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sending them home but of the maintenance of two establishments out of one income: on this point a Government servant may perhaps be allowed to speak with some assurance. But in the few cases where they can be so sent Home, they are probably lost to the Colony: it is at least as likely as not they will never return. The second alternative before them is to send their children to Queen's College or some other of the local schools. Apart from the educational question, and speaking of the climate, there seems no particular reason why children should not grow up in Hongkong. And it is hard to exaggerate the value to the Colony and the Empire's Far Eastern interests which there would be in a thoroughly acclimatised, technically trained, well educated nucleus of mechanicians and engineers, who having lost nothing of the national characteristics added thereto a knowledge of the Chinese language (such as they could hardly fail to pick up) and a full understanding of Chinese methods of business. At present this dream is unrealisable in part. One of two characteristics must be absent: the education must go or the character must suffer, though probably the requisite education is not attainable by any existing means.
The character must suffer. I have so often written my unstinted admiration of much in the Chinese nature, that I may perhaps be allowed to say without offence that rather than allow a son of mine (I will not speak of girls) to attend a Chinese School, I would let him run without systematic instruction altogether. The Right Reverend the Bishop of Victoria who was for 20 years (I believe) Head of a Chinese Missionary College in Ning Po, and should know if anyone does, is a Signatory of the Petition, paragraph 2 of which expresses my meaning in more polished language.
So universally is this opinion held that the second alternative is in practice hardly an alternative at all. The children are brought up, or allowed to grow up, ignorant. Their sons will be more ignorant still. When we might have had a strong full-blooded British community born to the soil, to carry on our commerce against American, German and French competition in the Far East, we are laying up for ourselves an unlearned, unskilful, unpatriotic generation of "mean whites" to be the standing disgrace of the Colony.
0.
Assuming the school to be unobjectionable and necessary, it remains to consider what its nature should be. The Petition asks for both Primary and Secondary education. The necessity for the latter must be conceded if my view of the matter is a correct one, and it should be carefully arranged to suit the practical requirements of the Colony. Such subjects as Euclid, Algebra, Mensuration, and Chemistry should receive special attention.
What the cost to the Colony would be can hardly be estimated at present. Besides the cost of grounds and buildings there would be the salaries of the Head Master, and I would suggest his wife