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is only one other point on which I need to touch. The education of a boy or girl depends in the main on two elements. The direct instruction given and received; and the indirect influences under which a child is placed whilst receiving that education. In the master and mistress of the Kowloon School, Mr. and Mrs. James, the community and the Government have warrant and assurance both as to the teaching itself and as to the indirect influences under which that teaching will be given. Mr. James is known in the Colony. The efficient service he rendered at Queen's College and the position he won there in the esteem of masters and boys points him out as the right man in the right place. (Applause) In Mrs. James, whose high qualifications and experience fit her for the task she has undertaken, the Government has secured an accomplished schoolmistress. The success of the school should be manifest from the beginning and should be greater as Mr. and Mrs. James continue their labours, which we trust they may be spared to do during many years. Your Excellency will observe that in this building everything is provided that may contribute to the discipline, comfort, and decency of the school.
I think we are justified in the hope and expectation that the institution will prosper, that Mr. Ho Tung will see his generous gift used to the best advantage, that here will be trained many loyal patriots, faithful citizens, and good men and women, who by the instruction they receive in this school will be fitted to adorn any station in life to which they may be called, and so contribute largely to the well-being and prosperity of the Colony. (Applause) Mr. Ho Tung will now, with your Excellency's permission, hand over the school building to you for behoof of the Colony. (Applause.)
Mr. HO TUNG said—Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen.—It is not quite two years ago since His Excellency Sir Henry Blake was pleased to perform the first public function in connection with the building standing before us now, by laying its foundation stone on the 20th July, 1900. And to-day, in the absence of His Excellency in England in connection with that most auspicious occasion for the whole of the British people, the coronation of our King, your Excellency as Officer Administering the Government has kindly consented to identify yourself with its next most important function—the formal opening of the institution which will hereafter be known as the Kowloon School. It is specially pleasing that this ceremony can be associated with Your Excellency's temporary administration, inasmuch as your presence here to-day furnishes a practical evidence of your Excellency's desire to pursue the same progressive policy in the matter of education which His Excellency Sir Henry Blake keenly advocates. This manifestation on the part of your Excellency of a sympathy not only with the material but also with the intellectual advancement of the young people of this Colony, is, I feel sure, very highly appreciated.
I have now the honour and the pleasure to hand to you, sir, the key and to ask you formally to open the Kowloon School. In handing the building over to the Government I cannot but express my sense of very great pleasure that this small gift to the Colony of Hongkong has been accepted as a result of a satisfactory compromise between the Government and myself. There can be no doubt that the ultimate issue of this compromise will be the better education of the Chinese in the Peninsula—a betterment commensurate with the success which must inevitably follow the enthusiasm evinced by the parents of those children for whom this school is to be maintained. I see Mr. James, the Headmaster of the Kowloon School, is here present to-day. He will, no doubt, see that his school places within the reach of the youths of Kowloon easy means for the acquisition of knowledge: one, I say, of the ends of the educational efforts of our schools and colleges. But above all, I trust that he will regard as its chief end the formation of these right moral habits which experience has shown to be of real value in maintaining a true manhood, in the midst of the traps, pitfalls, and allurements of modern life, and without which an essential part of a true education will have failed of attainment.
By a true and complete education is meant that education which has been defined as "a growth, a development, an evolution" (using the term evolution in a restricted sense) "of all the possibilities which God has implanted in our nature; the unifying of these possibilities subordinating them all to the control of the will; in short, the crystallisation of all these possibilities into a pure and noble character." The acquisition of such an ideal education is, as one must be only too conscious, difficult of accomplishment; but nothing really worth having can be obtained without some earnest effort: and these efforts must be directed not by teachers only but by parents and pupils themselves with whom rest the power and the will to justify the establishment and the maintenance of the very first institution in the Colony to inaugurate an important departure from the path hitherto pursued in regard to education in Hongkong. (Applause.)
It is now my honour and privilege to ask you to accept this key with which to open the school and this tray as a souvenir of the occasion. (Applause.)
The key, made of silver, bore the following inscription: "Kowloon School, opened 19th of April, 1902, by His Excellency Major-General Sir William Julian Gascoigne, K.C.M.G., Officer Administering the Government of Hongkong." A similar inscription appeared on the silver tray.
HIS EXCELLENCY—Mr. Ho Tung and gentlemen, I can assure you it has been a very great pleasure and privilege to me to be asked to come here to-day to take part in this ceremony—a ceremony unique of its kind, inasmuch as I understand that this is the first civil European school that has been opened not only in Kowloon but in the Colony of Hongkong. I can assure you, Mr. Ho Tung, that I have watched with a great deal of interest the growth of this building from the time that His Excellency Sir Henry Blake two years ago laid the foundation stone, and I was looking forward with considerable anticipation to the day when the last stone would be laid and the building declared open to those pupils for whom it was intended; and I feel I am extraordinarily lucky in that that day has occurred during my short term of administering the Government.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are certain features about this school I should wish to call special attention to. This school originates in the magnificent generosity of a gentleman—a Chinese gentleman by birth and a British subject—who has identified himself in every way with the interests of the community. Well, the gift to begin with was a magnificent one. But after the gift had been made it was thought by the Government—I thought—I should approach Mr. Ho Tung with a view to modifying in some way the conditions on which it was first presented. Well, ladies and gentlemen, when any one makes a very handsome gift and then after it has been accepted the person accepting it begins to make conditions, it would be not natural perhaps that the giver might have a certain feeling, not perhaps of annoyance, but a sort of feeling of surprise. On the contrary, Mr. Ho Tung, having heard the arguments of the Government, with a liberal-minded generosity that I think is seldom surpassed, at once came into these views.
We approached him somewhat diffidently, but he met us more than half way, with the result that this school—this magnificent school as it appears to me—which you see now, is to be used by European children, and the Government, on its side, has pledged itself to take care of the Chinese resident in the neighbourhood. So that Mr. Ho Tung in his munificent generosity has not only got what he desired, a school that would benefit Europeans and Chinese alike, but he has met the Government in a double sense; and I feel sure that such an exhibition of generosity, liberal-minded generosity, will appeal most strongly to every one of my hearers to-day. I congratulate you most heartily, Mr. Ho Tung, on the site you have chosen. I am only a soldier passing through...