84
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3.
Procedure. After watching as a silent observer the working of the School in all its details for a fortnight, I would have held a written examination of a representative number of scholars of each class. I had found, however, that the Headmaster had occupied from four to five days with English class examinations before I commenced and required five days more for a similar examination of the Chinese classes. Being unwilling to multiply examinations unnecessarily, I accepted the papers worked out by the boys at these examinations in place of my proposed written examination.
Accordingly I added only an oral examination in English reading and a few special question papers. I gave the upper classes, which have been excused from Chinese studies on the supposition of their having a sufficient acquaintance with Chinese, a corresponding test paper and included also, for comparison, a few classes which still receive Chinese instruction. To emphasize my protest against the faults of the teaching of composition, geography and history, I gave the upper classes some very simple papers on those portions of these subjects which are not taught in the School but ought to have been taught in the School, viz., writing letters on subjects of Chinese every-day-talk, on the geography of Hong-Kong and China (taught only in some classes) and on the history of China. Finally, to test the effects of a colloquial phrase-book which had been used in certain classes, I gave to those classes a corresponding test paper. The examination, which interrupted the work of the School during four days only, occupied thus altogether seventeen working days, closed by applying a further half-day to a conference I held
and