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3.
The Government of China made a grant to the
endowment fund of the University and the Chinese communities
of Canton, Saigon, Wuchang, Amoy, Penang, Wuchow and Australia
sent contributions. The Viceroy of Canton of those days,
His Excellency Chan Hen Chang, collected $200,000 and sent
them to the University. The late Sir Robert Hart's interest
were certainly not centred in Hongkong but he blessed the
scheme. "Your scheme, he wrote to Sir Frederick Lugard,
"is excellent and deserves the fullest support; it promises
much that will do real good."
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4. The University of Hongkong started with the idea,
that China's greatest need was scientific and technical
training; the University was to become a force in the Far East by producing qualified engineers and skilled doctors.
The training of engineers and doctors is still necessary
and the Medical School of the University which has 3 Chairs
endowed by the Rockefeller Trust is distinctly promising -
but it is now realized that the University, if it is to
justify its existence as the only British University in
the Far East, must do far more than impart technical and
professional competence. There must be in it teachers who
are capable of interpreting the West to China and China to
the West. The Chinese have a traditional respect for learn-
ing and the presence in the University of Hongkong of British
teachers training young man to think out honestly the vital
problems, political, social, financial and domestic with which
China is now beset would be a moral asset of inculculable
imperial value. After all, if spite of everything that is
now being said to the contrary, the British are China's best
friends. The be at Chinese still realise this, but how can we
expect to maintain our influence if we allow modern education in China to become the monopoly of America and Russia?