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Sons a good English education, have either to send them to England or the United States for a long period or to engage at great expense a private tutor, who after all may not be a trained teacher. In the first case the children are parted from their parents at a most impressionable age and incur a very great risk of finding themselves unable on their return to resume their proper position in the family.
The want is now increasingly felt of a school at which such a thorough knowledge of English could be obtained as would enable boys to leave school at a suitable age, and on proceeding to England to at once enter on the special course of study prescribed for the profession which might have been selected for them by their parents.
The best interests of the family demand also that the liberal education of Chinese boys should be accompanied by a commensurate advance in the education of Chinese girls, and it is for this reason that the scheme which we now beg to submit to His Excellency's most favourable consideration makes equal provision for girls. The expense entailed upon the Government by the adoption of the scheme may at first sight appear great, but we do not consider that it will be in any way out of proportion to the results which are to be looked for.
It is at present a constant complaint that having received an education in the Government Schools, the Chinese have failed to assimilate to any extent English sympathies and ideas and are ever backward in responding to the call of public duties.
But we are confident that such an education on the lines which we now suggest will soon remove all cause for such complaint. Such an education will not only endow our young men and women with more open minds and greater public spirit, but will result (2)