J
28
14.
(1) The want of permanent
quarters for the Chinese Government School at Taumati. (See
para 21).
15. This want is being supplied.
16. (g) Frauds on the part of school
masters. (See para 29).
!
17.1 These are impossible to prevent
and hard to detect. Prosecutions have been authorised
since the Report was written.
18. (1) The short time spent at school
and the fewness of the scholars in the higher" standards
in Chinese Schools.
19. These two defects are almost
irremediable. Compulsory education is out of the question
and except under compulsion, poor people will not keep -:
their children at school when they have reached the age at
which they can earn money. Now the parents of the children
who attend the Government' Fræe' Sshools for Chinese are 88
a rule poor: Those who can afford to pay fees' mould feel that they were losing self-respect in sending their chil-
dren to a Free School: and they would naturally prefer to
send their children to a school untainted by Christianity
and where they could study their own Sacred Books in the
traditional manner.
20. There is perhaps another
reason why there are so few children in the Fourth and
higher Standards. It is in the Fourth Standard that
explanation of sentences and composition are first taught.
The teaching of these subjects entails really hard work
on the teacher, work which is not compensated for by
the higher grant earned. Some school-masters who are not pecuniarily interested say that the step from the Third
to
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