245
decision of the Government of Hong Kong to undertake the greater part of the financial burden of restoring the whole of the University buildings and equipment. The University is, therefore, in a position to assume that by the year 1952, by successive stages, it will be able to do all the work that it was equipped to perform in the year 1940.
As soon as the University authorities have been appointed and are able to meet, measures can be taken to fill vacancies in the staff of the University caused by deaths and retirement. Immediate steps will be taken for the selection of men for the Professorships in Medicine, Surgery, Pathology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and for Lectureships in some of these subjects. Recruitment of suitable men at this time will be difficult but it is confidently expected that the kind of work that can be offered to men will attract them to the Colony.
The return to the status of 1940 should mean that develop- ment then in progress will be taken up at the point then reached. This means that Honours courses in various subjects within the Faculties of Arts and Science will again be offered from September, 1948, that an increased number of medical students will be ad- mitted and that provision for post-graduate studies in medicine will be made. Provision may have to be made for pre-clinical studies in Dentistry. Training of teachers of English for China can easily be combined with the training of teachers for the schools of the Colony. In place of the degree course in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, which the University in 1939 had decided to relinquish, provision may possibly be made for the training of architects.
The purposes for which the University was founded are not forgotten, and, as already indicated, the question of developing it to the standards recommended by the Committee will be/con- sidered as soon as practicable. In the meantime the re-establish- ment of the University on its 1940 scale will, in itself, provide an opportunity for growth, not necessarily in numbers but in maturity and in diversity of activities. The incentive towards growth will come from within the University and from the desire of the people of Hong Kong that the University should reflect in realms of science and intelligence, the success of the Colony in the realms of trade and industry. The interest of the Colony is shown in the generous measure of immediate help given by the Hong Kong Government; help from outside will be the more easily achieved as the result of a demonstration of a local faith in the University's power in the future to serve the needs of the Colony and to aid in the rehabilitation of China.
for ove