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for a nucleus of more permanent teachers. There must be arrangements for support and intercourse between Hongkong and the sister Universities of the Empire, the U. S. A. and of China. The aim should be to graft the Hongkong University into the social and cultural life both of China and of the English-speaking world. The new Rhodes Scholarships for Hongkong graduates are a step in this direction.
What can be claimed with justice for the University is that in the past thirty years it has become an integral part of the life of the Colony. This is no mean accomplishment, for it may fairly be said that the Colony had no great desire for the University and has only come to realize slowly how important it 18. The first graduates are now coming to the fore in local affairs.
The Colony benefits from the University's engineering and medicial studies and the training of teachers so directly that it may fairly be expected to contribute heavily to these sections. The agricultural studies which should certainly be established might very well be carried on in Canton just as the engineering and medicine could be carried on in the city of Victoria.
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But since it seems likely that Hongkong will have to spend a great deal more on social services on which it already spends 20 per cent. of its revenue we must look to the
Imperial Government to promote the arts, pure science, philosophy, foreign languages, the Chinese studies and the libraries” trunk from which more specialized branches grow. These purely literary, philosophical and scientific studies could be carried on in a "New College" outside the town, and preferably in the New Territory which is to go back to China so soon.
These proposals require a great deal of careful study and elaboration in detail, and those responsible for the policy of the University are thoroughly aware of the problems involved. The details do not matter for our present purpose; the principle should be that we use the University to provide a strong link between the chinese and English-speaking worlds. The Chinese could hardly fail to take an interest in a first-class Univereity, the fundamental part of which would come into their own hands lese than sixty years from now, leaving the professional schools in the Colony.
In this way a very important section out of two generations of our University teachers would have had longer or shorter opportunities of contact with China and the Chinese. The New College, in the New Territories could do for English-speaking Sinologues what the Ecole Française at Hanoi did for the Prench. The possibilities of fruitful development are enormous.
If we give the Chinese the best that we have to give, graduates of the University will provide a living link between the English and Chinese people. Culturally, we may get more than we shall give.
The staff of that New College in the New Territories ahould be international, concerned only to put forward the civilized ideals which are common to the Empire, the United States and China; ideals for which we are now fighting in the western fringe of Europe; ideals which are, of course, the only hope of a better world,
There must be no patronage of the Chinese.
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