71
As however the Normal Master will be in constant supervision of the six sections of the Preparatory School, there only remain for the eight English Masters, at the outpost, six classes of three sections each. Two masters can well be spared for the two non-Chinese classes, and leave six for sixteen sections which is more than sufficient for the purpose the Committee has in view.
The Committee recommends the appointment of ten English Masters in addition to the Head Master, but wisely calculates on the constant absence on leave of at least one of them. (Para 72).
I therefore only deal with nine.
51 Some misapprehension appears to exist as to my motive in forming these classes; it was because I observed that two or three non-Chinese boys in each section throughout the College suffered in their education, because in competing with Chinese boys, they were so completely outdistanced, that they lost the necessary stimulus of emulation. In combined classes it is rare for a non-Chinese boy to be amongst the first dozen.
His Excellency Sir Henry Blake was strangely misinformed, when he wrote (Gazette 227 Para. 3).
"European scholars are obliged to regulate their progress by that of their Chinese classmates who are painfully endeavouring to assimilate Western education taught to them in a foreign language."
As a matter of fact in combined classes, Chinese are more rapidly qualified for promotion, and leave behind them in the lower class non-Chinese boys.
6. In recommending (Para. 36) that the abolition of these non-Chinese classes should take place at once, the Committee