132
3.
VIII.
His Lordship's responsibility for the Report is therefore confined to Part II and the first few pages of Part I. The rest of Part I and most of Part III and the whole of Part IV were not discussed between us and him; he has not seen Parts V and VI.
IXA
It remains to reply to certain statements in his lordship's letters which cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. The references are to the marginal numbers in the letters.
His Lordship's Letter of the 13th March.
"The sweeping condemnation of the educational work now being done in all Classes of Schools is in my opinion too severe.
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At the first sitting of the Committee his Lordship laid before us a Memorandum drawn up by himself, a part of which runs as follows:-
"In the elementary Schools the boys apparently learn nothing that they can use in after life unless they go on to secondary Schools. In the secondary Schools the majority of the boys acquire no practical working knowledge of either Chinese or English, they cannot translate from one language to the other, and they do not know enough to give them a command of the literature in either language. The other subjects which they study they know for the most part