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"Last year the Council sanction li jed
ed two additional posts-a lecture- ship in Chemistry and lectureship in Physics. These two posts which were absolutely essential, have been filled by Mr. Hill and Mr. Davies. I want in this connection to make two points clear, the first is that we have, in the last 12 months, added to our staff three important teach- ing posts, for the Readership in Biology, though it was sanctioned some years ago, has been in abey- ance for the last four years. The second is, that in the course of last year the University was able to secure from London for its staff, no less than five good men-Pro- fessor Ride, Dr. Herklots, Mr. Hill, Mr. Davies and Mr. Braine Hart- nell. And the pay of our Pro- fessors, to say nothing of our Readers and Lecturers, is on a sub- stantially lower scale than that of the Hong King Government School masters. The latter are also qualifying for pensions while our men are not.
"C
Perhaps some of you noticed as you came here this afternoon two new tennis courts; I begged these off Mr. W. H. Bell of the Asiatic Petroleum Company. We thank the Directors of the Asiatic Petroleum Company.
The Students.
"On the 31st December, 1928, there were 309; students on the roles of the University; of these 160 were in the Medical Faculty, 95 in the Arts and 54 in the Engineer- ing. The total enrolment includes 38 girl undergraduates, 16 in the Medical and 22 in the Arts Faculty. If any
one doubts whether the Chinese of Hong Kong are in earnest about the education not only of their boys but also of their girls, let him motor along the Caine and Bonham Roads at about 4 p.m., when the schools are discharging their victims.
"Among the many needs of the University is a girls' hostel, and an influential committee, of which Col. Skinner has been kind enough to become the Chairman, has issued an appeal.
Finance.
"The Balance Sheet for 1928 has not yet been drawn up, but I am not looking forward to it with any mis- giving. We are paying our way, but the future is dark and uncer- tain. The Finance Committee has sounded a note of warning, that unless fresh sources of revenue be discovered, the prospective. pecuniary resources of the Univer- sity will not, in a few years time, cover its financial commitments. And no University can stand still.
"
When the Legislature of Hong Kong passed the University Ordin-
1
ance of 1911, it committed itself and the Colony to the establish- ment of a University for the pro- motion of Art, Science and Learn- ing, for the formation of the charac- ter of students of all races nation- alities and creeds, and, for the maintenance of good understanding with the neighbouring country of China.
At the same time the Legislature of Hong Kong proclaimed to the world that the standards of its University would not be below the standards of the Universities in Great Britain.
"This University has to provide and maintain three large hostels for students and residences for the members of its staff. It has to bring practically all its teachers out from England with wives and families, and to send them back to England every four years also with their wives and families.
"
Mendicancy!"
"A good friend of the University said to me the other day-The Uni- versity is always passing round the hat. We are getting a little tired of this shameless mendicancy. So am I. (Laughter.) The burden of the University's poverty is the burden which the Legislature of Hong Kong has laid upon us, for we are only trying to carry out the Legislature's expressed wishes? We can hear the burden but let the saddle be light. If we can't have money, at least let us have good- will.
Problem Of Future Must Be Face
No one realises more acut.. than I do, the tremendous difficul- ties which underly the maintenance and effective development of this University. His Excellency the Chancellor has just returned from fighting our cause in London with a tenacity which nothing but the strongest conviction, nay, devotion, could have maintained. If all hope of getting help from the Boxer In- demnity Fund must be finally and irrevocably abandoned, the whole problem of the University's future will have, before long, to be faced here in Hong Kong.
The Medical School. "The Medical School of this University not only involves the em- ployment of a large University staff of teachers, but also a considerable staff of persons whose work is con fined to the Government Civil Hos- pital but who are a charge on the University's funds; it also involves
Of Practical Value. the maintenance and upkeep of But all this, I hear the prac- laboratories for Anatomy, Histical man retaliate, is rhetoric; we tology, Embryology, Physiology, are a commercial community and Biology, Biological Chemistry, Hong Kong is a place for trade. Pathology and Pharmacology to say Show us how your University is nothing of the Clinical Departments || going to enhance the prosperity of of Surgery, Medicine, and Obste- Hong Kong. trics and Gynaecology.
"
LL
My friend, I meekly reply, it You may say that the old Hong occurs to me as strange that the Kong College of Medicine did good people of the United States of work. The College was founded by America should take such a diame- a great man, the late Sir Patrick trically opposite view. They spend Manson, and it was maintained by quite a lot of money on education the enthusiasm and devotion of the in China. They have recently estab doctors of Hong Kong. Incidental-lished a China Institute in America ly, the fact that there is not in this University, or indeed anywhere in Hong Kong any sort of memorial to Sir Patrick Manson scarcely redounds to the credit of the Colony.
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But medical science has grown and with it the demands which the public makes on the doctor. Our medical degrees are recognised by the General Medical Council of Great Britain and Ireland. This recognition would certainly be with- drawn if we lowered our standards of teaching. And there is another consideration.
"When, in 1923 and 1924, the University Court accepted the Rockefeller endowments, it did so
on
the understanding that the Medical School of the Hong Kong University was going to be conduct- ed, not only as regards the teach- ing in the University, but also in the matter of its clinical work in the Government Civil Hospital, as an efficient and up-to-date modern University Medical School of the highest status.
to
and among the declared objects of that Institution is the creation of fellowships and scholarships enable not only Chinese to study in American Colleges and Univer- sities, but also Americans to study in China.
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They have also recently estab lished and generously endowed the Harvard-Yenching Institute for Chinese studies.
"John Ruskin died in 1900-a very old man. To the practical man of his generation, John Ruskin. was an ineffectual, scolding, sweet- tempered, childish angel. But to John Ruskin it was an intuition that prosperity was not to be mea- sured in terms of money and 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 him.
"On the 19th November, 1928, exactly 100 years had passed since Franz Peter Schubert died. That day was a world-festival of music. The sweetness of his harmonies was literally floating out of the ether from "the flood to the world's end." Schubert had come into his own at last! Yet in his day he went hungry! (Applause.)
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