from the Palace in
so here I have been in charge of the Anglo-Chinese College. From that time, till the spring of 1873, I have been occupied, more or less, in Education and other missionary labours. I have known Mr. Ball, with some intervals when I was absent, all his lifetime. He was the first, when the late Sir John Bowring was Governor of Hong Kong, to recommend the introduction of Education by government in the Colony itself; and subsequently, as a member of the Educational Board, under Sir Hercules Robinson, he sought to promote the formation, by slow steps, of the system which it took many years to develop, and gradually attained the present condition.
Looking at things as they now are, Mr. Ball appears to me a most eligible man to conduct the Education of the colony. He has had some experience, I think, already in that work. He has a superior knowledge of the colloquial language (known by the names of its different portions of the country - the Cantonese, the Hak-ka, and the Swatow). He has also a very considerable knowledge of the written form of Chinese characters.
He is, in fact, an able man for the superintendent of the tongue. As Superintendent of Government Education, on the longest possible scale, consciously and unconsciously, he has for some time been preparing for the work, which the Government will perhaps put into his hands. He will, I believe, in that case do thoroughly good and excellent service in the performance of his duties.
I have the honour to be, my Lord,
Your obedient servant,
James Legge,
Professor of the Language and Literature of China in the University of Oxford.
Page 595
Page 596
2
pared for the work, which the Government will perhaps put into his hands, he will, I believe, in that case do thoroughly good and excellent service in the performance of his duties.
has been removed as it is repetitive and not present in the original text in that format. The rest of the text is formatted according to the given instructions. The original text had some OCR errors which have been corrected. The formatting has been done using HTML as per the instructions.