1841-1886
HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
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Government school, the Central School, which had been established for the special purpose of teaching English to the natives, I inspected two class-rooms containing 150 boys under three Chinese teachers, and I found that neither the teachers nor the pupils could speak a word of English. Soon after this I requested the European Head Master of the school to examine all the pupils on the roll and to report to the Government as to their capacity for speaking English. He reported that out of the 412 Chinese boys in attendance, 18 were able to speak English with considerable fluency, 58 spoke English with diffidence, and 336 could not be said to speak English at all.
26. Within the last few months the first examination of this school by independent examiners was held, when they obtained results almost as unsatisfactory as those reported by the head master, Mr. Stewart, in 1878. They reported that "scarcely any" of the Chinese boys produced in translation into English a "single grammatical sentence."
27. The result of such an educational system is seen in many ways. During the four years of my administration many trials have taken place in the Supreme Court, criminal trials and civil cases, both tried by juries, but though the majority of the prisoners tried are Chinese, and a considerable quantity of the property disposed of by the verdicts of juries is Chinese property, nevertheless, I do not remember in the whole course of those four years to have seen a Chinaman on a jury. The Ordinance under which juries are summoned provides that no man can sit on a jury who has not a knowledge of English. In the year 1877, an appointment was vacant in the magistracy, a clerkship worth £200 per annum. For this clerkship knowledge of English and Chinese was necessary, that is, translation from English into Chinese and from Chinese into English. I gave that appointment by open competition. I secured the services of the Bishop of Victoria, of Mr. Charles May, who was at the head of the magistracy, and of Mr. Ng Choy as three independent examiners to conduct the examination for that appointment. Eleven boys presented themselves as candidates for the examination, all Chinese youths, but the examiners reported that not one could pass the examination, and the reason they gave in their report was the want of power or experience in translating Chinese into English. Nearly all the candidates had been educated at the Central School, and three of them were monitors in the school.
28. In a letter written by the Inspector of Schools to the Colonial Secretary in April 1880 a passage occurs which, perhaps, accounts for the defective state of English teaching in the Colony. The Inspector writes:--
"I heard it once stated by the Head Master of the Central School, in presence of His Excellency the Governor, that there are foreign merchants in the Colony who, in the interest of local foreign trade, desire that their Chinese clerks should not be taught any more English than is required to enable them to copy