(Reprinted from the Annual Report for 1928 of the HONG KONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.)
HONG KONG UNIVERSITY AS AN IMPERIAL ASSET.
Correspondence of considerable interest has taken place with Glasgow and London in the last eighteen months on the subject of methods by which friendly intercourse between China and Great Britain might be promoted. The question arose in connection with contact between the two countries in the educational field, and the papers, which will repay careful study, include some important observations by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong (Mr. W. W. Hornell, C-I-E., M.A.) on "Hong Kong University as an Imperial Asset."
The Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures wrote on July 25, 1927, inviting the views of this Chamber on the main features of proposals outlined in an article in the "Glasgow Herald" by the Rev. Dr. W. A. Young of Mukden. These were in effect that Glasgow should endeavour to enter into closer and definitely friendly relationship with China by (1) founding a Lectureship in Glasgow University in Sinology, to be held by an English-speaking Chinese scholar of renown, and (2) making special arrangements to attract Chinese undergraduates to Glasgow and improve the conditions of student life for them.
The Committee took into council on the subject the Vice- Chancellor of Hong Kong University, and the following quotations are given from a minute which the Vice-Chancellor wrote on the subject:-
"There can be no doubt that Great Britain has lost an opportunity in not making Chinese students more welcome to its Universities. Chinese students who might have gone to England and Scotland have flocked to America and have come back, generally scornful of British ideas, if not definitely hostile to everything British. Dr. Hu Shih, who was recently appointed by the British Universities China Committee to go round and lecture on China to British and Scotch Universities, recently told the Liverpool University that it was strange that:-
"In spite of the long relationship between Great Britain and China and the remarkable popularity of the English tongue (it ranked next to their native tongue) there should be lacking a real understanding between the two nations."
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