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from this principle of permanence to which we wish to draw attention. The University should have a long-term building plan for the most efficient use of its site or sites, in order to ensure that each stage of its physical reconstruction or expansion contributes towards this final pattern. The University could best achieve permanence if it could be given financia support in the form of endowment, particularly endowment of certai chairs and of some of its special activities such as its scholarship scheme and its library.
(b) Adequate Finance.
25. Secondly, the plans for the University must ensure that it has adequate funds. In no sense is the University called upon to compete in size and scope with the great universities in China, which have received and will receive generous financial support from America. It must, how- ever, within its carefully chosen field of activity be financially strong and stable enough to achieve the highest quality in terms of attracting a distinguished staff, of providing the staff with adequate time and facilities for research and with study leave for keeping contact with their Chinese and British colleagues, of providing hostels so that students can gain the full benefit of university life. The history of Hong Kong University in the past thirty years is proof of the wasteful extravagance of under- financing.
(c) Autonomy,
The
26. Thirdly, the University must be an autonomous institution. usual and conclusive arguments for university autonomy need not be repeated. It is sufficient to point out that in addition to these, there are in the particular case of Hong Kong University, the facts that it would not be the university of the Colony in which it is situated so that local governmental control would be peculiarly inappropriate; that it could better survive political changes if it were an independent, self-governing entity; and that it could more successfully fulfil its special mission if it were formally as well as actually to be free from government direction.
(d) The British character of the University.
27. Fourthly, the policy governing the resuscitation of the University for its original purpose must rest on an appreciation that that purpose will be achieved by indirect and not by direct means. We do not envisage the University as representing British scholarship by means of popular lectures on British institutions or British thought; such elementary teaching is not the primary function of a university. It will have its influence by being an institution of British origin and a centre of learning linked to British standards and traditions; it will represent Britain, by providing access to the experience and progress of British science and scholarship and by itself achieving the highest possible standards in its own work, whether that work be related to specifically British subjects or not.
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In its undergraduate work, the object will be the training of students on standards accepted in the British university world, rather than the teach- ing of
British or Chinese subjects. Equally, in its postgraduate and research work, it will act as a centre of contact between British and Chinese culture by oblique rather than direct methods; it will for example not limit its research to the study of Chinese philosophy, or to borderline studies like comparative languages or the historical and sociological aspects of Western influence on China. Such studies are certain to arise and
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should be encouraged at the postgraduate level, but they are incidental to the essence of the contact, which is that British and Chinese scholars will be working in intimate collaboration with the common objective of advancing knowledge.
(e) Staffing.
28. Fifthly, as a university it must be open to all regardless of race or religion, and in particular appointments to, and promotion on, its staff should be open to Chinese as well as British. It is assumed that the main medium of instruction will continue to be English. The proportion of Chinese members of the staff must be expected to rise, but it is most desir able, in view of the special purpose of the University, that there should always be a substantial element of British (including Dominion) staff, and that opportunity for training in the United Kingdom should always be provided for Chinese members who have not already had such training.
(f) Scholarships.
29. Lastly, the system of scholarships and aided maintenance within Hong Kong which it will be necessary to establish for students from China should be as flexible as possible. It should provide for both undergraduate and postgraduate students; and, while it is hoped that many of such scholars will return to China to become teachers in schools, colleges and univer- sities, the scholarships should not be restricted to that vocational purpose. The scheme should be adaptable enough to cover short-term and refresher courses. One of its special features should be to enable graduates of Chinese universities to work at the University of Hong Kong.
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THE NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITY FOR A WORTHY UNIVERSITY. 30. We realize that there are many practical difficulties such as the present acute shortage of university teachers, which would delay the full realization of a university in the form outlined. The essential need, however, if the University is continued, is that it should have a clear understanding of its purpose and ultimate scope and that it should be assured of a firm financial basis. Granted that, it can develop to its full stature as conditions allow, We do not think it desirable or possible to make precise suggestions as to the size that the University should attempt to attain. We merely emphasize that the University should never make size the test of its success, but should deliberately relate the scope of its studies and the number of its students to the means at its disposal, and concentrate on doing a limited task supremely well. In the new era of political, industrial and social reconstruction, China will need more trained leaders than her own resources can produce, no matter how quickly her own universities are rehabilitated, and she will need to draw on the friendship and experience of other peoples, especially Russia, America and the British Commonwealth. The British have a unique opportunity of assisting the New China through the offer of an instrument of mutual aid and understanding such as a reconstituted University in Hong Kong could provide. The College of Medicine numbers Dr. Sun Yat-sen among its first students; the University was founded in the year of the fall of the Manchu dynasty; with the Chinese universities it endured the hardships of the attack by the Japanese. In the new period of reconstruction in the Far East the University has greater opportunities of common service and understanding, rooted in past friendship and fructifying in the sharing of ideals. seize those opportunities only if it worthily represents British standards.
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