Since my return from p. 427. Unfortunately Europe, owing to Dr Eitel's persistent attacks on the organization, my time has been unduly occupied in what appears to me unnecessary correspondence, repeating year after year, two or three times in the same year, the same explanations and rebutting the same charges.
Dr Eitel's ideal subordinate master who is meditating from morning to night on improvement of his class does not (I fancy) yet exist in real life. Even a Head Master whose duty compels him to spend more time in thought and study for this purpose is liable to lose energy and vigour in accordance with the adage "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
The absence of a note book is no sign that lessons are unprepared, for masters giving the same lessons over and over again, year after year, do not require the same amount of preparation as is needed in the First Class where some subjects vary annually.
The Junior classes have nine (9) hours weekly, the Senior ten (10) hours. The "frequent and lengthy interruptions" consist of half an hour's drill twice a week for each class. If drill is abolished, these interruptions will cease.
"The Head Master does not profess..." I have my ideas about a curriculum for Blumen School, but I am of opinion that no European is so competent to determine what is necessary and sufficient for Chinese Instruction as Chinese Masters of good reputation and degree, who sit in conclave and arrange the books and subjects that appear to them best to suit the requirements of their copatriots.
Dr Eitel's position appears doubly inconsistent: (1) he wishes in the same paragraph to give more power to these Chinese Masters, while grudging them a particular privilege; (2) in the previous paragraph, he apparently wishes English Assistants to draw up their own Time Table.
"Loud Memoriter repetition" is, as Dr Eitel is doubtless aware, the occupation of the first three or four years of a Chinese youth's study; boys who come to Victoria College have generally been four or five years in Chinese schools previously. See above p. 5.
8. Staff of Chinese Division "roughly classified sets of scholars." The scholars are classified in accordance with a list carefully drawn up by five Chinese scholars of recognised ability, each boy's place being assigned according to his attainments displayed in passing the half-yearly Examination.
The Junior classes have nine (9) hours weekly. "Individual teaching" is only possible in classes not exceeding 30 (thirty) in number, and with school hours lasting from sunrise to sunset.
The Chinese masters do their duty faithfully; responsibility is not absent. But even in the Head Master's rule, where supervision is wanting, is to me unintelligible.
The supervision by the English Master is not...
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