MATATALT VIRTUS

OF HONG KONG. 2/

21st February, 1931.

Tel. No. 28056.

Code: A. B. C. 5th. Ed.

Arthur Mayhew Esq., C.I.E.,

Secretary to the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on Education,

2, Richmond Terrace,

Whitehall S.W.l.,

ENGLAND

5

31 MM 1931

51

My dear Mayhew,

the

Thank you for your letter of the 10th January, 1931, and

for your kind congratulations which you were good enough to convey

therein.

I trust that when my provocative memorandum went before

the Advisory Committee on the 22nd January, it did not upset them

too much. I am not in the least opposed to the teaching of Chinese

Classics and I hold that a proper study of the vernacular is

essential for every Chinese boy and girl who goes to school in this

Colony. But my difficulty is, that in the first place, nobody seems

to know what the vernacular of Hong Kong is. Some say that Cantonese

is merely one of the dialects of Kwantung and as I stated in my

memorandum, no less a person than the officiating Colonial

Secretary, who has been in Hong Kong all his working life, said that

Cadets and Police Probationers must go to Canton to learn Cantonese,

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