7
Į
90 A
10th January 1944
Deal horthcote,
bany thanks for your le tter of November 19, with J.P.Robinson's notes. I really must apologise for the delay in answering and my only excuse is, that I drafted a memorandum about the University and then mislaid it and forgot all about the matter. I think I must have given it to asson for his comments.
Hong Kong University.
However, although you probably do not want to be bothered with the thing now and anyway cannot a swer Sloss, I send you a copy of a memorandum, which I have sent in to Gent. I fancy he is getting quite busy about it and the question will be thoroughly ventilated, no matter what the result may be.
To my mind the disabilities under which the University has always suffered are as follow8:-
1. The initial lack of endowment due to its rather premature
start in 1912 before the departure of Lord Lugard, its founder, and the subsequent lack of support from Paddy May, who like so many other Hong Kong people at that time could not greap its potentialities and feared its cost and presumed production of babus.
2.
3.
China.
Inferior or unsuitable men on the staff, more particularly in our chair.
Chinese
There seemed to be too many Straits or Hong Kon about the place in comparison with the real Chinese of
4. Too academic an insistence on providing the kind of teaching
and study, which the normal university in England sets out to offer, and not enough of the realization of the needs of this particular case.
5. It has been too expensive for what it has given the
Chinese and they have preferred either to go more cheaply to Chinese universities or to pay a bit more and get something really first-class in England or U.S.A.