COP T.
Sir,
C.O.
23016
Register-General's Office, Hongkong, 29th January, 1906
103
2.
As the late and present Heads of the Education Department, we have the honour to address the following recommendations to you for the better success of the British Kowloon School.
This school has been built at the expense of Mr. Ho Tung on the condition that it should be taken over by Government, as a school where an English education should be given to boys and girls of all nationalities. The building is finished; and a Master and Mistress have been engaged, and will shortly be here.
Since Mr. Ho Tung's offer and conditions were accepted, some two years ago, the theory of education in the Colony has made a great advance, in the direction of differentiating between the requirements of the different classes of students; and in particular we have recommended, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies has in principle approved, of the founding of two classes of schools hitherto unknown here, one for the sons of British parentage and one for the higher classes of Chinese.
3.
4.
Other radical reforms having at various times been suggested by us, the Government has recently appointed a Committee, of which we are Members, to consider in detail the whole educational problem of the Colony. We are now in a position to state that the Committee is unanimous in confirming our opinion as to the undesirability of "mixed" schools.
5.
For these reasons we regard the proposed constitution of the British Kowloon School as the embodiment of a principle which is on all sides condemned, and we feel confident that it will fail to compete with the all-English and all-Chinese schools, and is foredoomed a failure. And therefore, in spite of everything that has been done hitherto, and in spite of the very natural objections which we conceive the generous donor may have to such a radical change in the scheme with which his name is associated, we make the following recommendations:-
(a) That the idea of a mixed school be abandoned;
(b) That the school may be regarded as the Kowloon wing of the all-English School above referred to.
8.
In making these recommendations we have, after careful consideration, rejected the alternative scheme of making the school...
The Colonial Secretary, &c.,
The Honourable
Ro.
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