Part I.
PREFACE.
The Colony of Hong Kong comprises the island of Hong Kong, the Kowloon peninsula and the New Territories consisting of a number of islands and a strip of the mainland contiguous to the Kowloon peninsula.
2. The vast bulk of the population are Chinese drawn from the neighbouring province of Kwangtung.
3. The following figures which are of educational interest are quoted from the report on the census taken on the night of 7th March, 1921:-
Chinese Non-Chinese Total Population 821,429 28,322 849,7514. Of the Chinese population 44% claim ability to write and read their mother tongue. If only persons of sixteen years of age and over are taken into account, the figure rises to 52%.
5. Of the non-Chinese population approximately 90% were literate; in the case of children under eleven the figure drops to 87%.
6. Of the Chinese population 6% claim ability to speak English and 5% to read and write in that language.
7. The Superintendent of Census, however, warns us:- "There is of course a strong temptation to claim attainments which one does not possess, or possesses only in a very small degree. The figures are likely, therefore, to err by giving too favourable an impression of educational attainments, and this error is made from time to time. For this reason comparison with previous censuses is of uncertain value, and is also difficult on account of the different method for presentation of the results adopted in 1921."
8. According to the Census report there were 119,008 children between the age of five and fourteen distributed as under: --
Hong Kong and Kowloon New Territory Afloat Total 88,481 17,940 12,587 119,008