PRIZE DAY AT THE HONGKONG PUBLIC SCHOOL.
The annual distribution of prizes to the pupils attending the Hongkong Public School took place at St. Paul's College on Saturday morning, the 12th instant. His Excellency the Governor presiding. Amongst those present were Lady Bowen and the Misses Bowen, Mrs. Marah, Bishop and Mrs. Bardon, Hon. P. B. Johnson, Hon. A. Lister, Revs. W. Jennings, Dr. Chalmers, J. B. Ost, H. Lee and R. Lechler, Capt. Vyvyan, A.D.C. to the Governor, Mr. R. Macniro, Private Secretary to the Governor, Messrs. T. Jackson, A. WOlver, A. P. MacEwen, J. B. Chti, G. H. S. Wright, G. R. Lanniert, etc., etc.
Bishop BURDON, in opening the proceedings, said—I feel very grateful to your Excellency for the interest you take in our work here and for your kindness in coming to distribute the prizes to-day, especially as you are suffering from the effects of your recent accident. We appreciate your kindness in coming all the more on that account. (Applause). Our school has now been in existence for four years, and I think we may consider it as fairly set agoing and established. We have had our difficulties, as every good institution must expect to have. I don't know whether we may say we have had more than our share, but it has brought out much good feeling and kindly help, and I think we need not fear now for the future.
Before asking you, Sir, to be kind enough to distribute the prizes this morning, I would like to say a few words about the school itself and the history connected with it. (The school, as we have it now, is, and I think is increasingly felt to be, a necessity in this place. We have a large number of our own children, English children, who are growing up amongst us. Those children cannot, as a rule, be sent home by their parents. Those of us who have sons at home know what it costs to provide suitable schools for them, and also homes, when the parents are living out here. This is only in the power of a comparatively few. There are many children whose parents could not afford to do any such thing.
Then what is to be done? There are other schools in the colony, it is true. We have the Central School, and the school connected with the Roman Catholics, St. Joseph's College. I do not think either of these is a suitable place for the children of English and Protestant residents here, and it seems to me education connected with Christianity as we understand and profess it is imperative. I am not going to say very much about the necessity of a religious education, but I feel very strongly, and I think most here will feel very strongly with me too, that education, to be anything of a training of character, must be founded upon religion; and as we understand the Christian religion after our own fashion, so we should be careful to conduct education in accordance with it.
We cannot get this in any other place than such a school as this. The expenses of such a school must, of course, be very great. We have to get a master, not here, but to send for him to England, to bring him out, pay him what is not, after all, a very large salary, but still is large for us to raise here. During the past year, we have been obliged to provide a house for the master. There are many reasons that made it necessary. This house I freely gave up, as far as I possibly could, for the purposes of the school. Two rooms are now occupied in the carrying on of the school, and for a while Mr. and Mrs. Hambling were good enough to put up with two rooms which they occupied as their residence, but it was felt this was not suitable, so we have risked the hiring of a house for the master and mistress, where, as we trust, they may be able to receive boarders, and in that way do good to the school and bring boys from the neighbouring ports where there are no advantages of education.
In commencing the school, there were three sources of help to which we looked and from which we hoped we might be able to support the school easily. One was the subscriptions of friends, another the fees, and the third was the Government help. The fees could not be expected to cover the whole of the expense. For them to have done so, the rate would have had to be made simply prohibitive, and we should not have been able to get the school up at all, for it is very few who could afford to pay their share of the large sum of two or three thousand dollars a year for their children. If they could do that, they would say it would be much better to get a tutor for themselves.
Then we were obliged to ask friends. Here was a great difficulty. Some have said, "Why should I be asked to support a school for the children of residents as well-to-do as I, or if not quite so well-to-do, well off at all events, to provide education for themselves?" This has been a difficulty with us. I think a little more thought would have shown that out here it would be simply impossible for the parents to provide their children with tutors on their own. If they are not to be provided with a school of this kind, they must take their chance at the Chinese and Portuguese schools, neither of which I think are suitable.
That has been the reason we have pressed our friends for subscriptions. I may say those who have their boys here who are wealthy enough have helped us by giving subscriptions in addition to the payment of the fees, and I should be sorry if such boys were kept out. Then the fees come. This is not a charity school. It is on the same footing as some of our schools in England, which are endowed but not sufficiently endowed to be carried on without means provided by the parents of the scholars.
I want the school to be placed on such a footing as I think all clergymen should be placed on, with just enough to make them independent of their constituents, but not enough to give them too much freedom. Too much freedom does not do for anyone, but we want just enough to enable us to hold our own, and then we shall go on from year to year by our own exertions.
The third source from which we hoped for help was Government assistance. The school was placed under Government inspection, and we hoped to receive something from the Government grant, but when we came to receive the money, we found we had hardly a hundred dollars coming in from that source. I wrote a long letter to your Excellency's predecessor, pointing out what I considered to be the unfairness of such an arrangement.
I showed I had several Chinese Schools under my superintendence and obtained from the Government grant three-quarters of the whole expense. The Central School is mainly attended by Chinese, and the Government spends very large sums of money indeed in supporting it. I may also say—and I am not jealous at all, but still it is a fact—the Portuguese school, St. Joseph's College, has been largely helped by the Government.
I think the education of English children, however they may be in comparison, is as important for us as the education of Chinese and Portuguese children. Therefore, I considered we ought to have a fair hearing and something like fair play. The Government, however, refused to reconsider its grant-in-aid system or in any way to help us, and we have found that by continuing to place ourselves under Government inspection, we so hampered ourselves and our arrangements that $60 or $70 a year hardly seemed sufficient bait to keep us under Government inspection. We, therefore, withdrew, and we are now dependent upon subscriptions and fees.
No doubt the Government intended to pay us a compliment in refusing to help us. We are Protestants and English, and therefore we are in a perfectly good position to stand on our own foundation. (Applause). Then we will do so, but that must make me appeal constantly for the endowment fund, and I would like to see this school, before many more years of my life are over, endowed with £5,000 laid aside towards its annual support. If it were so, we should be in a sufficiently independent position not to fear any collapse, and yet we should have to work hard.
Mr. Bellion, as you know, began the endowment fund some two years ago by giving $2,000, and when I was at home in England, I worked hard and succeeded in raising some little money, and we have now about £1,000. There are still £4,000 wanted. I am sure in a community like this, that amount could be raised if the necessity were felt as I feel it, and I trust that by people who are going home keeping in mind that they could not leave a better memorial of their gratitude for having been kept in health and life, and perhaps in prosperity too, while in China, than by adding to our endowment fund, it may be done.
The subjects taught in the school are the ordinary branches of an English education at home—Holy Scripture, arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, reading, spelling, writing, English composition and grammar, English history, drawing, geography, geology, and physiology.