PRIZE DAY AT THE HONGKONG
Enclosure A.
PUBLIC SCHOOL.15 sheet's.
i's College)
The annual distribution of prizes to the pupils of the Public School took place yesterday morn- ing. The Governor presided, and there were also present Lieut-General Sargent, Bishop Burdon, Hon. W. Keswick, Hon. A. Lister, Dr. Chalmers, Mr. Grauville Sharp, Mr. J. B. Coughtrie, and a large number of the parents and friends of the pupils.
Bishop BURDON opened the proceedings by speaking as follows:--I will begin, sir, by thank- ing you and the friends who have come to wit- ness our final gathering for the year and to en- courage us by your presence. I don't know that there is very much of importance to say, but still I will give a little account of our work for the year. I am glad to say that we have a good report to give of the school. I think we may say it has passed its difficulties. When we were hore last year we could only report an attendance of thirty-three boys; now we have forty-six on the books. In the matter of boarders, which is very important as encouraging an increase of scholars from the ports--as the school was not only intended for Hongkong but also for friends outside a house suited for their accommodation was specially obtained for the master at con- siderable expense last year. When we last met there were only two boarders; now there are aleven. This, while it encourages the master, also brings us additional pupils in the school and of course brings us additional help. In con- sequence of the large number of pupils we now have, the average attendance has also increased very much. Last year it was only a litle over twenty-three; this year it has been a little over thirty-four, an increase of eleven. The number of admissions during the year has been twenty-one, and there have been seven withdrawals from the school. The withdrawals are thus explained-One of the boys was appointed teacher, and he is, I believe, promising to be an efficient helper in the school; two have gone into business in this place; and four have left for England. The school was opened, as you all know, for the purpose of pro- viding means of education for our own children, the children of rosidents here who are not able to send their boys home for education. They were supposed in the first place to be chiefly English, and I am happy to say the school is attended mostly by the class for whom it was in- tandel. Of the forty-six I have reported as in attendance this year thirty-five come from what I may call our own ranks. But at the same time it would be a pity to shut up the school to only one class; therefore we have opened it to any other nationalities who choose to avail them- selves of the benefits of the school and submit to our regulations. I don't think it would be right to alter the rules for the benefit of any : one. We laid them down at the beginning and have carried them out. We don't think they are in any way burdensome or cal- culated to interfere with any one'a convic- tions, whatever they may bo.. We have of other nationalities eleven-six Spanish, one Indian, two Arabs, and two Parstes. The school. as you are aware, is supported now by two sources of income-subscriptions and fees. The feas of course could not possibly support a school of this kind, with all the expenses we have to meet, and yet here are all these boys grow. ing up in our midst and for whom it seems enly reasonable an effort should bo made to provide education for them. It is for this
reason we have year by year to ask our friends to help us, and hitherto I am glad to say we have boen liberally helped. I cannot say we have many particulars to give you of the work done in the school. It has gone on from day to day. and if it be true that the country is blessed that has no annals I suppose our school should be so too, for we have really nothing particular to refer to. Last year I informed you we were about to introduce two new subjects, Latin and Chinese. Tatin has been introduced and has besu persevered în. The boys are trying to decline puer with ail their might, and I hope they will succeed. The Chi nese we were obliged to give up after six mouths of honest trial. It is a difficult thing to join anything else with it, until at all events you have got a good hold of it. I have always spoken in the same direction with reference to the schools of our colony. It seems to me that while a boy is trying to lay the foundation of an English education to add on the troubles of Chinose is a very serious thing indeed. How
ever, I thought we should give it a trial, becausa in a place like this a boy can hardly get a situa- tion, especially under the Government, without Chinese, and I thought it a pity our boys should have to go to any other school to learn it, so we tried it, but it was not a success. Chinese teachers are not good disciplinarians, and the Chinese teacher we had did not know English, which was another difficulty, aud the number, attending the class fell off. Thus the parents seem separately to have come to the same conclusion as I did. "that the learning of Chinese by the boys, or the little offort they made at learning it | during two hours in the day, was keeping them from what to an English boy is of far more im portance, the foundation of what we call a good English education. In Chinese there is no education; it is simply a learning of sounds, a learning to talk, but if the boys have not the foundation to talk on it won't be of much use to them. So the class fell off, and it was decided the only way would be for boys who have the prospect of being employed by Government or iu Chinese at all, after they have got the founda- tion of their English education to set to work as others have had to do, as I had to do, and learn it the best way they can. I don't know that I have anything more to say about the general work, bat will say a few words about the examination. This has been going ou for the last week or ten days, and has been conducted chiefly if not altogether on paper. Now it is certainly a very difficult thing indeed examine boys, and especially
to
little boys, on paper. I certainly would not have liked to have been put through an examination when I was nine or ten on a number of questions to which I had to write out the answers. Of course a boy is apt to know a great deal more than he can put down or express in writing, and therefore the papers don't appear perhaps as favourable as they might for the progress of the boys. However, this has boon the method, and every subject on which they have had teaching during the year has been brought forward. They have been examined in this way by Dr. Eitel, Mr. Jennings, Mr. Coughtris, and my self, Dr. Eitel and Mr. Jennings doing the chief part in the examination as to the general work of the boys. Mr. Jennings' report is exceedingly encouraging while at the same time it does not fail to point out where there is room for improvement. He says:
I have examined the papers of the 1st and 2nd classes in Physical Geography, Arithmetic, Algebra, and Eng- lish Composition. The last named was s
sa new subject, and the efforts were fairly good; some of the best papers,"
however, were here and there spoiled by. I was agreeably surprised colonial phraseology. I to notice an
entire shsence of the careless spelling which I remarked upon as pervading many papers the last year. Every boy
admitted to recently school has been thoroughly put right in this respect. In Algebra there are more students; but all, except the two senior boys who have been awarded prizee, anu who have done their work carefully and well, are beginners. In the other papers there was the saune svidence of careful teaching shewn at the last exami- nation.
not
The term "colonial phraseology" I dare say will be understood by some of us and perhaps the source of it also may be traced. I also sent the pepers to Dr. Eitel. I thought it important we should got the opinion of an outsider. Mr. Jennings of course is one of ourselves, and I am glad it should be so, but I thought it important, as we have not submitted ourselves to the Govern- ment examination, we should have the opinion of some one not specially connected with the school. Dr. Eitel was kind enough to look through! seven of the papers. In his report he says i
the he cannot give an exact opinion on ho school
has because tenching of tho no other means of coming to a conclusion than the papers presented to him, but he says he thinks the general results, so far as he can judge of them, are good, but as he had not the grammar and composition and so on when he first wrote he could not say how the boys were doing in those particulars. His second note is not so encouraging, but I simply put it down to the fact that he has not been in the school and bas not seen tho working, and we simply asked his opinion as to the results so far as he could judge from a sight of them. He speaks about that matter of composi tion. He says it is extraordinarily good, and he cannot imagine how the boys have been able to do it so well. "One boy's composi- tion," he says, "is far beyond anything I have seen in any school in Hongkong." The point is that be rather thinks the boys have been helped. Well, the history of it is somewhat this. Mr. Fiambling was desirous of giving them a lesson in composition. Youths of that kind have not great powers of expression,
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