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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 r ces 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.
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"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-Chinese friendship.. It is indeed expre sly 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 father- land, they may rank among its best and most useful citizens.
"The time-honoured system of Chinese classical educ- ation 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 im- provising 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 generation 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 sit-
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