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intuition that prosperity was not to be measured in terms of money and that unmitigated competition was not the road to happiness. That intuition seemed to his contemporaries the most extravagant of assertions, running counter as it did to every approved and well-argued dogma of that Industrial Age. But in that intuition lay the seeds of the Social Revolution through which we are now passing and in social and industrial matters we are still stumbling after Ruskin.
ADDRESS BY THE CHANCELLOR.
The Chancellor of the University (H.E. Sir Cecil Clementi, K.C.M.G.), in the course of an address, said:--
I cannot but ask myself, "what is the special contribution which this University should make to Hong Kong, to China, to the world?", and I beg you to bear with me while I endeavour in the fewest words possible to answer these "obstinate questionings."
At the outset let me remind you that the Colony of Hong Kong is the principal meeting-ground of the British and Chinese civilizations. Here, therefore, better than anywhere else on the face of the earth, the Chinese may learn those lessons which Great Britain can teach them and Britishers may study things Chinese. Now, if two foreign peoples are to understand one another, they must begin by learning each other's languages, reading each other's literature and history, and familiarizing themselves with each other's manners and customs. So I venture to suggest that the most important contribution which the Hong Kong University can make to this Colony is to afford Britishers the opportunity of associating with Chinese students and learning their language, their modes of thought and habits of life, while at the same time offering Chinese students every facility for acquainting themselves thoroughly with all things British. This University should be par excellence the bond of union between the two races by whose co- operation Hong Kong has been converted within less than a century from a barren island into one of the greatest shipping ports of the world. Here should be the centre not only of the highest intellectual life, but of the best social life of the Colony. Thus will whatever is most valuable in the two civilizations British and Chinese-be fused, fashioned and adapted by your efforts for the special needs of Hong Kong.
British Ideals.
The chief contribution of this University to China should, I think, be the interpretation of British ideals, civic, ethical and educational, to the Chinese people and the promotion of Anglo-
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Chinese friendship. It is indeed expressly laid down in the Hong Kong Ordinance by which this University was incorporated that one of its objects was to be "the maintenance of the good under- standing with the neighbouring country of China." Most of our undergraduates come from China; and it should be our special care so to educate and equip them during their sojourn among us that, when they return to their fatherland, they may rank among its best and most useful citizens.
The time-honoured system of Chinese classical education was destroyed in the destruction of the Manchu Empire. Nothing has yet been created to take its place; and it is doubtful whether the genius of the Chinese people, working in isolation, will be capable of improvising an educational system such as the necessities of the twentieth century require: because the urgent demand in China to-day is certainly not for a mere resuscitation of obsolete methods, but rather for an entirely novel system which, by passing the ancient classical teaching through the alembic of western culture and modern science, shall, from the amalgamation of these elements, forge a new educational implement for the benefit of present and future generations of the Chinese race. It is a task of stupendous difficulty; but it is a problem which must be solved-and that soon -unless the mental and moral standards upon which the China of the past prided itself are to be debased and forgotten. In the solution of this problem, the Hong Kong University is, by reason of its geographical situation, peculiarly well fitted to participate and even to take the lead.
Faculty of Chinese.
This University (as you know) proposes, when funds permit, to organize within itself a Faculty of Chinese such that Chinese students may take a degree in subjects which will assist them in their official or professional careers in their own country. It should be no longer the custom that a Chinese, whom his parents wish to train in western knowledge, must travel at a youthful age to Europe or America and spend ten or more of the most impressionable years of his life away from China, returning with a veneer no doubt of western culture but a most lamentable ignorance of things Chinese. This University would be a far better training place for such men and, while pursuing here their academic studies, they would also be able to see for themselves how Great Britain governs and develops a Colony of which the population is mainly Chinese. Thus they would come to realize that the political education of a
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