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DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH.
Staff:-R. K. M. Simpson, M.C., M.A. (Professor of English),
B. G. Birch, B.A. (Lecturer).
A. C. Braine-Hartnell, B.A. (Lecturer and Tutor).
C. E. R. Clarabut, B.A. (Lecturer and Tutor).
The numbers of students in the Faculty of Arts taking English during 1931 were:-
Ist Year
2nd Year
3rd Year
4th Year
52
28
25
13
In addition to providing instruction for undergraduates and for external students of the Faculty of Arts, the Department of English provides classes and tutorials for students in the School of Chinese Studies, who have passed their first year examination, and special classes for students in the first year of the Faculty of Engineering. External students who are not reading for a degree, or who have not passed the University Matriculation Examination, are admitted to the ordinary degree classes, but are required to make private arrangements for tutorials.
This admission of external students is meant
to afford facilities for study to people who, although not intending to read for degrees, wish to attend University classes without be- coming members of the University. It is not meant to include students who are preparing for the Matriculation Examination; nor is it meant to enable students who have passed part of the Matriculation Examination to enter the University while they prepare to complete their Matriculation. Students who mean to read for a degree ought to remain at school till they have passed all the subjects necessary for Matriculation. It is im- portant to draw attention to this fact, because each new session brings its crop of applicants who wish to be external students. till they matriculate; and it is necessary in the interest of the student, as well as the interest of the department, to refuse such applications.
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The general objects of an English Department in a Univer- sity are to develop undergraduates in the practice of English composition in its varied forms and to provide them with a first-hand knowledge of the masterpieces of English literature in their various aspects. But the opportunity to do this successfully with students, whose native language is not English, depends largely on the amount of general knowledge which the student possesses and upon the student's readiness to handle the language as a living thing to be spoken, as well as read and written.
It is gratifying to note that many of the students who come to us now-a-days are in these two ways better equipped than they used to be. Teaching by question and answer, with the opportunities it provides for the practice of oral composition, is not so difficult as it once was; and we do not now have so large a section of undergraduates to whom the ordinary ideas of the average English novel, essay or newspaper are utterly unfamiliar. Boys and girls in schools in Hong Kong are now being urged on all sides to practise the spoken language as the real basis for the study of composition. They should also be urged to take greater interest in history and geography in their final years at school, because these subjects are the systematisation of huge masses of general knowledge, which many western students acquire from their daily environment, but which eastern students must acquire chiefly from books and teachers. The mere study of English as a subject does not bloom very richly, unless it is rooted in abundant general knowledge and quickened by practice of the spoken word.
For these reasons, we continued throughout 1931 to regard activity in tutorials and the writing of exercises on general themes as being sides of our work quite as important as attend- ance at lectures or the study of principles.
Closely associated with the Department of English is the Group of Letters and Philosophy, of which the Professor of English is official adviser. It is still necessary, as in former years, to call attention to the grave need for the appointment of a Reader in Philosophy not only for the sake of bringing this group to its highest efficiency, but also in the interest of other groups of studies where philosophic subjects are insisted upon.
When the Group of Letters and Philosophy was established it was meant to provide a typical "pure arts
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group, where a
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