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the report of the Economic Mission stresses as urgent and
highly important.
(38) The Committee would specially emphasize that the
necessity for the continuation of the School is amply
illustrated by the general expansion of the Colony since 1913,
and the steady growth of the demand for education. If the
graph on page 37 of the Report of the Director of Education
for Hong Kong for the year 1930 is examined, it will be seen
that the growth of the School population in the English
Teaching Schools has been from 6,442 in 1913 to 17,561 in
1930. The Government appear to recognise this need for the
provision of educational facilities by the fact of their having
recently made a Building Grant to the La Salle College (a Roman
Catholic Institution whose Teaching Staff will presumably belong
to the Foreign Religious Order responsible for the erection of
the building), now approaching completion and situated within
half a mile of the Diocesan Boys' School.
(39) It would be a grave misfortune for the Colony if
its educational facilities were contracted at the expense of
the oldest Non-government School and if an honourable tradition
built up laboriously in the course of 60 years were lost.
(40) The only existing alternative for many of the
students would be the commercialised schools, housed in odd
corners of the Colony and lacking most of the essential
qualities looked for in a school. The Government schools
cannot provide accommodation for their resources are taxed to
the limit the numbers clamouring for admission always
being in excess of the places available.
(41) Finally the Committee confidently ask for favourable
consideration of this Appeal in view of the following statement
from the memorandum of the Advisory Committee on Education in