.
But great results cannot be realized under the present system. There are about twenty schools. The pupils are mostly the children of the poor, whose attendance is irregular, and cannot be calculated upon for a series of years. The teachers are in general men of no particular qualifications for their work. The teachers of English are young men whose own knowledge of our language is only rudimentary. We cannot expect that he will spend more than two or three hours in each School in the course of every month.
The plan which I would recommend instead of this is the following:
First, that there be erected a building in Victoria, in which the Schools now maintained in T'ai-ping-shan, the Upper and Central Bazaars, Webster's Crescent, and near the Mosque, shall be concentrated in differ-ent rooms.
Second, that in connection with this building there be provided a residence for a European Master, who shall form and conduct English classes; and that only in the Schools concentrated there shall English be taught.
Third, that this European Master, aided by a Board of Education, constituted like the present, or modified as circumstances may render desirable, exercises superintendence over the other Schools in Aberdeen and the villages over the Island.
This plan would retain all the advantages of the present system of inspection and might be expected to produce real and definite results, which cannot now be looked for.
In the first place, the Government would have an officer, himself actively engaged in the work of education.
In the second place, the English education carried on under the Mas-ter's eye would be more efficient than it is now, and he would be able to collect into his own classes the pupils whose progress and interest in their studies gave promise of their making real attainments.
In the third place, many young Chinese, well-educated in schools in China, and connected with Chinese firms and families in the Colony, would be found to enter his English classes.
In the fourth place, an impulse would be given to the Chinese educa-tion carried on in the concentrated Schools. The teachers under the imme-diate and daily observation of their superintendent might be expected to be diligent and earnest to further the progress of their pupils. And an
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
187
influence would go from their schools, which would tell upon those in the
villages.
There would be an outlay for the building which this plan proposes, but the permanent expenditure for such a system would not be very much larger than that of the present. And fees should be charged from pupils attending the English classes, which did not enter from the government schools. My own opinion is that these would amount to no inconsiderable sum.
This plan makes the teaching of English a more prominent part of the Education in Government Schools than it has hitherto been. But I beg to submit to you that it ought to be so. It ought to be so in this Colony where the administration of justice is conducted in the English language, and according to English law. It ought to be so, that an influence may go forth from the Island, which shall be widely felt in China enlightening and benefiting many of its people.
I beg to submit the above views to your consideration. I may repeat that they have not occurred to me in connection with Mr. Lobscheid's resignation of his office as Inspector of Government Schools. I had the honour of mentioning them to Sir John Davis, when the Government first began to extend its patronage to the education of the Chinese, and I would hope that you may accord to them your sanction and recommend them to the adoption of the present Governor, in the new greater maturity of the Colony.
13. Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984), pp. 40-41.
Thefolloxving brief extract from an important secondary source about the development
ofeducation in early Hong Kong offers an interesting interpretation of the role of the Board
of Education and of the motivation of James Legge.
The Board was a mid-way stage between the Education Committee and a government Department of Education in that while its chairman was still the Bishop, a high Government official and two prominent citi-zens had been added. But the man who steered the Board and paved the way for the establishment of the government Department of Education was James Legge. Like the missionaries of the Anglican and the Catholic churches, Legge, during the early years of his career in Hong Kong, had been anxious to use schools for the purpose of making converts to Christi-anity. But, partly due to the failure of the missionary schools in producing local clergy, and partly due to his gradual understanding of the character of the Chinese, he began to give up the policy of propagating 'Christianity through letters'. He was particularly opposed to the church's control over public education and the introduction of what amounted to compulsory
Bible reading in the government schools. As an educationist he advocated education for its own sake, and, as a sinologue, he held in high esteem Chinese thought and philosophy contained in the classics, and he did not see the necessity of replacing Confucianism by Christianity. In these re-spects, the view and attitude of Legge could well be compared with those of the British Orientalists in India, as both shared a healthy appreciation of the indigenous culture. Yet Legge's idea of educational reform was pri-marily concerned with the effective teaching of English as he saw the commercial value of knowledge of English to the Chinese. In this sense, he was also a pragmatist.46
14. Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 207-208.
Carl Smithrs biographically detailed work offers interesting insights into the develop-
ment of a Chinese and Eurasian elite in nineteenth century Hong Kong. In the following
extract, he concentrates upon the missionary initiatives for female education and the
negative, occasionally violent reactions that these were capable of arousing. See in this
context the stoning of Miss Eaton's sedan chair (reported in Evidence 15).
The Church was a pioneer in the education of females. In the early period, the missionary wife would sometimes care for orphans or un-wanted girls, and at a proper age form them into a small class. Otherwise, it was difficult to induce parents to send their girls to school as they could be more useful at home caring for the younger children or performing household tasks. When one of the first agents of the Church Missionary Society opened a girls' school in Hong Kong, he offered the inducement of a subsidy, though the experiment was soon abandoned.
The first school for girls supported by the Government was organized at Stanley and was taught by a convert of the Anglican Church. It was so successful that the leaders of the Chinese community in Hong Kong requested that the teacher be transferred and placed in charge of a similar school to be opened there.
An interesting project was organized by the wife of the first Bishop of Victoria, Mrs. Smith. She enlisted the aid of interested women in the education of Chinese girls of the better class. They formed a committee and appealed to the Society for the Promotion of Female Education in the East to send teachers out from England. The new school was called the Diocesan Female Training Institute, and the girls were given instruction in English. This, however, was found to be a mistake, as it made the young
46. It is also possible that both Legge and Stewart were attracted to the ideas of such Utilitarians as John Stuart Mill, ideas which were influential amongst reformers in England at that time.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
189
girls too attractive to that section of the male European community who were looking for local household companions with whom they could communicate in English.47 After several of the students had entered into such irregular positions, the language of instruction was largely confined to Chinese.
One of the purposes of the Diocesan Female Training Institute was to train teachers and provide suitably educated marriage partners for the young male converts of St. Paul's College. This purpose was fulfilled by a number of pupils of the Institute.48
15. From the 'Minute Books of the Committee for the Diocesan Native Female Training School', reproduced in Rev. W.T. Featherstone, The Diocesan Boys
School and Orphanage, Hongkong: The History and Records 1869-1929 (1930), pp.
92 ff.
Two highly esteemed schools in Hong Kong can today claim the Diocesan Native Female Training School as their ancestor-institution. Obviously, these include the present Diocesan Girls' School. The Native Female Training School was replaced in 1870 by the Diocesan Home and Orphanage, so that the other institution with a claim to successor-status is the Diocesan Boys' School. The Native Female Training School Committee's Minute Books offer insight into personalities, attitudes and conditions at the time. Mrs Irwin, wife of the prominent Anglican missionary, the Rev. Dr J.J. Irwin, who acted as Chairman of the Committee in 1865, was a regular member of the Committee in the first few years of its life. Miss Mary Winefred Eaton was the headmistress of the Native Female Training School, who later married E.J. Eitel. Miss Sophia Harriet Baxter, like Miss Eaton, originally came out to Hong Kong in response to an appeal for help in the 'Promotion of Female Education in the East' by Mrs Smith, wife of the Anglican Bishop. Once in Hong Kong, she energetically set about establishing a string of 'Baxter schools', which catered especially for Chinese and Eurasian girls. Mrs. Ainsworth was a teacher at the first Baxter School. Readers may wish to examine the following extracts for their assumptions about basic objectives, teaching methods, language and the relationship between staff and school committee.
47.
For confirmation of this view from primary sources, see Chapter 4, Evidence 1(c) and 10.

48.
As the following quotation illustrates, a similar purpose was recognized in Roman Catholic institutions. The young girls brought up at the Asile of the Sainte Enfance [part of the French Convent], get married generally at about the age of 20.


This question of marriage is negociated [sic] by the missionary Father in charge of the district in which the suitor lives. It is therefore the Father who first writes to the Asile, to find out if any young girl desires to be found a home.
The young man must be from 20 to 30 years of age not more, must be honest, of good character, and a good Christian. He must also have a situation which will allow him to provide amply for himself and family/ (Asile de la Sainte Enfance... Monography, p. 22)
July 1st, 1863. �X ... Extract from a letter from Mrs. Irwin read at the meeting.
�X Advice as regards Instruction.
Miss Eaton seems to have grave doubts as to the utility of teaching the girl pupils English and does not feel that their progress justifies the time spent over it. She does not find they understand her sufficiently to receive lessons in Grammar or Geography. My opinion is, that the study of English must exercise and open the mind to an extent which the learning of Chinese, in the manner in which it is universally taught, never could do, and the girls thus instructed are more likely to prove intelligent and helpful wives to educated boys. At the same time I do not think their progress would be accelerated by teaching them strings of hard names that they do not understand. What I should propose would be that we (the Committee) should hold a little private examination, say in three months' time, and that then we should require the children to name, in English, the principal objects in the room, attaching some quality to each, as The Table is hard/ They might also describe simple actions that they can themselves perform, and thus begin to form simple sentences with understanding; the elder girls could write their exercises on their slates and thus practise spelling and this, with reading, writing and perhaps a little simple mental Arithmetic, would in my opinion be sufficient to require of them for the present. The chief importance should be laid on the cultivation of good principles and neat and cleanly habits. This is what occurs to me; please make what use you like of it.
I think it would be a relief to Miss Eaton to know that the Committee are not looking for very great things, though, after all, much must and should be left to her own discretion.
December 8th, 1864: �X .. . Miss Eaton, having previous to this meeting been attacked by Chinamen on her way to the School, and having written a note to the Secretary begging that her holiday might at once be given and saying that she could not remain longer at the School, this meeting was called to consider whether Miss Eaton's holidays should be given and what should be arranged for the protection of the School. It was agreed that Miss Eaton should be granted her holiday at once, she being so unwell from the effects of the late fright; but that the girls should not go away at present. Miss Baxter promised to send Mrs. Ainsworth from her School for the present. A letter was written to the Governor begging from him protection for the School. It was agreed to subscribe a sum of money to be presented from the Committee to Miss Eaton's chair-bearers for their good behaviour on the night of the attack.
December 8th and 17th, 1864: �X Two meetings were called to discuss the action of Miss Eaton, who, on being granted her own holiday, dismissed the pupils on her own initiative, thereby calling down the anger of the
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
191
Committee on her head and her own dismissal. Her case was taken up by the Rev. Dr. Irwin, who should have been consulted about her dismissal. Finally, she was taken back, after having written a letter of apology to the Committee. Several members of the Committee resigned.49
16. Francis Wong Hoy Kee and Gwee Yee Hean, Perspectives: The Development of Education in Malaysia and Singapore (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1972), p. 11.
The following two brief extracts are presented to offer opportunities for comparison
between Hong Kong and another small colony, as well as between the attitudes of adminis-
trators in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
In his 'Address to the Public on behalf of a School to be established in Prince Edward Island' on 6 February, 1819, Hutchins50 outlined his scheme for, and the advantage of, such a project:
First, that the school may be open to the reception of all children of this island [Penang], of every description, whose parents or friends are willing to submit them to the rules of the Institution. Second, that it will be the first object of the Institution to provide for the education of such children as would otherwise be bred up in idleness and consequent vice and without any means of obtaining useful learning or any manual em-ployment, and to implant in them the early habits of industry, order and good conduct. Third, that such parents as are capable of supporting the expense of their children shall be called upon for payment of such small demands as may be thought proper to be required. Fourth, that any part or all of the children may be instructed in reading and writing English and in the common rules of arithmetic. Fifth, that great care be taken that the prejudice of parents to the Christian religion be not by any means vio-lated.
17. Extract from a speech by Robert Lowe, M.P., Vice-President of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, in the British House of Commons, 1 August 1863; cited in J. Stuart Maclure (ed.), Educational Documents, England and Wales 1816 -1968 (London: Methuen, 1965), p. 79.
As the brief quotation below illustrates, Sir Robert Lowe was more an administrator
49.
Including, it appears from the list of members in Featherstone's book (pp. 126-27), Mrs Irwin!

50.
The Rev. Dr R.S. Hutchins was Chaplain at Penang and a prominent Anglican mission-ary in the region, whose role in the development of education in Malaya and Singapore may stand comparison with the role of James Legge, a little later, in Hong Kong.


than an educationalist. He is best known in the history of English education as the architect of the Revised Code, which introduced the system of 'Payment by Results', and which he was attempting to justify in this speech.
I cannot promise the House that this system [of government subven-tion of education]51 will be an economical one and I cannot promise that it will be an efficient one, but I can promise that it shall be one or the other. If it is not cheap, it shall be efficient; if it is not efficient, it shall be cheap.
18. A graph showing relative attendances of pupils at 'Mission schools' and 'Government schools', 1844^65 (Illus. 3.4).
School Attendances, 1844-1865.
No. of pupils
1288 -r
�E
Mission School Attendances

�E
Government School Attendances


n ,n ji I IiMi
O !'�E' |" |l * |H |M l|M \\\ I l|l I l|M l|l I l|f.l l|l 1 l|l 1 l|N \\U 1|1 I l|M l|l 1 l|ti I|F1 1|N l|t,l l| 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65
Year
Illus. 3.4 The relative attendances of pupils at 'Mission schools' and 'Government schools', 1844-65.
51. The system being described by Lowe at this time was the famous (or infamous) 'Revised Code' which, concocted in the light of the Newcastle Commission's 'Report on Education', introduced a system of 'payment by results', which tied a school's financial aid from the government to its pupils' results in certain tests.
See Evidence 15 above, for remarks about the need for efficiency in the Hong Kong educational system, and the Chronicle for 1873, in Chapter 4 below, for the introduction of 'payment by results' into Hong Kong.
VARIATIONS ON A MISSIONARY THEME
As mentioned in Chapter 1, educational statistics are characteristically unreliable. The figures upon which the graph on p. 192 is based are taken from the contemporaneous Government Blue Books rather than the later Historical and Statistical Abstract of the Colony of Hong Kong in order to optimize reliability, but, even so, the sorts of problems about attendance records that Stewart identified ensure that even these figures should be regarded as tentative estimates. With such reservations, the graph above presents a per-spective on the variations on the missionary theme.
19. Photographic evidence (Illus. 3.5a & b).
In the first photograph, taken in 1868, the hill in the left background is Morrison Hill; the large white building is near the site of the Morrison Education Society School, which was the first Western-style school in Hong Kong, opened in temporary premises in November 1842 and on Morrison Hill in 1843 and closed in 1849. The foreground shows the Happy Valley Race Course.
The second photograph shows a cricket game in progress on the 'Praya' (or waterfront) in about 1860. One can reasonably infer that the site of this game was the ground used by the Hong Kong Cricket Club. On the expiry of the Cricket Club's lease more than a century later, this part of the 'piazza' or 'praya'52 became Chater Gardens.
Illus. 3.5a Happy Valley in 1868.
52. 'Plaza' or Tlazza' is the word used to identify the photograph and, also, in G.R. Sayer,
Hong Kong 1841-1862: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (with new Introduction and
Additional Notes by D.M. Emrys Evans) (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 1980),
p. 172. 'Praya' is the Portuguese term commonly used in Hong Kong as well as Macau to represent the waterfront. See also the Chronicle for 1851, above.

sat 2�G8Sr
J*^***"??-~T~*^&.fX***v'*'
�E.J&0&BSKf:
jp-urtijr--
<^****** .. .
Illus. 3.5b A cricket game on the Praya in about 1860.
20. 'A Chinese school' (Illus. 3.6).
The illustration below is a copy of a lithograph in George Smith's A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China. The accompanying text refers to a visit which Smith made to a traditional Chinese school in Shanghai, but the general impression produced would certainly apply to Chinese schools in Hong Kong, both before and after the arrival of the British.
Illus. 3.6 A Chinese school.
Chapter Four



CONSOLIDATION, CONFLICT AND CONTROL 1865-1913
COMMENTARY
In an analysis of the all but half-century of developments from the abolition of the Board of Education to the enactment of the first Education Ordinance, several events seem to clamour for turning-point status. Similarly, the claims of a number of individuals to be regarded as seminal, or, at least, constructively instrumental, appear to advertise themselves. It is especially tempting to split this quite lengthy period into more manageable, turning-point oriented or opinion-leader shaped, splinters. Such a convenient temptation has been resisted for one main reason. Whatever the argument put forward to justify a shorter time-span with regard to the officially-acknowledged and often officially-assisted 'stream' of schooling, it fails to operate convincingly with regard to the other, contemporaneous 'folk-stream'. The former type of schooling, whether one is concentrating on govern-ment schools, mission schools, the later grant schools or even private schools, was influenced primarily by a set of events centred on 'above-the-surface' Hong Kong and in Britain. The latter was influenced largely by events and attitudes in 'below-the-surface' Hong Kong and in China. It persisted largely independently of atten-tions by the Hong Kong Government. At least in the longer view, which one may take by examining the years 1865 to 1913, various sub-themes and separate devel-opments can identify themselves, overlap and cross-fertilize; and the whole may be seen as leading to the assumption by the Hong Kong Government of the right to inspect all schools within the territory of Hong Kong. This assumption was quite a novel one. Indeed, it was said to be unprecedented in the (then) British Empire. At least part of the fascination of a study of the years 1865 to 1913 in the history of Hong Kong's educational system derives from attempts to explain how a 'one-man band' changed into at least a rudimentary bureaucratic control-structure.
The context in which educational developments may be fruitfully seen during this period is one which includes a fluctuating but generally expanding popula-tion1 and a sensitive but on the whole more substantial economy. This latter trend
1. The population of Hong Kong (and Kowloon) dropped from 125,504 in 1865 to 121,985 in 1872, but had reached 139,144 by 1876,160,402 in 1881,224,814 in 1891, and 300,660 in 1901 (not including the people of the New Territories who were counted separately as 102,254), and 456,739 in 1911. The main reasons for the decrease in the late 'sixties include the trade depression and the reduction of immigration from China caused partly by more stable conditions in China (e.g., the Taiping Uprising was finally quashed) and partly by MacDon-
certainly included short phases of recession which occurred with depressing frequency and with some firms actually collapsing from the strain.2 On the other hand, the period as a whole, witnessed economic growth �X a growth in the activities of Hong Kong Chinese enterprises, as well as the establishment or strengthening of large Hong Kong European companies such as Jardine and Matheson, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Butterfield and Swire, Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company, etc. With much of the economy related to entrepot trading and its requisite infrastructure (e.g., banks, commercial law, accountancy and shipping), there was an intermittently increasing demand for reasonably well-educated clerks and other 'white-collar workers', especially those who were bi-lingual.
The local situation, especially as affected by the Self-strengthening and mod-ernization movements on the mainland,3 encouraged the trend that very prag-matic (usually vocational) considerations would motivate the demand for and expectations of schooling by Hong Kong youth. For the ambitious and the help-fully-connected, opportunities opened up during this period. A few could aspire to make fortunes by becoming 'compradores'4 in the China trade. Others might enter such professional fields as law and medicine.5 Some would find positions, initially, in the middle and lower levels of Government service.6 Throughout the
nell's discriminatory legislation (such as the Victoria Registration Ordinance and the Order and Cleanliness Ordinance) in Hong Kong. Both immigration and natural increases account for the developments after 1872.
2.
According to the Hong Kong Government's own Historical and Statistical Abstract, there were periods of depression starting in 1866,1872,1875,1879,1891,1896,1901 and 1906. The most dramatic collapses of companies occurred in 1866 when two banks suspended pay-ments, 1867 when the great business house of Dent and Co. collapsed (with immediate repercussions on St. Paul's College and the Morrison Education Society) and 1873 when several large firms collapsed. For further details, see Historical and Statistical Abstract of the Colony of Hong Kong, 1841-1930, Subject Index, under 'Commerce and Industry7, pp. 11-12.

3.
At the same time, one should note T.C. Cheng's cautions on this point. See Evidence 2 in this chapter.

4.
'Compradore' is a word of Portuguese origin referring to the invariably Chinese or Eurasian individual who acted as the middleman between European or American compa-nies and their Chinese business contacts and employees. They did not, however, confine their activities to those of a 'go-between'. Instead, they often invested capital on their own initiative and for their own benefit. See Carl Smith, Chinese Christians..., esp. pp. 62 ff.

5.
For example, Ng Choy (Wu Ting Fan) was the first Chinese lawyer to be called to the Bar in Hong Kong and the first Chinese member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council; Ho Kai, like his brother-in-law, Ng Choy, studied law in England and also qualified as a medical doctor; plus the students of the Hong Kong College of Medicine. Interestingly few of this early elite group actually practised the professions in which they qualified, but many occupied themselves with politics.

6.
Many Chinese used government service, often in the capacity of interpreters, as a spring-


period, a significant proportion of Hong Kong school-leavers would seek ad-vancement in China and, of course, a significant proportion of new pupils would come from China. Inevitably, these factors affected attitudes and policies towards education. As will be seen, socio-economic developments, such as the strengthen-ing in this period of two relatively new social classes (wealthy, Westernized Chinese and working class Europeans) led to pressure for and eventually the foundation of new kinds of schools.7
Recognition of employment aspirations and opinion about the qualities of the
board to other, more lucrative employment, e.g., by foreign firms. For details about two early, long-serving, government employees, see Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians .. ., pp. 127-28. For a discussion of the emergence of a Chinese elite in Hong Kong and, especially, of the composition of the small, English-educated elite, see ibid., pp. 103-71. For a discus-sion of a typical case of an upwardly mobile 'middleman' Chinese at the turn of the Century, see Anthony Sweeting, 'A Middleman for All Seasons: Snapshots of the Signifi-cance of Mok Man Cheung and his "English Made Easy'", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 27,1987.
7. See Carl T. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen and the Church in Hong Kong, especially pp. 52-74 and 103-71, for information on the emergence of a prosperous Chinese (and Eurasian) middle class, and HJ. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change, pp. 189-213, for a discussion of the condition of the European working class in nineteenth century Hong Kong. By the beginning of the twentieth century, attempts were made to im-plement a policy closely resembling educational apartheid, reinforced by social class dis-crimination. Appendix A to the 'Report of the Education Committee of 1902' provides inter-esting evidence of attitudes prevailing at the time, including, as it does the terms of the Petition dated 2 March 1901, from 'eight leading Chinese citizens':
'Sir,
On behalf of an important and influential section of the Chinese Community we desire respectfully to draw the attention of His Excellency the Governor to the urgent need for a suitable English School for the education of the children �X both boys and girls �X of the upper classes of the Chinese resident in this Colony...'
See also f.n. 16 and the Chronicle for 1901, below. E A. Irving, the Inspector of Schools, commented on another 1901 Petition for a sepa-rate school for European children:
'When we might have had a strong full-blooded British community born to the soil, to carry on our commerce against American, German, and French compe-tition in the Far East, we are laying up for ourselves [by depending hitherto on an ethnically integrated schooling system] an unlearned, unskillful, unpatriotic gen-eration of 'mean whites' to be the standing disgrace of the Colony.'
The Governor, Sir Henry Blake, explained the two petitions to the Colonial Office in the following terms:
It must be remembered that the children for whose education the establish-ment of a European School is desired are the children of respectable parents who cannot afford to send them home and who, in many cases, are driven by the
new pupils played very important roles in shaping the curriculum of Hong Kong schools, especially such institutions as the Government Central School, the Dioce-san Schools, St. Paul's College, St. Joseph's College and the West Point Reforma-tory, in the late nineteenth century. Perceptions of the calibre of the teaching force available also contributed, usually providing grounds for inertia.8 To these was sometimes added an awareness of the problems involved in teaching pupils, whose own culture and first language were replete with academic and literary achievements, through the medium of their second language and, also a sensitiv-ity about the possible political ramifications of including certain subjects in the curriculum.9 The influence of all these considerations needs to be compared with that of the presuppositions of some of the educators, especially missionaries, and the special enthusiasms of certain prominent individuals who were not profes-sionally involved in schooling.10 Such a study, together with an appraisal of the part played by traditional Chinese expectations as well as of the newly-gained
present system to the abandonment of their education as, in their opinion, the lesser of the two evils ...'
A petition on the subject of separate education has also been received from a number of Chinese gentlemen who pray for the establishment of a school where higher fees than those paid at the Queen's College may be charged. They are anxious to avoid the association of their children with the poorer classes at Queen's College and are willing to pay fees sufficient to support the school without cost to the colony, but they require the assistance of Government so as to secure a proper succession of masters .. /
8.
A clear impression of the very low prestige accorded to local teachers by officials may be gained from the annual reports of the school inspectors of the period. At various times, teachers were accused of sleeping on the job, gambling, opium-smoking (estimated to be true of 60% of all teachers in Hong Kong), telling fortunes, feeling pulses (i.e. 'moonlight-ing' as traditional healers), reading palms, drawing up petitions, undermining the teaching of the Christian religion, being highway robbers, and being illiterate. One was described as 'so miserable a being as to make all conversation with him disgusting'. Other comments on teachers are contained in Evidence 1(a), 7 and 19 in this chapter below. To say the least, these perceptions (whether prejudiced or objective) did not encourage reliance upon teach-ers as a force for curriculum change.

9.
Thus Dr George Bateson Wright attempted to justify his exclusion of Chinese History from the curriculum of Queen's College: 'On political grounds, I am strongly averse to any instruction in Chinese history which would expose us to the charge of being a nursery for Revolutionists on the Continent' (CO 129/311, p. 79, and also Evidence 18(b) in Chapter 1 above). An earlier Colonial Office minute ironically and succinctly summarizes queries about the relevance of the Hong Kong curriculum to the interests and needs of the pupils: T doubt whether any Chinaman is a more useful member of society for knowing the geogra-phy of the South Eastern counties of England, or of Bulgaria, or the pedigree of Lady Jane Gray, or even the provisions of the Act of Union and the present locality of Fontenoy. (All these questions have figured in the examination papers [of Queen's College] during the last two years.)' (CO 129/305, p. 683). See also, Evidence 17 in Chapter 1.

10.
For example, the interest of Governor MacDonnell in electricity and chemistry is claimed


respect for Western technology which some Chinese developed in this period, would form the basis for one of the most important chapters in a much-needed history of curriculum in Hong Kong.11 Quite a clear impression of the ihterplay of factors influencing curriculum content and at least indirectly affecting curriculum process may be gained by reading Frederick Stewart's 'Report on Education' for the year 1866, from which relevant extracts are included as Evidence 1(b) in this chapter.
A similar multiplicity of influences accounts for the establishment of many new schools and, as mentioned above, new types of schools. Of special interest in this respect is the short-lived Normal School12 of 1881-83, the Hong Kong College
to have had a direct influence on the curriculum of the Central School. See Hong Kong Government, Blue Book, 1866, p. 280 (and Evidence 1(b) below), Anon., Dates and Events
connected with the History of Education in Hongkong, p. 14, E.J. Eitel, ^Materials . . .', p. 353,
T.C. Cheng, The Education of the Overseas Chinese..., p. 109, and G.G. Stokes, Queen's College 1862-1962, p. 26.
11.
For classic analyses of the general factors which have influenced the shaping of the school curriculum, see Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (London: Chatto and Win-dus, 1961), pp. 125-55, and Michael F.D. Young, 'An Approach to the Study of Curricula as Socially Organized Knowledge', in Michael F.D. Young (ed.), Knowledge and Control: New Directions for the Sociology of Education (New York: Cassell and Collier/Macmillan, 1971), pp. 19-46. For an interesting exercise in relating concepts of the curriculum as social control to the colonial experience, see Stephen Ball, 'Imperialism, Social Control and the Colonial Curriculum in Africa', in Ivor F. Goodson and Stephen J. Ball (eds.), Defining the Curriculum: Histories and Ethnographies (London: Falmer Press, 1984), pp. 117-48, and for earlier polem-ics about the effects on curriculum of a colonial (and colonialist) setting, see Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: McKay, 1974). Some of the raw-material for a history of curriculum in Hong Kong is, of course, provided in this book, e.g., Chapter 1, Evidence 7, 17, and 23, Chapter 2, Evidence 6 and 7, Chapter 3, Evidence 4, 6 and 12, Chapter 4, Evidence 7,8,12 and 24, and Chapter 5, Evidence 16 and 18.

12.
See Chronicle for 1881, below, for a brief summary of the beginning and end of this first Hong Kong experiment in formal, separately-provisioned teacher education. See also, T.C. Cheng, 'The Education of Overseas Chinese', p. 122, Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interactions of East and West, p. 75 (though it should be noted that the Normal School was not a class 'set up in the Central School', but operated in its own premises in Wanchai). Both official and polemical writing of the time was full of very critical comments about the personal qualities and professional competence of local teachers (e.g., Evidence 1(a), 7 and 19, and f.n. 8 in this chapter), but apart from reliance upon a teacher-pupil scheme at the Central School (see Evidence 1(b)), the only provisions for the professional preparation of teachers in Hong Kong during the whole period was this 1881-83 experiment, supported by Hennessy and Eitel, but rejected by the 'Report of the Education Commission, 1882' as well as by the Colonial Office; and after 1907, evening classes at the Technical Institute. Stewart had recognized the problem much earlier. In his 'Annual Report on the State of Government Schools for the Year 1874', he wrote:


The question of a Training School for teachers is a difficult one for Hongkong.
of Medicine for Chinese13 founded in 1887, the Belilios Public School opened in 1893,14 the various study-groups, literary societies and other politically-oriented
If the time were ripe for a revolution against the traditions of centuries, a training school here would serve for the adjoining Province as well as for the colony; but such an era is too far distant to be seriously thought of. The consequence, there-fore, is that, to get an efficient training school, the Colony would have to go to great expense for the training of three or four masters a year, after the first forty or fifty had been made competent. The English schools in the Colony will, some day, pave the way for such an institution...' (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 27 Febru-ary 1875, p. 59).
This situation may be compared with that of Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States, where the 1870 Committee set up to enquire into the position of the training of teachers for the English medium schools recommended the pupil-teacher system as the most effective remedy for the lack of teachers in the two territories and where proposals in 1904 and 1910 for a central Training College had to be abandoned because of the lack of applications. Unwillingness to rely totally upon traditional Muslim teachers led, however, to the conversion of the Malay High School in Singapore into a training college for Malay teachers in 1878 and the establishment of another training college for Malay teachers at Malacca in 1901. The teacher education situation in Britain was a little better. The teacher-pupil scheme was a long-lasting, but not always effective, variant of the Monitorial System, training colleges were encouraged to abbreviate their courses, and universities began to become involved only from the 1890s.. See H.C. Dent, 1870-1970: Century of Growth in English Education, pp. 19-23, and David Wardle, English Popular Education, 1780-1975, pp. 99-115.
13.
See Lindsay Ride/The Antecedents', in B. Harrison (ed.), The First 50 Years: University of Hong Kong, pp. 5-22. The College of Medicine for Chinese represents the first Hong Kong endeavour in higher and professional education. As Ride indicates, important initiatives which led directly to the foundation of the College came from such diverse sources as a major missionary organization (the London Missionary Society), a very prominent member of the new Chinese elite in Hong Kong (Ho Kai), and a relative newcomer to Hong Kong who was a medical practitioner and an energetic enthusiast for public health (Dr Patrick Manson). The establishment of the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese may be viewed as a very important step in the progress of Western medical science, not merely in Hong Kong, but in the Far East generally. Especially prominent in the minds of the founders seems to have been a recognition of the need to train Chinese 'dressers' and other medical assistants. See Dafydd Emrys Evans, Constancy of Purpose: Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1987), and Lo Hsiang-Lin, Hong Kong and Western Cultures (Honolulu: East West Centre Press, 1963), pp. 157-94, plus Evidence 9 below.

14.
As commentaries, chronicles and evidence in this and other chapters indicate, tradi-tional attitudes, especially as affected by ethno-sexual tensions, played a major part in shaping opinion about the need for and the anticipated results of schooling for females. Basic attitudinal changes, which must have been influenced by demographic, socio-eco-nomic and political developments, as well as individual opinions, may be discerned in the differences between Evidence 1(a) and (c) and 10 in this chapter below. Eh* EJ. Eitel, the Inspector of Schools at the time, was responsible for pressing the case of female education


educational enterprises of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,15 the Kowloon British School16 founded in 1902, St. Stephen's College17 in 1903, the
upon the Hong Kong Government and the Colonial Office. This pressure led to the estab-lishment of a small government school for girls in rented premises in 1890. Mr E.R. Belilios, a local philanthropist of Portuguese-Indian ancestry, who was a successful stock and bullion broker, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, and holder of the opium monopoly in Hong Kong, offered a substantial donation to the Government for the purpose of female education on condition that a school be named after him. Despite some Colonial Office reservations, the offer was accepted. At the inauguration ceremony for the Belilios Public School, Belilios himself was reported (in a Daily Press article of 19 December 1893) to have said: 'Education will do very much to rectify this injustice by raising the status of women and placing them more on a level with the stronger sex.' See CO 129/254, pp. 254 ff., and CO 129/260, pp. 471 ff. As will be seen below, Belilios also used his financial success in an attempt to help another disadvantaged sector of the population. He provided the funds for the establishment of a Reformatory, intended to provide practical and technical education for poor boys who had fallen foul of the law.
15.
For example, the Fu Jen Wen-She (or Fu Jen Literary Society) was founded in 1892, and the Kuang-Han Hsueh-Hsiao (School for the Revival of the Han) was founded in 1904, but both were ordered by the Hong Kong Government to be closed in 1905. These and other private institutions concentrated upon political propaganda very critical of the Qing Gov-ernment in China.

16.
Earlier attempts to establish separate schools for children of the European population, and especially for those of limited means, are noted in Chapter 3 (see the Chronicle for 1844, 1845 and 1855) and also in this chapter (Chronicle for 1870-72 below). By the end of the century, both the numbers of such children (especially in Kowloon) and their parents' sense of dissatisfaction about the absence of government provision for them had increased. An impression of prevailing attitudes and opinions, particularly as provoked by Bishop Hoare's speech at the Diocesan Boys' School Prize Distribution of 1901, may be gained from a perusal of the Chronicle for 1901 and 1902, Evidence 21 in Chapter 1, and Evidence 15 and 16 in this chapter, below. It should be noted that Robert Ho Tung, himself a Eurasian, was persuaded to change fundamentally the terms of his offer to donate funds for a school in Kowloon (originally intended to cater for children of any race or creed) and hand it over to the Government in order that the Government could respond quickly to the 1901 Petition and provide a school exclusively for Europeans. Despatches to the Colonial Office make it quite clear that the school required was meant to cater for children whose parents were occupied in the 'mechanical and engineering trades', such as 'skilled British labour in the dockyards' (CO 129/306, pp. 308 ff.). The Petition itself is quite circumspect about racial discrimination, though it does include the claim that 'as regards the acquirement of knowl-edge, the mixture of races operates very injuriously upon the European. The Chinese come to these schools to learn English, not to acquire a general knowledge' (CO 129/306 p. 313). The Colonial Office reply indicates considerable embarrassment about the racial connota-tions (1 do not think it a happy solution of difficulties that the generosity of... Mr. Ho Tung intended to benefit all nationalities should be diverted to the education of children of European British parentage alone' �XJoseph Chamberlain, 10 September 1901, in CO 129/ 311, p. 43), but did not refuse permission for the school to be opened on racial lines. The school retained its racial exclusivity until after the Second World War. Similar thinking lay


Technical Institute18 in 1907 and the University of Hong Kong19 in 1911. In its own way, each of these institutions bears witness to the increasing scope and diversifi-cation of educational provision in Hong Kong during the period.
As the scope of schooling increased, so the need for consolidation and profes-sionalization became more pressing, the possibilities of conflict more widespread, and the conflicts themselves more intense.
Moves to consolidate educational provision in Hong Kong may be detected in numerous developments during the period. These included the abolition of the
behind a proposal to establish a school for Indian boys (the Ellis Kadoorie School for Indians) in 1904 (see CO 129/322, pp. 242 ff.).
17.
St Stephen's College was founded as a response to the Petition, dated 2 March 1901, this time from eight leading Chinese Gentlemen' who desired, on behalf of an important and influential section of the Chinese population, a Itigher grade school' modelled on English public school lines for their children. The Petition includes the comment that The Queen's College and the Belilios Public School are excellent Government institutions in their way, but the exceedingly large number of pupils attending these schools and the paucity of English teachers, the indiscriminate and intimate intermingling of children from families of the most various social and moral standing, render them absolutely undesirable as well as unsuitable for the sons and daughters of respectable Chinese families.' (Hong Kong Govern-ment Gazette, 2 March 1901, pp. 236-37).

18.
The Technical Institute took over the 'evening continuation classes' which had been started at the Queen's College premises in October of the previous year. It is, thus, as significant for the history of adult education and teacher education in Hong Kong as it is for the history of technical education. The only earlier moves in the direction of technical education were both connected with delinquent youths. The West Point (later named St. Lewis or St. Louis) Reformatory had been founded in 1864 (see Chapter 2 and Evidence 3 in this chapter). In 1898, Mr E.R. Belilios had also taken the initiative to donate the money for a Reformatory and Industrial School', but the Belilios Reformatory was soon struggling, much to the displeasure of Joseph Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

'Nor am I satisfied with the fate of the Reformatory. It was built to supply what was supposed to be a need. It was welcomed by the Government and much trouble was taken in selecting specially qualified masters from this country. These steps have no sooner been taken that the institution is found to be wholly superflu-ous and to supply no want at all. It is impossible in the light of this fiasco and also in the light of previous voluminous but somewhat unfruitful correspondence and reports on educational subjects to feel much confidence that the position in Hong Kong has been fully gauged ...' (Joseph Chamberlain to Sir Henry Blake, Gover-nor of Hong Kong, 12 September 1902, in CO 129/311, pp. 43-44).

19.
See George Endacott, The Beginnings', in B. Harrison, op. cit., pp. 23-37, and B. Mellor, The University of Hong Kong: An Informal History, pp. 15-44, for discussions of the diverse political, socio-economic and personal factors which led to the foundation of the University of Hong Kong, with its clear intention not only to serve as the apex of Hong Kong's own educational system but also to 'serve China'. At least part of the motivation of some supporters of the University idea was the desire to maintain the prestige of the British Empire. See Evidence 18 below.


well-meaning but amateur Board of Education in 1865 and its replacement by a government department; the introduction and revision of a Code of Grant-in-Aid for certain schools in 1873 and 1879 (with further revisions later); the separation of the duties of the Inspector of Schools and the Headmaster of the Central School from 1878 onwards; the Education Conference of 25 February 1878 which made important decisions about language policy and the Commission of 1880-82 (which whilst rejecting the option of elevating the Central School to 'collegiate status', clarified the relations among the Central School, the District Schools and the grant-in-aid schools); and the Report of the Education Committee in 1902 which inter alia foreshadowed the end of the 'dual system' whereby Queen's College had been administered separately from the rest of the Government schools.20 Significantly perhaps, it was only with the end of the dual system on 7 July 1909 that the title of the head of the Government 'Educational Department' was upgraded from In-spector of Schools' to 'Director of Education'. With the consolidation of all govern-ment schools under this single Director, further rationalization of the administra-tion of schooling became feasible, leading to increased bureaucratization. It should be noted, however, that, at the outset, the status of the Director of Education within the hierarchy of the Hong Kong civil service was not great and the Depart-ment itse^ remained relatively small. The rank of Director of Education was raised from that of a second class cadet officer to that of a first class cadet officer, equivalent to the Director of Public Works, only in 1913 (on the same day as the first Education Ordinance came into effect). E.A. Irving, the first Director, was neither a trained teacher nor a university graduate, though on occasions he insis-tently reminded people of his short spell as a 'prep' school teacher in England. In 1909, the administrative staff of the Education Department comprised three per-sons: the Director himself, the Sub-Inspector of Girls' Schools and the Sub-Inspec-tor of Vernacular Schools, supported by two junior staff for clerical work and two 'minor staff. A basis had, however, been established for future expansion and
specialization.
Conflict in the field of education was fuelled by religious, ethnic and political tensions. To appreciate the importance of the religious factor, it might be helpful to recognize the prominent (and chronologically prime) part played by missionaries in the spread of Western-style education in Hong Kong, with its potential for offending what were called 'native prejudices' or 'superstitions' and thereby dis-rupting business or diplomatic relations with the Chinese. Relevant also is the fact that this period witnessed bitter disputes in Europe over Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as the articulation in the Roman Catholic Church of the concept
20. The 'dual system', by which the Central School was administered and examined inde-pendently of the other government schools, developed after the separation of the duties of Inspector of Government Schools and Headmaster of the Central School, largely because of the personal animosity between the new Inspector, EJ. Eitel, and after 1882, the new Headmaster, G.H. Bateson Wright. The system continued even after Eitel's retirement in 1897 in deference to BatesonvWright's seniority, and was abolished on 1909 only on the latter's retirement.
of papal infallibility. In both these cases, organized religion may be seen to be responding to attack by taking the offensive itself. Serious controversy in Britain over the prospect of supporting denominational schools from public funds21 was reflected in cautious despatches to Hong Kong from the Colonial Office. Relations between the Chinese and the British communities in Hong Kong, while certainly beginning to develop symbiotic aspects, retained a capacity for friction which inevitably affected educational provision and attitudes. Typical manifestations may be seen in dissension over the City Hall Museum, the Po Leung Kuk and the foundation of the Kowloon British School.22 The political connotations of at least some schooling in Hong Kong became most clearly recognized near the turn of the century and were usually linked with reformist or revolutionary criticisms of the Qing Government in China. Perhaps the most dramatic proof of the connection between education and politics was provided by the murder, in early 1901, of a politically-active teacher in front of the pupils in his own classroom.23
Movements towards the consolidation of the schooling system, especially as enlivened by recurring conflicts, encouraged efforts by the Government to achieve more effective control. Tayment by results'24 was a strategy which offered some control of grant-in-aid schools. It was imported from Britain, established in Hong Kong as a fundamental part of the first Grant Code of 1873 and retained in the Revised Grant Code of 1879 which ended disputes over secular and religious education. It was not finally abolished until the 1904 Grant Code and was then replaced by provisions for the payment of grants to be based upon reports of in-spectors on the discipline, organization and facilities of a school, plus the overall performance of the pupils. Similar procedures for the control of the vastly more numerous private schools by means of government inspection were introduced, at least partly to eradicate political propaganda in schools, by the first Education Or-dinance, 1913.25 Perceptions of the Government's role in relation to education had
21.
This was heightened by the bitter dissension between non-conformist sects and the 'High Church' party of the Church of England, caused partly by the Oxford Movement.

22.
For example, see Evidence 5, 6,15 and 16, below. Evidence 17 indicates differences in attitudes between the British and the Hong Kong Governments, at least in the first years of the twentieth century.

23.
See Chronicle for 1901 and Evidence 14 below.

24.
'Payment by results' made the pupils' results in examinations at different 'standards' the principal criterion for the allocation of a school's grant-in-aid. It was popularized in Britain by the Tteport of the Newcastle Commission' (see Evidence 17 and f.n. 51 in Chapter 3 ~ above). The same control mechanism was adopted by the Legislative Council for Sin-gapore in 1874 and not revised until 1899. Because the size of the grant was dependent upon examinations in certain subjects, the 'payment by results' scheme tended to have a very stultifying effect on curriculum development and certainly provided motives for the under-valuation of such non-examined curriculum areas as physical education. Evidence 21 in this chapter includes reference to a local Hong Kong variant of the 'payment by results scheme'.

25.
See Chronicle for 1913 and Evidence 20 below.


clearly changed markedly during the period. In 1877, for example, it was seriously argued that provision of schools was not part of the Government's responsibility. In 1902, the Education Committee denied that it was the Government's responsi-bility to provide schools for all the children in Hong Kong. By 1913, it was recognized, though not without dissent, that the Government had the right to inspect even those schools towards which it made no financial contribution.26 This clear contrast suggests an important issue. The Commentary, Chronicle and Evi-dence provided here are intended to contribute to the substantiation and clarifica-tion of the issue. They should also make more explicit some of the questions which might fruitfully be posed in an historian's interactions with the primary sources of the period.
With such a long period, many other questions will enliven and inform such interactions. The few general questions which follow are designed simply as an introduction, and in the hope that they will help generate more detailed ones.
*
What changes can be detected in the attitudes of (a) the Chinese community of Hong Kong, (b) the European community of Hong Kong, and (c) the Hong Kong Government towards education in the period 1865-1913? (Subsidiary preliminary questions might concern the nature, or even existence, of 'com-munity-spirit' amongst the Chinese and the British, plus the changing expec-tations of the scope of the Government's responsibilities and, possibly, the changing concepts of 'education'. The provenance of the much commented upon 'pragmatic attitude' of the local Chinese towards education might also be queried.27)

*
How did developments in (a) China and (b) Britain affect education in Hong Kong, 1865-1913?

*
In what ways did the 'religious question' affect the development of schooling in Hong Kong in this period?

*
What weight should be attributed to the various factors influencing the cur-riculum in Hong Kong at this time?


26.
See Chapter 1, Evidence 14, for the 1877 argument that it was not a government's duty to educate the people over whom it holds sway. For information about the 1902 and 1912-13 attitudes, see Evidence 16,17,19 and 20 in this chapter and Evidence 1 in Chapter 5.

27.
The ideas of Raymond Williams would suggest a socio-economic source, in a neo-Marxist sense (Raymond Williams, op. cit., pp. 125-55); those of Carnoy would explain the attitude as a reaction to colonialist rule (Carnoy, op. cit., pp. 3 ff.). Other observers seem to attribute pragmatism to the Cantonese almost as an ethnic trait. For further comments on the prevalence of the materialistic attitude, see Bateson Wright's remarks in his report on Queen's College in 1904 (Chronicle for 1904 and f.n. 39).


*
Why did (a) Chinese and (b) non-Chinese set up schools in Hong Kong during this period?

*
How did the acquisition and development of additional territory by Hong Kong (i.e., the Kowloon peninsula from the 1860s onwards and the New Territories after 1898) affect the demand for and supply of schools?

*
What specific influences affected �X in the sense of being either enabling or retarding forces �X the development of (a) female education, (b) teacher edu-cation, (c) technical education, (d) early childhood education, (e) adult educa-tion, and (f) higher education, in this period?

*
If this period were to be subdivided or otherwise modified, what would be the most suitable starting and ending dates? Why?


CHRONICLE
1865: From June Frederick Stewart became, in effect, a one-man Government department, the Department of Government Schools (also referred to as the 'Educational Department7 and clearly, the direct forebear of the pres-ent Government Education Department).28 The first public examination was held at St. Saviour's College. The Government schools at Soo Kun Poo and Sai Ying Pun were completed.
1866: Important innovations were introduced in Government education policy, especially with regard to the Central School:
(i)
the Central School was opened to boys of all nationalities;

(ii)
the reading of the Bible in Chinese was stopped in the Central School and five of the village schools;


(iii) the study of the English language became obligatory in the Central School.
28. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 24 June 1865, p. 386. The Government Notification reads:
Tt is hereby notified that the functions of the Board of Education, to whom the best thanks of this Government are due, will cease on the 30th Instant; and that, from and after that date, the Government Educational Department in this Colony will be placed under the sole supervision of FREDERICK STEWART, Esquire, Head Master of the Central School.
By Order
W.H. ALEXANDER Acting Colonial Secretary. Colonial Secretary's Office, Hong Kong, 24th June, 1865/
By 1866, the Central School had already adopted what came to be re-garded as its essential characteristics. It was a Government Anglo-Chinese school which gave upper primary and secondary education to boys ad-mitted through a compulsory entrance examination. The whole course of study required seven years (one year in the Preparatory Class and one in each of six upper classes, with Class 1 representing the senior class). Promotion was determined by an annual written and oral examination (first introduced in 1864) held near the end of the Chinese New Year. All examination questions and answer papers were open to public inspection. The examination was 'public' in the sense that guests, sometimes includ-ing the Governor, were invited to give oral tests to the pupils.
The annual interport series of cricket matches against Shanghai was inaugurated.
1867: This year witnessed the dramatic collapse of Dent & Co., an event which among other things, led to the closure of St. Paul's College and of the Morrison Education Society, which donated its library to the City Hall. (The library was later moved to the University of Hong Kong).
1868: A modest scheme of financial aid was implemented for some Chinese village schools (the villagers to provide the premises and half the teacher's salary, the Government to provide the other half of salary �X $5 per month). Three new schools (including two in Kowloon) immediately came under this system, three more in 1869 and five in 1870. Stewart was at first optimistic about this scheme but later he complained about the 'discour-aging' and 'corrupt' attitudes of the villagers.29 The Diocesan Native Female Training School, in a precarious financial position, was put under the 'immediate superintendence of Bishop Al-ford'. St. Paul's College was re-opened by Bishop Alford as a school for Eu-ropean boys only.
1869: This year marked the beginning of public controversy over the religious issue between, at first, Bishop Alford and Frederick Stewart. On 2 Febru-ary, the Bishop attacked the Government system of education as a 'god-less' one.
The Diocesan Native Female Training School was replaced by the 'Diocesan Home and Orphanage for English, Eurasian, Chinese and Other
29. In several cases, schools were established to meet the needs of a teacher looking for employment, rather than to cater for the educational needs of children in the locality. Frequently, the villagers refused to contribute their half of the teacher's monthly salary ($5) and even required the teacher to pay out of the $5 which the Government provided rent for the school premises and other impositions by the village elders. See Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Inter-actions ... (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984), pp. 53-54.
Scholars'. This school absorbed the pupils from St. Paul's College which was again closed and was not reopened until 1876.
Chemistry and Geometry were added to the curriculum of the Central School with the arrival of the third English master (N.B. the suggestion of Governor MacDonnell in 1866 and possibly, the influence of the Self-strengthening Movement in China).
A grant was offered by the Government to the West Point Reforma-tory and justified by Governor MacDonnell in a speech at the St. Saviour's College Prize Distribution (20 March 1869) in the following terms: If it were not for this Institution the Government would have thrown upon its hands a great number of destitute children for whom a maintenance would have to be provided. Buildings would have to be erected, Superin-tendents provided, and a large expense therefore entailed upon the Col-ony. Now all that he had done was to make a very good bargain for the public. He had made a calculation based upon which he had given about one-fourth of what would otherwise be necessary to expend from public funds...'
Police Schools were established in which lessons in English were
available for Sikhs and Chinese and other forms of police training pro-
vided.
1870-72: Pressure increased for the establishment of a school for European and American children whose parents complained that they were either ex-pected to study Chinese subjects along with Chinese pupils at the Central School or were forced to enter a missionary school. The Legislative Coun-cil debated the matter on 29 April and 16 May 1872. A public meeting proposed by the Governor, Sir Arthur Kennedy, was held on 25 June 1872, chaired by him, but no immediate or satisfactory solution was reached largely because of the religious controversy and the lack of Government financial support. The attempt to revive St. Paul's College and transform it into a secular school for Europeans failed, even though it was backed by such prominent leaders as Phineas Ryrie, E.R. Belilios, H.N. Mody and Frederick Stewart.30 Instead, a 'private venture school', variously called the Hong Kong Public School and, later, the Victoria English School,31 was established under the headmastership of Mr J.M. Hanlon. This was one of
30.
According to Eitel, the committee appointed after the public meeting of 26 June 1872 included all of these and other personages.

31.
This name caused some confusion between 1889 and 1894 when the Central School was re-named Victoria College. Possibility of such confusion provides at least part of the reason for the change to a third name of what was originally the Central School, Queen's College. 'Colonial' or 'Jarrett', in his series of newspaper articles on 'Old Hong Kong', by failing to detect this similarity in names, mistakingly attributes to J.M. Hanlon the headmastership of the school out of which Queen's College developed ('Old Hong Kong', p. 916).


209
the first Grant-in-Aid schools after Stewart introduced the original Code in 1873 and remained a secular school mainly for Europeans, under the nominal supervision of Phineas Ryrie until 1877 when it came under Roman Catholic management.
1870: At the Government Central School elementary music was taught as an experiment (but this was not continued in subsequent years).
1871: More Government-aided village schools were established in Kowloon.
1872: The Government Wanchai School was built. The Board of Examiners in Chinese for Government officers was es-tablished.

1873: Stewart's Grant-in Aid scheme was introduced and implemented to offer aid conditionally to voluntary (mainly missionary) schools. The condi-tions were that the grant would be offered only to public elementary schools, with an average attendance of not less than 20, offering purely secular instruction for not less than four consecutive hours daily. The schools needed to be represented by a manager and to be open to inspec-tion, while the grants were to be dependent on the results of an annual examination on secular subjects laid down by the Inspector or other Government-approved examiners. The influence of the 'Revised Code' and the 1870 Forster Education Act in Britain may be detected in this Grant Code. It should be noted, however, that Stewart did not fully and explicitly adopt the 'timetable conscience clause' by which the Forster Act permitted financial support from the central government to be given to denominational schools but enabled parents to withdraw their children from religious instruction which was scheduled only during the first or last period of the day so that no one would miss any of the secular education. The enactment of the Grant Code stimulated further contro-versy and especially bitter opposition from the Roman Catholics. By the end of 1873, all Catholic schools had withdrawn from (or refused to enter) the scheme. A committee for the compilation of Chinese school-books was ap-
pointed, with E.J. Eitel as Chairman, in an effort to ensure that there
would be texts in Chinese which could satisfy the requirement for purely
secular education. The first newspaper under solely Chinese management in Hong Kong began its publication. This was the Universal Circulating Herald, which was printed on a type foundry bought from the London Missionary Society.
1874: Government Central School Scholarships were established.
1875: With the arrival of the Christian Brothers in Hong Kong, St. Saviour's
changed its name to St. Joseph's College (still unsupported by Govern-ment grants).
1876: Members of the first Mission from the Chinese Empire to Britain, passing through Hong Kong on their way to Europe, asked to be allowed to inspect the Central School. Halliday Macartney, then interpreter and ad-viser to the Mission and later Chancellor of the Chinese Legation in London, reported that the classrooms were 'densely crowded with pupils, many of whom were adults'. St. Paul's College was re-opened by Bishop Burden and immediately placed under the Grant-in-Aid scheme. During the year, it had an average attendance of 102 Chinese and European boys in the charge of Mr A.J. May.
1877: Two anonymous pamphlets, both critical of Government education policy, were published: The Central School: Can it Justify its raison d'etre? and Dates and Events (1857-77) connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong. On 27 April, Phineas Ryrie resigned from the managership of Hanlon's Hong Kong Public School and this originally secular school was taken under Catholic management through Mr J.J. dos Remedios, together with Mrs Hanlon's Girls' School (the Victoria English Girls' School) and a new Portuguese school which had been started by the Remedios daughters. These three schools had an aggregate attendance of 66 boys and 68 girls.
1878: On 25 February a brief 'Education Conference' was held in the Council Chambers, presided over by the Governor, John Pope Hennessy and attended by Stewart, E.J. Eitel and six members of the Legislative Council. The Conference declared that 'political and commercial interests rendered the study of English of primary importance in all Government schools'. When Stewart proceeded on long leave (March), the responsibilities of Headmaster of the Central School and of Inspector of Schools were separated; the Second Master, Mr Alexander Falconer took over as Acting Headmaster and E.J. Eitel as Acting Inspector of Schools. The separation of responsibilities was confirmed in 1879 when Stewart returned as Head-master of the Central School and again in 1881 when he resigned from this position. The Po Leung Kuk was established by a group of Chinese to prevent the kidnapping of girls and the ill-treatment of domestic servant girls (the 'mui-tsai'). Keen interest in this issue had been stimulated by remarks made by the Chief Justice, Sir John Smale, about the resemblance of domestic servitude to slavery and about the prevalence of kidnapping and other pressures for the purpose of prostitution. Two petitions from prominent Chinese residents then called for the establishment of an anti-kidnapping society. Amongst the correspondence which grew up about the issue is a memorandum by E.J. Eitel in which he claims that many
school girls who needed to journey to schools in central Hong Kong at this time customarily dressed as boys in order to avoid being kidnapped on their way to or from school.
1879: The Revised Code for the Grant-in-Aid scheme was enacted, largely based upon suggestions from Bishop Raimondi and enthusiastically espoused by Hennessy, the Roman Catholic Governor. In drafting terms, the revi-sion was very simple: the limit of an average attendance of 20 was deleted; the word 'elementary' was deleted; and both 'secular7 and 'consecutive' were also deleted. The repercussions were, however, very great. The leading Roman Catholic schools (e.g., St. Joseph's College) now accepted grant-in-aid status and thus the 'religious question' was considered to be answered. In the next few decades, the 'grant schools' began to overtake government schools in terms of numbers and prestige.
1880: The Tung Wah Hospital committee opened its first school (at the Man Mo Temple in Hollywood Road). Governor Hennessy appointed an Education Commission 'to enquire to what extent and at what cost and under what circumstances . . . new (government) schools may be made to take the place of the Central School in giving an elementary education... and to enquire at what cost and with what staff and organization the Central School may be raised into a Collegiate Institution, giving a higher education in English and Science...' The Polo Club was started.
1881: A 'Normal School' for the training of Chinese teachers of English was established in Wanchai with Mr A.J. May, the third master from the Central School, as headmaster. Ten students, nine of them products of the Central School, were selected for training and were offered an allowance of $48 per year for the three year course. Hennessy did not, however, take the precaution of submitting the plan to the Colonial Office. The Secretary of State for the Colonies objected to the Scheme and eventually (i.e. in September 1883) this first experiment in formal teacher education in Hong Kong was aborted.32
32. The Earl of Kimberly, Secretary of State for the Colonies, initially demanded that the money voted for the Normal School venture should be cancelled, but after urgent tele-graphic importuning by Hennessy, permitted the scheme to continue, pending a full report as to the vacancies expected for teachers, the total cost and the nature of any bond de-manded of the students. He allowed the students to receive their allowances for the first year, but forbade it for the second and third years of the course. The arrangement that students should be accommodated at government expense in the school was accepted only temporarily and a bond by which students contracted to teach after the conclusion of the
A school magazine, Our Boys, was produced at St. Joseph's College and edited by a pupil, C.E. de Lopes e Ozorio. This has strong claims to be considered the first Anglo-Chinese school magazine published in Hong Kong, but ceased publication a few years later when Ozorio left school.
1882: The report of the Education Commission, published after Hennessy's departure from Hong Kong, dismissed the idea of a collegiate institution because of cost and recommended developing the Central School 'on its present basis', pointing out that the great need of the majority of the. population was a sound elementary education and that the Government should not establish an institution which would be mainly for the advan-tage of the wealthy members of the community. It supported the opening of five new 'district schools' (the new name for village schools) but con-demned the continued existence of a separate Normal School because 'when the Central School had been put on a proper footing, the Headmas-ter would be able to make all the necessary arrangements for the training of the limited number of teachers required.'
1883: The Belilios Scholarships were established. A new building for St. Joseph's (R.C.) College for boys was inaugu-rated.
1884: Governor Bowen introduced government scholarships (2) for advanced studies in England in the fields of Medicine, Law or Civil Engineering. The Jockey Club was formed.
1885: The Central School was offered a prize of $25 to be competed for only by Chinese boys. When, however, the Headmaster was informed that the prize would be given to the Chinese boy who could swim best, the offer 'was deferred for consideration sine die! because no Chinese boy at the school had yet learned to swim.
1886: The Cambridge Local Examinations were first held in Hong Kong. Eitel's Annual Report for 1886 included: 'Since the autumn of the year 1884, when in consequence of local disturbances, the attendance of all the Chinese Schools suddenly fell off and many children were, in a panic, removed from the Colony to their homes on the mainland, the annual increase of Schools and scholars has come to a standstill. A fresh panic occurred in spring 1886 when, in consequence of an idle rumour to the effect that the Schools under Government were required to furnish a
course in a government school for five years at a salary of $25 per month was insisted upon. Three students immediately left the programme. By the time the scheme was concluded, only four students remained. Of these, two actually became teachers.
number of boys and girls to be buried alive in the tunnel of the Taitam water works, as the success of those works depended upon such a human sacrifice, most of the Chinese Grant-in-Aid Schools in the centre of the town were emptied of scholars for several days, until a proclamation of the Registrar-General allayed the excitement. The fact that such a silly rumour found credence with numbers of Chinese mothers, is a striking evidence of the lamentably low state of female education in the Colony.. ,'33
1887: The Alice Memorial Hospital was established by private initiative (mainly that of Ho Kai). In connection with it, the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese was instituted (with neither buildings nor an endowment of its own).
1888: In his 'Annual Report on Education' for this year, Dr Eitel added to his usual plea that the Government should pay more attention to female education, the following warning: There is however, some danger in the commercial value which the needle-work that is being done in some Girls Schools has, viz., the danger of giving too much time to needle-work, such as pays the School directly, at the expense of the less remunerative train-ing of the mind which benefits the scholar/ (Hong Kong Government Ga-zette, 30 March 1889, p. 249). The range of subjects taught at the Central School was widened to include Trigonometry, Latin, and Shakespeare.
1889: Oxford Local Examinations replaced Cambridge Local Examinations.34 The Central School was renamed 'Victoria College' and moved to its
33.
Hong Kong Government Gazette, 14 May 1887, p. 535. See also, Evidence 13 for a report of a similar rumour which had dramatic effect on school attendance during the first of the plague years and which equally well demonstrates the huge distance between the Hong Kong Government and the mass of the Hong Kong people in nineteenth century Hong Kong. Very similar rumours were circulating in China at the time, especially about the activities of missionaries and were partly responsible for popular support for the Boxer Movement. See also Elizabeth Sinn, The Tung Wah Hospital 1869-1896: A Study of a Medical, Social and Political Institution in Hong Kong' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Univer-sity of Hong Kong, 1987), esp. pp. 186 ff. for a discussion of the way in which the Committee of the Tung Wah Hospitals attempted to serve as a 'bridge between the magistrate and the local community' and of the resentment that this engendered among government officials and the European community.

34.
Dr Bateson Wright later explained this change to 'Colonial', who was the author of newspaper articles on 'Old Hong Kong' in the 1930s:


The change from Cambridge Locals to Oxford came about as follows: Mr. Bateman, Headmaster of St. Paul's College School introduced the former, and I sent boys in. Finding however that information of changes in Plays and Books arrived too late in the Colony to allow our candidates sufficient time for prepara-tion, I wrote to the Cambridge Syndicate to allow us advance information, which they refused. An application to Oxford was graciously considered and approved. The whole colony was benefited and the change was effected. Some people may have thought that as an Oxonian myself I desired the alteration but it never entered my mind/ ('Old Hong Kong', p. 926).
new site in Aberdeen Street which provided accommodation for 924 schol-
ars (subsequently increased).
1890: The Government Central School for Girls (later named Belilios Public
School) was founded. It was located at 16 Hollywood Road which was on
the corner of Old Bailey Street and Hollywood Road and aimed to give 'an
ordinary middle-class English education' to the daughters of Chinese,
European and Indian residents of Hong Kong.
1891: The District School at Saiyingpun was built 35
1892: The Fu Jen Wen-She (Fu Jen Literary Society) was formed by a small group
of young Chinese men who had been educated in Hong Kong and were
very concerned about the political situation in China. The Society's chair-man was Hong Kong-born Yang Chu-yuan,36 and their motto was 'Ducit
Amor Patriae' (which can be literally translated as 'Love of the Fatherland
leads'). The society was archetypical of the 'study-groups' which sprang
up in Hong Kong during the latter part of the century.
1893: Dr E.J. Eitel, Inspector of Schools and head of the Education Department,
began implementing the policy of closing the cheaper Government (Ver-
nacular) District Schools. Eleven were closed during the year.
The Po Leung Kuk was incorporated under a special Ordinance (after the report of a special committee of enquiry).37
Belilios Public School (the re-named Government school for girls) was
officially opened on the site of the old Central School (in Gough Street).

35.
This may be regarded as the ancestor-institution of King's College, for which a founda-tion stone was laid in 1923 and which enrolled its first pupils in September 1926. See the relevant parts of the Chronicle in Chapter 5, below.

36.
For a report of his assassination by agents of the police chief in Canton, see Evidence 14 below.

37.
The enquiry was provoked by an attack on the Po Leung Kuk by Mr T.M. Whitehead (a member of the Legislative Councillor and prominent adherent of local government reform) on the grounds that it was a secret society. The Majority Report absolved the Po Leung Kuk from this charge and recommended that an Ordinance be passed legally incorporating the Society. See CO 129/259, pp. 209 ff., and H.J. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change, pp. 82 ff.


1894: Victoria College was renamed 'Queen's College'. Four more Government Vernacular District Schools were closed. Bubonic Plague struck Hong Kong, beginning in May and leading to over 2,000 deaths during the year.
1895: The total number of Government Vernacular District Schools was reduced to nine by the end of the year.
1896: There was a recurrence of the Plague in the early months of the year. According to Eitel, 'compared with the enrolment of the previous year (236 Schools with 10,876 scholars), these [1896] figures show a decrease, caused by the renewed outbreak of the plague during the first few months of the year 1896, and amounting to 21 Schools with 1,190 scholars'. (Sup-plement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, No. 31 of 3 July 1897, p. I). In the same report, Eitel refers to 'one Kindergarten School, the Basel Mission, which gives gratuitous teaching to young Chinese children at Saiying-poon, not merely combining play with work but giving useful instruction in the rudiments of industry by systematic training of hand and eye', (p. V).
1897: An area in Causeway Bay was set aside as Queen's Recreation Ground (this being a part of Hong Kong's celebration of Queen Victoria's Dia-mond Jubilee).
Dr E.J. Eitel retired from government service, left Hong Kong and settled in Australia. He was replaced as Inspector of Schools by Mr A.W. Brewin who was soon to be succeeded by Mr E.A. Irving.
1898: The annual Education Report for this year showed a large increase in the number of pupils in schools where elementary English was taught.
1899: In January, as a result of initiative by Mr Ford of the Government Botani-cal and Afforestation Department, negotiations were begun with the mili-tary authorities over a scheme to establish a public park in Kowloon (later 'King's Park').
1900: Ying Wa Girls School opened.
Robert Ho Tung offered the Government a donation to permit the establishment of a school in Kowloon which would provide a Western education for children of all races, irrespective of creed or nationality.
1901: Two petitions were presented to the Government: (i) from eight promi-nent Chinese, requesting the establishment of a Chinese High School, run on Western lines for Children of respectable Chinese families; and (ii) from leaders of the British community, requesting the establishment of a separate school for European children.
An Education Committee, chaired by Bishop Hoare and consisting of
A.W. Brewin (the Registrar-General and ex-Inspector of Schools), E.A.
Irving (the current Inspector of Schools)38 and Ho Kai as members, was appointed to provide the British Secretary of State for the Colonies (Joseph Chamberlain) with accurate information about education in Hong Kong.
1902: Robert Ho Tung was persuaded by the Government to permit his dona-tion to be used for the establishment of a school in Kowloon reserved for European children.
Bishop Hoare resigned from the Education Committee in March be-cause he considered that the 'draft Report drawn up by the other three members of the Committee contains many strong statements, with which I cannot agree, but which I have reason to believe I cannot get altered'. (CO 129/311, p. 120). The other members persisted with their views. Their Report appeared in the Government Gazette in April. It recommended: (1) separate schools for European children; (2) the founding of a Chinese High School; (3) that in vernacular schools Western knowledge should be a compulsory subject (N.B. the influence of the Hundred Days' Reforms and the Boxer Movement in China), that teaching methods should be improved (e.g., less memorizing and more practical teaching), scholar-ships should be provided for deserving pupils to proceed to the Anglo-Chinese schools, and that vernacular district schools should be estab-lished in connection with Anglo-Chinese district schools and linked with them through scholarships; (4) that on entering Government Anglo-Chi-nese schools pupils should possess a sufficient knowledge of the Chinese written language, and that English should be taught with a view to its practical use; (5) that Queen's College should supply an education to Chinese pupils only and that teaching should relate to local conditions (too much time was being spent on teaching 'dry facts relating to early and medieval English history and the geography of countries which are only remotely connected with the Far East'); (6) that grants should not be based 'entirely and unashamedly7 on examination results; (7) that govern-ment subsidies should be given to the rural schools already in existence in the New Territories; (8) that it was not yet time to develop higher educa-tion in Hong Kong and that government scholarships for higher studies in England should be discontinued (because the recipients rarely returned to Hong Kong); (9) that the 'dual system' (with Queen's College under its Headmaster and the other Government schools under the Inspector) should be discontinued.
In general, 'the Committee hold that what education is given should be thorough, and that better results will be obtained by assisting to en-lighten the ignorance of the upper classes of Chinese than by attempting to force new ideas on the mass of the people. Civilized ideas among the
38. E.A. Irving was appointed Inspector of Schools on 26 April 1901. He took over the control of the Department from A.W. Brewin on 1 May 1901 (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 20 June 1902).
leaders of thought are the best and perhaps the only means at present available for permeating the general ignorance: for this reason much more attention has been paid to the Anglo-Chinese schools than to the Vernacu-lar/ It should be noticed that the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, responded firmly against this policy (see Evidence 16 be-low).
Kowloon British School (later re-named King George V School) was opened, with an ethnically restricted intake.
1903: St. Stephen's Boys' School (or St. Stephen's College) was established, catering largely for Chinese children from the wealthy class. A new Grant Code which made grants dependent on results of in-spections of schools instead of on annual examinations of pupils was drafted and circulated among School Managers.
1904: The new Grant Code came into force on 1st January. This year's Annual Report for Queen's College included the following information: The total number on the Roll was 1,501, the average daily attendance being 1,000: both figures are in excess of those reached in 1903 and form a record. The slight diminution in Fees, $313, is due to the unprecedented exodus, in the first half of the year, of 166 boys from the Upper School, which in March consisted of 407 boys. The vacant accom-modation was as far as possible utilized for the Preparatory School where the fees are lower.'39 Referring to the senior boys who left in the first half of
39. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 3 February, 1905, p. 110; 'Report on the Queen's College for the Year 1904, dated 19 January 1905. Bateson Wright continued his report with an admonition of the parents: It is much to be regretted that parents and guardians do not recognize that it is a penny-wise-pound-foolish policy to curtail boys' education just when it is ripening, in order to earn so much the earlier a few dollars a month. Parents have subsequently deplored the fatal mistake they have thus made.' The problem had clearly not changed much in nature since being recognized by Frederick Stewart in 1866 (see Evidence 1(b)).
Later in the Report, Bateson Wright contributes the following information and opinion:
'At the last Prize Distribution held in the Central School (now Queen's College) in January 1888, Sir WILLIAM DES VOEUX spoke to the following effect: "The chief point I consider admirable about this school is its missionary purpose and work. The young men that complete their course of studies here are scattered over the vast empire of China and cannot fail to disseminate those Western ideas that they have acquired in this school, and that appreciation of British Government impressed upon them by their residence in this British colony." His Excellency rightly grasped the situation, but I venture to doubt that its full magnitude could have been realized by him. Say 9,000 boys have left this College and one-third are scattered on the mainland: then we have a small army of 3,000 unpaid missionaries spreading Western ideas.' (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 1905, p. 113)
the year, Gwenneth Stokes calculated that 'twenty-four found employ-
ment with [the Hong Kong] Government, fifty joined business firms in the
Colony, twenty-nine obtained situations in China and ten went abroad/40
1905: St. Stephen's Preparatory School (later St. Stephen's Girls' College) was
founded. Victoria British School was opened. The China Mail of 15 December included an editorial supporting the
creation of 'An Imperial University for Hongkong7. This editorial pro-voked local correspondence, an editorial response, and a brief article, dated 8 December (but published in Hong Kong on 19 December), from a correspondent in Tokyo.41
The Government Anglo-Chinese School at Aberdeen was opened.
The curriculum at the Government District Schools in Wanchai, Sai Ying Pun and Yaumati was made to coincide with that of the Lower and Preparatory School sections of Queen's College in the hope that the for-mer would serve as feeders to the latter.
1906: Evening Continuation Classes were first introduced in Hong Kong in October. Instruction was provided in Science, Engineering, Commerce and Teacher Training. Pupil teachers attended lectures taught by Euro-pean schoolmasters who were paid $5 per hour. Lecturers in Engineering and Science were paid at a higher rate! The classes were held at Queen's College, which also provided most of the lecturers, though there was no official connection with the school.
40. Gwenneth Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962 (Hong Kong: Queen's College, 1962), p.
255. Stokes unwittingly casts doubt on her own calculations, however, by referring to the 'eighty-nine senior boys who left in the first half of the year', a figure that is not only considerably smaller than Bateson Wright's, but is also smaller than the aggregate of the leaving groups which she identifies. The figures are amended in the Stokes' Queen's College: Its History, 1862-1987, so that they add up to eighty-nine, i.e., 24 to Government, 26 in Hong Kong firms, 29 in China, and 10 abroad (p. 255).
41. The correspondent from Tokyo commented about the strike of Chinese students in Japan against efforts by the Qing Government to control their political activities: 'As these young men are the flowers of the intellect of China it has occurred to me that it would be a great diplomatic stroke to afford them facilities for study in a British community.' (China Mail, Tuesday, 19 December 1905, p. 5) See also Evidence 18 below. Earlier references to the need for a university include Wang Chung-yu's letter criticizing proposals for ethnically separated education in February 1901 (see Evidence 15(c) below) and a suggestion by the Rev. A.B. Hutchinson of the Church Missionary Society in 1872 (George Endacott, The Be-ginnings', in Harrison (ed.), University of Hong Kong: The First 50 Years, p. 23). As recently as 1902, however, an official Government Committee (the Brewin/Ho Kai/Irving Education Committee) recommended that There should be no attempt to provide any sort of Univer-sity Education until a far firmer grounding for it can be found than now exists in the schools of Hongkong.' (Hong Kong Government Gazette, 11 April 1902, p. 517)
219
1907: A Technical Institute was established (without buildings of its own) to run 'evening continuation classes' in various technical subjects and also 'nor-mal classes' for teachers (i.e., teacher training).
1908: The Governor, Sir Frederick Lugard, expressed the hope during prize-giving at St. Stephen's College, that a university might be combined with the Hong Kong Medical College. Mr H.N. Mody, a Parsee businessman, offered to present the Colony with buildings necessary for a university. A Committee was formed to promote the undertaking and collect an endowment fund. An age-limit was introduced at Queen's College. As the College's 'Annual Report' laconically details '20 is the limit of age for Class 1 [the senior class]'.42
1909: On the retirement of Dr Bateson Wright, the 'dual system' was abolished and the Education Department, now including Queen's College, was con-solidated under one head, the Director of Education. The Department then had three administrative staff-members (the Director, the Sub-In-spector of Girls' Schools and the Sub-Inspector of Vernacular Schools) plus two junior clerks and two minor staff-members. The University of London agreed to assist the Governor in his promo-tion of a university in Hong Kong and to conduct final examinations for degrees to be conferred by the University of Hong Kong. An Endowment Fund was established for the proposed university. The Hong Kong Tennis League was formed, initially comprising seven teams, with the Chinese Y.M.C.A. as the sole Chinese team. The first signs of a Boy Scout movement can be detected in Hong Kong.
1910: The foundation stone of the University of Hong Kong was laid (March). A list of contributions showed that Chinese residents had contributed about $300,000 to the endowment fund out of a total of $692,012 up to that date.
Pupils from Queen's College (the College being known as 'the true Light of Asia' according to contributors to its magazine, Yellow Dragon) welcomed the 'new light of the world, Halley's Comef. A few pupils also
42. Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, 1908, Appendix N, p. Nl. Gwenneth Stokes reports many examples of 'mature students' attending the Central School, Victoria College and Queen's College, but notes that in 1904, 'On 15th April a Chinese gentleman aged about 53 found his way to the covered playground during recess. After addressing a large crowd of boys on politeness, he stated that he wished to learn English, "the most useful language there was at the present moment." Although he was a Ku Yan (a Chinese M.A.) and would have had no difficulty in passing the new entrance test, he was deemed too old to be admitted.' (Stokes, op. cit, p. 256). Earlier, Macartney had also commented about the age of pupils at the Central School (see Chronicle for 1876).
demonstrated their modernity by cutting off their queues, and in a vote at the newly formed Debating Society of the College on the motion that 'the cutting of the queue is beneficial to the Chinese nation', there were only six votes in favour of queues and twenty-two against. According to Gwen-neth Stokes, however, a photograph of the 1910 scholarship holders, taken in early 1911, reveals only one boy without his queue.43
The Chinese Recreation Club was formed. One of its first activities was to erect the first Bathing Shed ever set up for Chinese people in Hong Kong.
1911: The semi-official Board of Chinese Vernacular Primary Education was formed (comprising the Director of Education, the Registrar-General and five prominent Chinese residents). The establishment of this Board was clearly linked with the effects of political unrest in China especially since the turn of the century, the influx of refugees, the subsequent growth in the number of private vernacular schools and the concern over political propaganda within such schools.
The Boy Scouts Association of Hong Kong was formally established.
The Rev. H.R. Wells, a missionary and accomplished sinologue, was appointed to the staff of Queen's College to supervise the Chinese curricu-lum at the school, assisted by five vernacular masters, all of whom were classical scholars. In the next few years, he perfected what became known as the pari-passu system, by which all Chinese pupils had to take an entrance examination in the Chinese language and Chinese became com-pulsory for them at Queen's College until they had reached the senior class. By these means, it was intended that the English and Chinese languages should be seen to rank equally in the school or, at least, that all Chinese pupils would be compelled to keep their knowledge of Chinese 'in step' with their attainments in English studies.
1912: The University of Hong Kong, incorporated by local Ordinance on 30 March 1911, formally opened with 77 students (mainly from China). Its initial objectives were 'the promotion of Arts, Science and Learning, the provision of Higher Education, the conferring of Degrees, the develop-ment and formation of the character of students of all races, nationalities and creeds, and the maintenance of good understanding with China/
1913: Ying Wa College was re-opened by the London Missionary Society (after nearly sixty years). The Diocesan Girls' School was opened. The first Education Ordinance was passed. It provided for the regis-tration and supervision of certain (mainly private) schools and was the
43. Gwenneth Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962, p. 279.
first measure of this sort anywhere in what was then the British Empire. As a result, the Education Department became responsible for 360 schools in the urban areas containing over 8,000 pupils and 260 schools in the rural areas with about 3,000 pupils. As Evidence 20(b) & (c) indicate, its initial reception was, to say the least, mixed.
EVIDENCE
1. Extracts from Frederick Stewart's 'Annual Reports on the State of Govern-ment Schools'.
Other extracts from some of these Reports appear in earlier chapters. The quotations below offer further evidence about a number of issues, including curricular, pedagogic and linguistic, but most especially about the opinions of Frederick Stewart.
(a) Hong Kong Blue Book, 1865, pp. 277 ff.; The Annual Report on the State of the Government Schools for the Year 1865, published by command of the Colonial Secretary, W.T. Mercer, 19th March 1866; Report signed by Frederick Stewart and dated 12th February 1866'.
... If docility and regular attendance are necessary to progress there is nothing left on these points to desire. Nothing can be easier than the maintenance of proper discipline, and the daily attendance will bear fa-vourable comparison with that of any day-school in England .. .
... It was, henceforth, to be no longer optional for a boy [in the Central School] to learn English. Previously, he could read Chinese or English, or both if he chose; and this accounts for the high average of attendance in 1862, the year in which the School was opened. As none were [sic], in future, to be admitted except those who wished to study English the first step necessary was to reduce the numbers �X the staff of teachers being then inadequate for the proper instruction of so many.
To secure that attention to Chinese studies which are so apt to be neglected by those who learn English, an Entrance Examination, on the more commonly used elementary books, was made compulsory.44 Boys
44. A cynic with a taste for generalization might comment that the imposition of competi-tive examinations has seemed to be the characteristically Hong Kong cure for most educa-tional ills. To add substance to the charge he could refer back to the introduction of the half-yearly examinations into Government Schools in 1852, as well as forward to the effects of the Secondary Schools Entrance Examination and of the series of public examinations for senior secondary pupils in the twentieth century. It should, however, be noticed that, from about the middle of the nineteenth century, competitive examinations were regarded by liberal opinion in Britain (and in the British Raj in India) as a very preferable alternative to the exercise of privilege, patronage and nepotism.
who passed this examination were to be admitted into the School to read Chinese for a year, after which, on a second examination, they were admitted into the English classes. They were then to devote four hours a day to English and four to Chinese.
.. . On one point I must be candid. Formerly, the reading of the Bible in Chinese formed part of the School routine. During the past year this practice has been departed from. The Chinese masters in the School are not qualified to teach it and I object to reading it with the boys in English, reducing it, as I would thereby be doing, to the level of an ordinary class-book. One of the masters is a professing Christian and might conscien-tiously perform the duty. Another has lately been excluded from the congregation of which he was a member. The third is not a Christian. It was the conduct of the second that determined me, in the meantime, to discontinue the daily lesson. I discovered that he had been in the habit of drawing comparisons between the Bible and the writings of the Chinese sages by no means favourable to the former. Whether this was done from conviction or from perversity I cannot say. It was, however, a sufficient reason for taking the power of future mischief out of his hands. Under these circumstances I cannot, for the present, give that prominence to the reading of the Scriptures by which, as a School in a Christian Colony, it ought perhaps to be characterized.
It affords some grounds for satisfaction that the School is rapidly growing in favour with the Chinese. The employment of another Euro-pean Master thoroughly trained for his duties, the fact of one of the Chinese masters having taken what corresponds to our Bachelor's degree, and the raised standard in Chinese studies, may be enumerated as the chief causes which have tended to produce this result.
.. . I now come to that part of my Report which refers to the Village Schools.
... I began to suspect that the rolls were not marked until the masters were sure that it was too late in the day for my arrival, and that then they were filled up, I have no hesitation in saying, with greater regard to appearance than to truth. On one occasion I found a large attendance given when the master was absent two days on leave. When this was pointed out to him, he answered, without any compunction, that the boys have to watch the School till he should return. Such a state of things was only counteracted when the masters became aware that, in the monthly reports to the Board of Education, I gave only the number �X in several cases nothing �X which I happened to find present on the days of inspection.
... I should be glad if more could be done for girls in the Colony in the way of giving them a purely Chinese education, as is done at this School [the Government Girls' School in the Upper Bazaar], without turning their heads by teaching them English or any other so-called accomplishment which would give them a distaste for their humbler sphere in life. I could wish to see a male and female School in each of the villages �X the master giving instruction in reading and writing during certain hours of the day, and his wife in sewing, knitting and the other things which may be considered necessary in every family. But, I am afraid, it will be many years before this can be accomplished
... I have been led to entertain hopes that the Chinese themselves will soon do something in the matter of female education. At present, the fear of 'kidnapping' prevents many who would otherwise do so from sending their girls to the School in the Upper Bazaar. During the last year six girls were removed on this account. A gambling house was established in the immediate neighbourhood, and parents, knowing the extremities to which frequenters of such places are sometimes reduced, were afraid to allow their daughters to continue at the School. Nearly all those who do attend have some one to guard them in going to and returning from School.
.. . To give any adequate idea of what the education given in these Schools is, except to those who understand something of the language, would be a very difficult task. It would be much easier to say what it is not.
It embraces then, neither History nor Geography, nor Arithmetic, nor the simplest elements of science �X subjects which, in the West, are con-sidered so indispensable. There is nothing to gratify the youthful imagi-nation, to cheer the learner in his course, or to explain to him the most ordinary occurrences in his life. These things are beneath the notice and unworthy of the attention of the Chinese Scholar. To repeat the maxims of the ancient sages from memory, to know some thousands of characters, and to write these tastefully is, in six cases out of ten, all that is aimed at. If a boy is able to remain at School for six or eight years he may then be able to explain what he has read or committed to memory, but those who cannot afford to do so must be content to read without understanding. To the majority the language is an end, not a means. It is an accomplishment which may be very showy in the eyes of the Chinese themselves, but which contains within it none of the elements of the useful or of the improving.45
A Chinese Schoolmaster is truly an object of pity. He is simply a drudge. He is expected to be in his desk by six o'clock in the morning and continue there till nearly the same hour in the evening �X always ready to teach his scholars when it suits their parents' convenience to send them to him.
... Before any real good can be effected the Chinese must have learnt to appreciate the value of education, and of their own education, such as it
45. Stewart's own italicization of these terms serves to emphasize how consistent his thinking was with that very influential school of Victorian political and social thought in Britain which included the Utilitarians and other Philosophical Radicals and was respon-sible for many of the reforms passed by Parliament. See Asa Briggs, The Age of Improvement (London: Longman, 1959), especially pp. 1-2,222-23.
is. Nothing seems to find favour with them which does not bear a market value. Hence the comparative success of the Central School, English being convertible into dollars; hence, also, the neglect of the Vernacular Schools, Chinese being unsaleable.
.. . Whether the Chinese are to continue to enjoy the exclusive privi-lege of a free education or to share it with the European and the Half-Caste is a question which cannot long be deferred; and when one thinks of the number of children in our streets and on the Praya, who are growing up in ignorance and bidding fair to surpass their predecessors in the practice of violence and theft, the suggestion of a member of the late Board of Education that the Colony should possess a Government Refor-matory on an extensive scale must, sooner or later, claim to itself that consideration which it seems to demand. My own impression is that nothing short of an Education Tax and Compulsory Attendance at School will meet the existing evil...
(b) Hong Kong Blue Book, 1866, pp. 279-80; 'Annual Report on the State of Govern-ment Schools in Hongkong, published for general information. By Order,
W.T. Mercer, 6th February 1867; report signed by Frederick Stewart, Head-master and Inspector, 4th February 1867'.
. . . The subjects taught are substantially the same as they were last year. The Irish National School Books and the Translation into English of portions of the Chinese Classics form, with the ordinary branches of all National Schemes of education, the sum and substance of the work.46 Nothing higher has, as yet, been attempted for two very obvious reasons. In the first place, the boys are, ipso facto, dependent on the English Masters for all their instruction. The Chinese Assistants are not competent, even under the closest supervision, to do more than teach the most elementary of subjects. Reading, Translation, Composition, Geography, and all be-yond the simplest rules of Arithmetic if not attended to personally by the English Masters had better not be attempted at all. When it is considered
46. Stewart, like several predecessors and many successors in the Hong Kong teaching profession virtually equates a description of the curriculum with a list of textbooks. Evidence 12 in this chapter below, exemplifies the same tendency to summarize a curriculum simply by naming the textbook used, as do the extracts quoted in Chapter 3 (Evidence 4) from the Rev. S.R. Brown's reports on the Morrison Education Society School, and of course, this approach has administrative attractions. Even in the 1980s, many Hong Kong teachers, if asked what they intend to teach in a particular lesson or week, will reply 'chapter N'! The National Schemes of Education which Stewart also mentions presumably, in addition to the allusion to the Irish scheme, refer either in a very general way to any form of state education or, more specifically, to the arrangements made by the two major voluntary associations for education in Britain (the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church and the British and Foreign School Society).
225
that last year the scholars in the Upper School numbered eighty six and in the Lower School ninety six it becomes very evident that there is little time left for going on to the more advanced subjects of History, Algebra, and Geometry. The great aim hitherto has been to push on the more intelligent of the boys only as far as shall not be inconsistent with all, except the incorrigible, obtaining a fair average amount of instruction, in other words, not to neglect the many for the benefit of the fewf and until the services of another English Master have been obtained, I see little hope of much being done. Then, in the second place, when boys reach that stage in their progress when they would be capable of appreciating, and profiting by, a more advanced course of instruction they leave school for situations in which they can turn their knowledge of English to practical account. They have not yet learned to consider education as an aim in itself. It is at present, but a means to a particular end, and the minimum amount that can serve their purpose is all that they seek for.48
... In my last Report I stated that I entertained the hope of being soon able to overcome many difficulties connected with the school by training Chinese Assistants for their work. I then anticipated that I should always be able to retain two of the more advanced boys for a period of at least four years, after which they might, if they chose, find employment else-where and be succeeded by the two who stood next to them. The project has all but failed. The demand for the services of the more intelligent of the boys is so great that it is, in the meantime, hopeless to expect them to remain for any length of time. The two in whose case the experiment was tried have both left many months ago, just when they were beginning to be of real value to the school. I shall not, however, abandon the scheme. Out of several it may be possible to retain some; and, as the knowledge of
47.
This attitude might be contrasted with the more openly 'colonialistic' approach which favoured special treatment (including scholarships) for a new native elite encouraged thereby to remain loyal to, and thus consolidate, the colonial power (Philip G. Altbach and Gail P. Kelly (eds.), Education and the Colonial Experience (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1984), pp. 1 ff.). In Hong Kong, scholarships were introduced into the Central School in the 1870s and Government Scholarships were established to enable a few individuals to benefit from education in Britain in 1884. The Report of the Education Committee of 1902 indicates keen interest in the creation of a collaborationist elite. See Chronicle for 1902 and Evidence 16, below, but also note the reaction of the Colonial Office (in Evidence 17).

48.
T.C. Cheng supports this reading of Chinese parents' motivation for education (see Evidence 2 below). Frederick Stewart attributed misunderstandings about the English teaching at the Central School to the 'practical' assumption that children should learn to speak a limited amount of commercial English in as short a time as possible (see Evidence 4(b)). As Bateson Wright's Report of 1904 shows, the pragmatic attitude was seen to have prevailed into the twentieth century. See Chronicle for 1904 and f.n. 39 above. For a basic question about the genesis of the 'pragmatic' approach to education, see Commentary on p. 205 and f.n. 27 above.


English becomes more general and situations more difficult to be ob-tained, the greater will be the probability that these Assistants will remain until, at least, others are qualified to take their place.
His Excellency the Governor has signified his intention of extending the course of study by the introduction of Lectures on the simpler ele-ments of Science �X Chemistry, Electricity, and other branches of Natural Philosophy. I trust that, at first, only very modest expectations will be entertained of their success. Considerable difficulty must attend the com-munication of a knowledge of these subjects through the medium of a language in which the scholars are but in their first stages of advance-ment, and for the ordinary nomenclature of which there exist, as yet, no equivalents in Chinese. To this must be added the fact already referred to that the boys leave school by far too early for acquiring a taste for such studies. It must not be supposed that I am throwing difficulties in the way or attempting to exaggerate those that confessedly exist. In every school, where it is possible, more attention should be given to such subjects than is generally done, and the Central School should certainly not be content to remain in ignorance of such branches of knowledge considering the advantages that would arise from their diffusion.491 have thought it right, however, in making reference to the proposal to moderate as far as pos-sible any undue expectations of success. I hope that, at first, the amusement to be derived from the Lectures will be considered as not the least essen-tial reason for their introduction, and that all that is possible to do shall be done to make them, in time, profitable sources of instruction as well.
(c) Hong Kong Blue Book, 1867, pp. 291 ff.; 'Education Report, published by com-mand of the Acting Colonial Secretary, Cecil C. Smith, 14th February 1868; Report signed by Frederick Stewart and dated 22nd January 1868'.
.. . I do not believe that one of the two hundred and odd boys in the [Central] school comes to be educated, in the proper sense of the word.
49. Though Stewart's point is made here in very general terms, it is possible that he is indirectly alluding to the relatively new popularity and high status of Western science and technology in China at this time. Knowledge of this aspect of China's Self-strengthening Movement was soon current in Hong Kong as can be seen, for example, in the article on The Peking Foreign Board on Western Education' which appeared in the China Mail of Friday, 8 March 1867, comprising a 'translation of an important Memorial by the Foreign Board at Peking, relating to the establishment of the proposed School for the study of European sciences, the first memorial upon which subject we recently copied from the Shanghai newspapers'. The importance accorded to this by British officials is reflected in the fact that Sir Richard MacDonnell enclosed a copy of this article in his despatch No. 254 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies of 15 March 1867 (CO 129/121, p. 73). But see also,
T.C. Cheng's views about the motivation of Chinese parents in Hong Kong in the 1860s and 1870s (Evidence 2 below).
Their only aim is to obtain such a knowledge of the English language as
will enable them to get situations which prove more lucrative than any
which they could hope to get without it. I am afraid that, before long, this
will receive too disagreeable a confirmation. Complaints are often made
by boys of the difficulty they now have in getting employment. The popu-
larity of the school, therefore, would thus seem to depend very much, if
not entirely, on the varying prosperity of the Colony, and not on the
nature or amount of real instruction communicated in it.
.. . It is unnecessary, I trust, for me to state that English is carefully excluded from these [village] schools. To the melancholy results which, in nearly every instance, have followed from teaching Chinese girls English I need not more particularly allude. Its effects on the character of the boys is not, I am sorry to find, what one could wish, but on the character of the girls it has proved to be fatal. And the reason seems to be this, that coming, as they nearly all do, from the poorer classes, the care, such as they have never experienced before, which is taken of them, the comforts, to them luxuries, which they enjoy, and the so called accomplishments, which they are taught, totally unfit them for the sphere of life in which they would otherwise naturally remain, and out of which it is impossible for them to rise.
(d) 'Annual Report for 1875', in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 12 February 1876, p. 78.
.. . It were much to be wished that the school hours would be short-ened. They would be long in any climate, and they are especially so here. The point has had much anxious consideration for many years, but it is not possible to make the day shorter than eight hours, without seriously interfering with the progress of the [Central] school. Were there but one language to be taught, half the time would be ample, but with two, the case is different. The aim is to put both languages, English and Chinese, on a footing of perfect equality, as far as that is possible, and not sacrifice the one to the other. At first, the Chinese would have been glad to throw their own language overboard, but'this could not be listened to. The result would have tended to denationalization and the production of a tribe of smatterers utterly useless for interpretation, or, for that matter, for any-thing else. It took much persistence for many years to overcome this reluctance to learning Chinese, but such a thing is never heard of now. Every scholar in the school, one or two of the youngest excepted, has his four hours a day at English and four at Chinese.
2. T.C. Cheng, 'The Education of Overseas Chinese �X A Comparative Study of Hong Kong, Singapore and the East Indies', unpublished M.A. thesis, Uni-versity of London, 1949.
The two short quotations from T.C. Cheng's pioneering research may provide readers with valuable cautions.
p.
110: ... One must reiterate here that the Chinese had not been interested, or participated, in these controversies [over secular/religious education in the 1860s and 1870s] �X their main concern in sending their children to English schools was to receive a practical education, English being a sesame to a good post and possibly wealth, and not to learn religion.

p.
Ill: ... It may not be inappropriate to point out that the Chinese at this time [1860s] had still no desire for western learning as such. In China it was only after repeated defeats sustained at the hands of the foreign powers that a desire for western learning, mainly science and technology, appeared. In 1885, after the defeat of China by France, mathematics and science were introduced into the public examinations for the first time. In 1898, appeared Chang Chih-tung's 'An Exhortation to Learning' which tried to persuade the Chinese to adopt western learning.


3. Dates and Events (1857-1877) connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong, printed at the St. Lewis Reformatory, 1877.
There need be no apology for another selection from one of the two controversial pamphlets concerning education which were published in 1877. The extracts below offer an impression of the issues involved at the time, especially over the 'religious question', a partial (in the sense of not impartial) view of some of the leading protagonists, as well as a few hints as to the identity of the anonymous author.
p.
16: [Referring to Stewart's Report for 1868] Here he dwells on the secu-lar education, which had been adopted at the Government school in preference to Christian education. 'Christian and secular education, says Mr. Stewart, must for the present, be accepted as two distinct fields of operation in Hong Kong, the Missionary will take his choice, the Govern-ment its choice.' The reason why the secular education has been adopted was the great repugnance which Chinese mind has to religious education. However the system was on trial. 'When schools, he says, where the Bible is read and religious instruction is given, show better results in the future than they have done in the past, objections to secular education will receive a patient hearing.'

p.
22: [referring to Fr. Raimondi's address at the Prize giving of St. Sav-iour's College, 1869] Father Raimondi then mentioned the large number of uneducated children in Hong Kong. He could not help recognizing the fact that if left in ignorance they would be 10,000 more thieves. Three schemes for remedying the evil had been suggested.


1. Compulsory education. 2. Separate schools for the better class. 3. Trade Schools.
These last are recommended by the Very Reverend Father as Chi-nese are eminently a trading people.
pp. 23-24: [quoting from Raimondi's Report of 1871] It is now ten years since the Convent schools were opened; seven since the Reformatory at West Point was set on foot; six years since St. Saviour's College was founded. Looking back on our labours, we have reason to be satisfied with our success. We have here a school where the European children can obtain a sound and practically useful and commercial education. For the Chinese we have an industrial and commercial school. Our seminary opens to every Chinese who wishes it the gate of all knowledge in teach-ing him the Latin language. Of the 76 who during its brief existence have passed through the English classes in this College, 70 have got situations and are all doing well, some in Manila, some in the Coast ports and the re-mainder in Hong Kong. A few of them are getting, at twenty years of age, salaries of over one hundred dollars a month. Our Anglo-Chinese school has turned out about forty young Chinamen, who are all employed well, some at Shanghai, others at Canton and in Hong Kong.
The work of the Reformatory was rather hard having to deal with young ragamuffins. However in these seven years the industrial schools at that useful Institution have been successful. A few of those boys first admitted are there still now as paid assistants and useful aids to us in our work. We are rather proud of them. Fourteen are in good situations in Hong Kong as carpenters, shoemakers and tailors. Of the boys who are at present in the Reformatory not less than 30 are working well and satisfac-torily, 68 others have spent a short time in the Reformatory and have gone away without fully acquiring a trade but we have not heard of any being brought before the Magistrate a second time.
During the ten years the Italian Convent has been opened nearly one hundred girls of good family have received a complete education of the best description. Two hundred Chinese destitute children have been saved from death, and trained up to be useful girls and women. Upwards of three hundred girls over ten years of age have been rescued from misery and fed, clothed and taught. These girls and infants but for the Sisters must have eventually become a charge upon the Colony. About eight girls have been respectfully married.'
pp. 26-27: [referring to correspondence and articles in the China Mail in February, 1872] 'The same newspaper has a leading article on February 22nd of the same year in which the editor corrects a paragraph of a con-temporary with regard to a Pastoral issued by Father Raimondi in which the Very Rev. gentleman had stated the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning education.
In reference to the criticism which appeared in the Daily Advertiser on the said Pastoral a Correspondent in the China Mail of February 27th writes thus: The article (which appeared in the Daily Advertiser) is not the best calculated to promote harmony between the Head of the Catholic Community and his flock, and the Government and if the Editor of the
D.A. has only this way in his hand to make his party triumph, he has committed a gross mistake in writing the article. When he first wrote that the Pastoral had created great dissatisfaction in the Portuguese Commu-nity, he was ignorant of the fact, that he could not inflict a greater injury on the Portuguese Community than by making that assertion. The Portu-guese Community is proud of being Catholic; and as Catholic cannot be displeased with hearing what the Catholic Bishops, with the sovereign Pontiff,50 in a word, their Church says with regard to education/ The correspondent continues afterwards. 'After all, what has Father Raimondi done? what all the Catholic Bishops do now and again. The Catholic Bishops of Ireland issued a Pastoral in which after having exposed the doctrine of the Church concerning education in stronger terms than it has been done by Father Raimondi they address their flock saying: We must urge upon you to join your Bishops and Clergy in asking our rulers by the right of the constitution to grant us a pure Catholic education'. With concern to the tenor and contents of the Pastoral the correspondent says: 'The Rev. Prefect exposed before his flock what has been taught by the Catholic Church, avoiding reference to any particular school urging only that the decision of the Church shall be complied with; shall not Father Raimondi be free to do his duty?' The doctrine referred to is exposed afterwards: 'The Catholic Bishops with the Sovereign Pontiff have emit-ted their decision grounded on the experience and long study of years and years proving that schools where only secular education is imparted cannot do for Catholic children/ Of the intention of the Father the corre-spondent says: 'He had to explain the doctrine of the Church; he had not the least intention of offending or attacking any body; his duty speaks by himself and he does it/
.28: .. . [In 1872 at] the end of April the question arose on the want of having a school for European middle class, and on the 25th June a general extraordinary meeting took place at the City Hall to discuss it. About 30 people attended it. Sir Arthur Kennedy was present and expressed his idea that if a school should be had, it ought to be a secular one. His Excellency openly declared that he had no earthly sympathy with sectari-
50. An indirect early reference to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility? This doctrine was at least partly a response to the reduction of the Pope's temporal power in Italy brought about by Italian Reunification. One of its corollaries was a more forceful role by the Catholic Church in educational affairs. See also Commentary in this Chapter above.
231
anism. Mr. Francis warmly advocated religious education. Mr. Stewart the Inspector of Government School[s] spoke in favour of the secular. He denied that the education given at the Central School was atheistical but admitted the term Un-Christian. He said that one of his rules was, that the words Protestantism and Catholicism were never to be mentioned in the school. On being asked parenthetically by Mr. Francis how history was taught Mr. Stewart said he only wished to defend himself.51 The meeting ended by appointing a Committee to enquire into the necessity of a school and on which basis it should be conducted.
pp. 30-31: A scheme of grants-in-aid for schools was agreed to in the meeting of the Legislative Council, April 24th [1873], as also was the formation of a Committee, which would take in hand the translation of some of the English books in use at the Irish National Schools into Chi-nese for use in schools that came under this scheme (Mail). The grants-in-aid being given only for results in secular instruction the point occurred, said the Mail, 'what measure, are to be taken to render the teaching in Chinese Schools sufficiently undenominational as to fairly come under the term secular. It must be recollected that the Classics, in fact all native books as yet used in schools under purely native control are not secular but Confucian. It would hence seem that in order to provide suitable works for secular teaching in Chinese, something suitable would have to be selected. Both their style and matter render nearly all works of the novel class objectionable; nor in view of the absurd farrago of supernatu-ral nonsense contained in most of the native historical works, would they be more suitable. It would in fact appear that series of elementary works in good Chinese would have to be composed or translated in order to meet this difficulty. This fact, that Chinese education is not secular be-cause it is not Christian, has been some what oddly overlooked in many quarters, though the Inspector himself has long been conscious of the ne-cessity of such books as we allude to/ (Mail.)
4. Documents related to the language issue in the 1870s.
The arrival of Hennessy as the new Governor of Hong Kong precipitated a number of issues, not least a discussion of language policy. Readers might note that, in pressing the claims of the English language, Hennessy was remaining consistent with his general sympathy for the aspirations of the local Chinese in Hong Kong who were totally convinced of the value of English. They might notice, too, that Hennessy was able to win his way over
51. The glee with which the discomfiture of Stewart (caused by his defeat in repartee by Francis) is reported adds force to the claim that J.J. Francis, himself, a leading Catholic barrister who revelled in debate, was the author of this anonymous pamphlet.
the Education Conference only with the votes of the General in command of the British
Forces, the Colonial Secretary and the Government Surveyor, three votes which all Gover-
nors could normally accept as safe, plus the vote of one very prominent merchant. Two
other merchants and the man in charge of Government schools opposed him. Incidental
information is also provided about classroom conditions in the leading school of Hong
Kong at the time.
(a) Despatch from John Pope Hennessy, Governor of Hong Kong, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Earl of Carnarvon, 27 January 1878, in CO 129/181, pp. 133 ff.
.. . In referring to a former visit to the Central School I said: 'I visited one large class-room, indeed a sort of double class-room, on the other side of the passage. In that room I should think there must have been about a hundred and fifty Chinese youths who were being instructed by three Chinese teachers. They were reading the Chinese classics. I found that the three Chinese teachers who were instructing them in the Chinese classics had themselves no knowledge whatever of the English language. These three Chinese teachers spoke no English; and of the pupils in that particular class-room not one could speak English. These pupils I was glad to see, were reading the Chinese classics. During the whole year we have had six hundred and ten pupils attending the School. I asked Mr. Stewart this morning how many of these were able to speak English and he said under fifty or sixty, and this small number very imperfectly. Now these are grave facts. They point to that which Mr. Stewart wishes �X to the desirability of endeavouring to keep the pupils a little longer in the school. In this English Colony we must not be satisfied with 60 out of 600 being able to speak English in our principal Government School, and that imperfectly...
... The following day Mr. Lowcock, an unofficial member of the Leg-islative Council, said he was always under the impression that the main object of the Government scheme of education in Hongkong was the teaching of English to the Chinese boys: and I find that a similar view is universally held by the European community.
From Chinese shopkeepers and other native residents, I had, for some time past, heard complaints on this subject, and it was partly at their sug-gestion I had especially looked into it. On visiting the Government village schools I could not find a single Government Teacher who spoke English. In those schools the English speaking standard is even lower than I found in the Central School.
I attach no blame to Mr. Stewart or to any one else for this result. Mr. May the Senior Police Magistrate and other old residents of Hongkong tell me that the Chinese Youth of the Colony were better instructed in English fifteen years ago than at present. I know that the Chinese traders are most anxious to see some reform made in the Government system by which
their children would be taught English; and what I saw in the schools for Chinese in Singapore convinces me that there is no insuperable difficulty in teaching English to Chinese boys.
.. . In the enclosed account of the proceedings at the Central School your Lordship will see that in addition to the vital question of the failure of the Government scheme of Education as regards the teaching of English to the Chinese, I touched on some minor points such as the desirability of forming a Medical School for the Chinese,52 and the necessity of comply-ing with Mr. Stewart's long expressed wish of being relieved of the duties of Head Master at the Central School...
(b) From a letter by Frederick Stewart to Robert G.W. Herbert (Colonial Office), 15 November 1878, in CO 129/183, p. 364.
.. . I am aware that there are Chinese residents who are exacting on this point [pupils' ability to speak English], and that there are schools in the Colony where young men are taught colloquial English by rote from a phrase-book, without any training in the language, and it is probably this that Mr. Hennessy refers to when he says that the Chinese share the general dissatisfaction with the [Central] school. This opinion on the part of some members of the native community is due to an idea that English is very easily acquired, and that the possession of a few phrases for business purposes is all the English that anyone absolutely requires.
Feeling that I had a higher duty to discharge, namely, to impart a sound education to the youth of the Colony, I have always been averse to
52. Hennessy's speech was published in the Hong Kong Government Gazette of 26 January 1878, pp. 25-30. Towards the end of the speech, he remarked that, while perusing a list of employments taken up by school-leavers, he had noticed that one ex-student from the Central School had become a medical student but that this student was not Chinese. Hennessy added: 'this brings me to a suggestion I have to make to Mr. STEWART. I should like very much to ask Mr. STEWART whether it might be possible in connection with this school to do anything in the way of promoting medical education among the Chinese. (Applause.) We all know that there is in this Colony a large and excellent institution called the Tung Wah Hospital, supported and managed by the leading Chinese residents. Can we in any way combine clinical teaching which might be received in that establishment with a little instruction in physiology in this school? Will it be possible for Mr. STEWART, having consulted with the Colonial Surgeon and with some of our medical friends and the commit-tee of that institution, will it be possible, I say, for Mr. STEWART to form a scheme by which we might have some young Chinese trained to a knowledge of European medicine? If he succeeds in putting a plan, a practical plan, before me, I certainly will consult my honour-able friends on the Council as to providing funds for carrying it into effect/ As the Chronicle for 1887 and Evidence 9 below indicate, this suggestion was soon to be taken up, though not by Stewart and not in conjunction with the Tung Wah Hospital or the Govern-ment Central School. See also, Evidence 18 and f.n. 57.
mere parrot-work, but I have never therefore ignored the value of English speaking on the part of the boys.
(c)
Resolutions of the Education Conference, 25 February 1878, in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 9 March 1878, p. 90.

I.
That the primary object to be borne in view by the Government should be the teaching of English.


II. That to enable the Central School to give more time to English and less time to Chinese studies, without materially diminishing the amount of Chinese knowledge on the part of the scholars on leaving the School, the preliminary requirements in Chinese knowledge should be raised in the case of all such candidates for admission as do not already speak English fairly fluently to the requirements of Standard IV of Class I of the Grant-in-Aid Schedule (with the exception of Geography).
III. That five hours be given every day (except Saturdays) to English and two and a half to Chinese studies, but with the understanding that all English lessons will be obligatory, and all Chinese lessons optional, ac-cording to the declaration on the part of the parents.
The above resolutions were arrived at without a division, with the exception of that portion of the latter which makes the study of Chinese optional on the declaration of the parents. On that point, the voting was as
follows:
For making Chinese optional For making Chinese compulsory
The Hon. Col. Commanding the The Hon. P. Ryrie
Troops The Hon. H. Lowcock
The Hon. the Colonial Secretary Mr. Stewart
The Hon. J.M. Price
The Hon. F.B. Johnson.

5. Observations about females in Hong Kong society.
As earlier comments, chronicle entries and samples of evidence will have indicated, the position of women in Hong Kong society (at least partly because of their relative scarcity) was a controversial one, and this affected educational provision and treatment. The ex-tracts from the two documents presented below do not merely represent different opinions or contrasting perspectives on facts. They also have significance because they led to changes. As the Chronicle for 1878 suggests, it was partly as a reaction to the public interest created by the allegations from the Chief Justice, Sir John Smale, that the Po Leung Kuk was formed. Eitel retained his interest in the education of girls and was largely responsible for the establishment of the first substantial Government School for Girls later.
(a)
The Hon. Sir John Smale, Chief Justice, to the Colonial Secretary, 20 October 1879, in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 4 February 1880, pp. 116 ff.

. .\ No-one can walk through some of the bye streets in this Colony without seeing well-dressed Chinese girls in great numbers whose occu-pations are self-proclaimed, or pass those streets, or go into the schools in this Colony, without counting beautiful children by the hundred whose Eurasian origin is self-declared. If the Government would enquire into the present condition of these classes, and, still more, into what become of these women and their children of the past, I believe that it will be found that in the great majority of cases the women have sunk into misery, and that of the children the girls that have survived have been sold to the profession of their mothers, and that if boys they have been lost sight of or have sunk into the condition of the mean whites of the late slave holding states of America ...

(b)
Minute by Dr E.J. Eitel, 1 November, 1879, in Hong Kong Government Gazette, 4 February 1880, pp. 117 ff.


.. . The women kept by foreigners in Hongkong are, as a rule, rather raised in their own esteem by the connection, of the immorality of which they have no idea; they are also, as a rule, better off than the concubines of Chinese well-to-do merchants; they are generally provided for by the foreigners who kept them, when the connection is severed, and at any rate these women are as a rule thrifty, and always manage to save money which they invest in Bank deposits, also in house property, but princi-pally in buying female infants whom they rear for sale to or concubinage with foreigners, by which they generally gain a competency in about 10 years.
The children of these women are invariably sent to school. In fact these women understand the value of education and prize it far more than respectable Chinese women do. The boys are invariably sent to the Government Central School where they generally distinguish themselves, and as a rule these boys obtain good situations in Hongkong, in the open ports and abroad. The girls crowd into the schools kept by the Missionary Societies. These children are generally provided with a small patrimony by their putative fathers. They dress almost invariably in Chinese cos-tume and adopt Chinese customs, unless they are taken up by ill-advised agents of foreign charity. I am quite positive, as far as my experience and the information I have received from many gentlemen in the best position to judge goes, that they do not in any way resemble the mean whites in the Southern States of America.
I regret I have to contradict so flatly on this point the statement of His Lordship the Chief Justice which is in my opinion based on insufficient information, but justice and truth demand it.
6. Speech by Ng Choy53 at the Legislative Council, 10 September, 1880, in CO 129/189, p. 484.
Ng Choy had been appointed as the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council by Sir John Pope Hennessy on 22 January 1880, to the chagrin of some leading Europeans. The dispute over separate, ethnically-based admission to the City Hall Museum was, thus, not merely a policy question concerning informal educational opportunities in Hong Kong at the time or even simply another example of an incipient racism bred, perhaps, by a colonialdst) regime. It was also an occasion for Ng Choy to demonstrate that he was a sensitive representative of educated Chinese opinion and, at the same time, remain loyal to the Governor, who had elevated him and who was himself in virtually constant dispute with the European merchants mainly over his pro-Chinese stance.
. . . Now the notice put up at the door of the [City Hall] Museum, modified as it was, was to this effect, that the forenoon was set apart for the Chinese and the afternoon for those persons who were not Chinese. And at the end of the notice there was this proviso, �X that any respectably dressed and well-behaved person could gain admission to the Museum at any time on application to the Curator or person in charge. He would ask, since any respectably dressed person could visit the Museum, what necessity there was to retain the distinction of nationality? Although the matter was not practically of much importance, he considered a great principle was involved in the question. He had been abroad, and while there he had visited many public institutions, but he had never seen such a notice as this. The reason the City Hall Committee gave for making that distinction, was to prevent a collision between the lower class of Chinese and the corresponding class of other nations. But in the Public Gardens, which were open to all alike, without distinction of nationality, he had
53. Ng Choy, also known as Wu Ting-fang, was educated at St. Paul's College and after an interval of thirteen years working as an interpreter in the Magistrate's Court in Hong Kong, studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London. He returned to Hong Kong to practise law as the first Chinese to be qualified as a barrister and was later appointed a magistrate. In 1880, Governor Hennessy appointed him as the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council to fill a temporary vacancy. He resigned in 1882 to enter the service of Imperial China by joining the staff of Viceroy Li Hung-chang at Tientsin. He became very actively involved in a range of programmes aimed to modernize China, was made Chinese Ambassador to the United States in 1897, and continued to hold posts of responsibility both in the late Qing period and in the early years of the Republic, until his death in 1922. See Carl Smith, op. cit.,
p. 132, and Ng Lun Ngai-ha, op. cit., pp. 132-33.
237
never heard there had been a row between Chinese and Europeans. But if the principle of class distinction was to prevail, where was it to end? It might apply to the Public Gardens and other public places of this Colony; nay, you might as well apply it to the public roads, by setting apart one side for the Chinese and the other for Europeans. He thought, therefore, there was no valid excuse for drawing the distinction in the Museum notice. It had been said that the Chinese had never objected to the notice. But that was not true, because the Chinese did complain bitterly about it. If reference were made to the Chinese newspapers, it would be seen that articles had been written bitterly complaining of the invidious notice. As he said before, the matter involved a great principle, and he would venture to ask the honourable member on his right (Mr. KESWICK) and the members of the City Hall [Committee], if they would like to see such a notice put up, supposing they themselves were Chinese. If they did not, then why did they put such restrictions on the Chinese? He was sorry if he said anything that might hurt the feelings of any member of the community but he deemed that, sitting as the member representing the Chinese community, it was his duty to make the remarks he had made, and he would not be worthy of the seat he had the honour to occupy if he did not speak out what he conceived to be right and say what he thought he ought to say. (Applause).
7. 'Report of the Education Commission appointed by His Excellency Sir John Pope Hennessy, K.C.M.G. .. . to consider certain questions connected with Education in Hong Kong 1882'.
The Chronicle for 1880-82 should make clear what Hennessy''s own intentions were.
The Commission certainly did not report until after his final departure from Hong Kong.
The extracts from its Report presented below give some impression of the principal issues
debated, the opinions of some of the protagonists and the main conclusions, which were
accepted with some alacrity by the Colonial Office in London (Illus. 4.1).
From evidence given to the Commissioners:
Bishop Burdon: I have had experience of Chinese teachers, and my experience generally has been that they are not very efficient, in con-sequence of not being thoroughly conversant with English and not being thoroughly trained ...
Attorney-General: Reading English, writing English, Arithmetic in Eng-lish, and reading a Chinese book such as you describe (i.e., a very simple one), and making out a Chinese washing bill, or housebill, or
RTCPOPvT
Having1 considered the questions submitted to us in this Commission, and taken evidence thereon, we have arrived at the following conclusions :
1.
The five new Government Schools that are proposed to be built could not take the place of the Central School, except at a greatly increased cost, and without the results that are to be obtained by the organization and discipline which are possible in a large and well-conducted school.

2.
The proposed new schools could not give an elementary education equal to that now given at the Central School, unless they had each a European Head-master with qualified native assistants. Apart from the cost of the sites, most of which would have to be purchased, unless they were selected in the higher, and therefore very inconvenient parts of the city, the school premises could not be erected for the sum of $2,000 each, as was intended when the schools were first proposed. A sum of from $10,000 to $12,000 at least would be necessary for the erection of each of the schools; and the annual expen-diture on each of them, for salaries and contingencies alone, could not be less than $3,300.

3.
While granting that a Collegiate Institution would be of great benefit to the Colony in placing at the disposal of many of the Chinese an opportunity of obtaining a higher education than the Central School is likely to give for at least many years to come, we are of opinion that, while the public funds to be devoted to educational purposes are limited, and while the great need of the majority of the population is a sound elementary education, it is not the province of the Government to establish, at the cost of the rate-payers, an Institution that would be mainly for the advantage of the wealthier members of the community. Such an Institution, under Government control, could not possibly be made self-supporting. If provided with an efficient staff of masters and all proper appli-ances, there would remain, after the payment of the highest fees which the students could afford, the necessity of a very large annual subsidy from the Government.