COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPI--NUT TOI
BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- | ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
C.O. 133
22
RECORD OFFICE
Reference
E1
278
At present, two obstacles to a lengthened attendance operate unfavourably on the School In the first place, there in such a demand for English-speaking Chinese that many of the boys leave as soon as they can perform the duties of compositor or copying clerks; and, secondly, the majority are so poor that they are glad to avail themselves of any situation which offen them the means of subsistence.
This state of things will work its own cure here as it did in India. Mere matterers in English will soon become to numerous for the demand, and those only who have made some solid attainments in the language will be sought after and emplorest.
When the attention of the late Board of Education was drawn, last year, to the increasing expense at which the School was maintained, and the necessity of making some arrangement by which it might be reduced, they proposed that the bor should pay a monthly fee of one dollar in the Upper School nod half-a-dollar in the Lower. In this way they hoped to raise about a thousand dollars. This plan, not adopted without some mis-givings, may be considered successful. The fees paid into the Treasury amounted to $1,021.80. This result is desirable not merely for the sum raised, which is, in one sense, is significant, but for its moral effect on the Chinese who, like every other people, appreciate most that for which they have to pay. It will stimulate the boys to diligence and cause their parents to see that they make a good use of their time.
I propose, soun, to double the fee in the Lower School. Ultimately, I hope to have a fee also in the Preparatory Clam; { and probably, in a few years, the system may be extended, on a small scale, to the Village Schools. The Chinese mus gradually be brought to pay directly as well as indirectly for education. As I shall show hereafter, in the conclusion of this report, it would involve too great a drain on the present Revenues of the Colony to extend, gratuitously, the benefits of education to all who are in want of it. The children of Europeans and others,-now a numerous class, must soon share wit the Chinese in the annual grants made by Government for public instruction. Means must therefore be obtained from other sources if the rising generation is to be educated.
Having stated so much that is, in a manner, favourable I must refer to one or two points of an opposite character. The Chinese assistants have given rise to great difficulty in the proper management of the School. There had to be se fewer than three changes last year. Although it was with the utmost difficulty that others could be found to supply thei places, their leaving was more a subject of congratulation than of regret. Attainments the most limited added to defects of more serious nature led to mutual dislike, and frequently to recrimination, between them and the scholars,
Chinese whore knowledge of English would be of service to the School can find more lucrative employment elsewhere It has therefore hitherto been necessary to engage a very inferior class of assistants.
There is no possible escape from this difficulty, in the meantime, except the very obvious one of having assistants traine in the School itself. A beginning has already been made with considerable prospect of success. Two of the best boys in the first class do duty for one assistuut master. For the first two years I propose that they shall tench, and be taught, alte- nately-a week at a time. At the end of the two years they will cease to be scholars and become masters, remaining fur im years more. They will then be at liberty to accept of any other situation which may present itself. By making arrangement to have other ready to supply the place of those who leave, the School will, in time, overcome the difficulty under which has been labouring And the advantage will be mutual; for the teaching of others will make these boys more familiar with the language and render them eligible for more responsible duties than they would otherwise have been.
One great der the School is the impossibility of knowing anything of the private character of the scholar of the respectability or otherwise of the houses in which ther live, and of the opportunities ther possess of prosecuting thre studies at home. Julging from the idens one cannot but form of the lax morality of the Chinese, and from the peculiar temptation to which the young among them are exposed in this Colony,-living especially, as many of the scholars do, in the houses friends, away from parental control,-it is to be feared that any good which may be derived from their lessons in School i sometimes more than counterbalanced by the evil infuences brought to bear upon them in the houses where they live. Had dled together, as they often, perhaps always, are, in some small Shop-partners, assistants, coolies, and all--ít is inevitakk but influences for evil most predominate and the tamauizing effects of education frequently obliterated.
This subject has several times been brought to my notics by Chinese, but I know of no present remedy for it. It he been suggested that the three Chinese masters should rent large konses in the neighbourhood of the School, boarding the bars superintending their lessons in the evening, and, in other ways, supplying the want of parental control." such a plan. The masters, for reasons which I need not specify, would prove more difficult to manage than the boys; an I have no faith i as such houses would be under my control, I should, by adopting the plan, take upon myself a responsibility for that whid it would be morally impossible for me to perform,
On one point I must be chodid. Formerly, the reading of the Bible in Chinese formed part of the School routin During the past year this practice has been departed from. The Chinese masters in the School are not qualified to teach it and I object to reading it with the boys in English, reducing it, as I should thereby be doing, to the level of an ordinan class-book. One of the masters is a professing Christian and might conscientiously perform the duty. Another has late been excluded from the congregation of which he was a member. The third is not a Christian. It was the conduct of th second that determined me, in the meantime, to discontinue the daily lesson. 1 discovered that he had been in the hat of drawing comparisons between the Bible and the writings of the Chinese sages by no means favourable to the forme Whether this was done from conviction or from perversity I cannot say. It was, however, a sufficient reason for taking t power of future mischief out of his hands. Under these circumstances I cannot, for the present, give that prominence to th reading of the Scriptures by which, as a School in a Christian Colony, it ought, perhaps, to be characterized.
1
It affords some grounds for satisfaction that the School is rapidly growing in favour with the Chinese. The employme of another European Master thoroughly trained for his duties, the fact of one of the Chinese masters having taken what co responds to our Bachelor's degree, and the raised standard in Chinese studies, may be enumerated as the chief causes whic have tended to produce this result.
I should be glad to find a greater interest taken in the School by Europeans also. If some of the more wealthy revident among us would give a prize, or something in the shape of a small scholarship, to enable a poor but deserving boy to prole, his attendance, I think I could guarantee that the money would not be misapplied.
I now come to that part of my Report which refers to the Village Schools.
It will be seen, on reference to the Tubular statements appended, that although we have not again reached the number scholars given for 1882,-the first year of my connexion with the Schools, the numbers enrolled last year are greater the for the two preceding ones.
The comparatively large number in 1802 was due to various exuses; in the first place, to the anomalous state of the Cenin School, where 258 were enrolled at the commencement; and, in the second, to my ignorance of a system of deception practis by the masters in the case of their School-rolls. If no other advantage has been gained by monthly inspection this resalt, Jeaat, has been attained that the School-rolls can now be relied on.
Nothing puzzled me more in the course of my earlier visits to the Schools than the peculiar circumstance that the number I actually found in School was always so small when compared with the number marked as present during the previous da of the month. Excuses were, of course, never wanting to show that there were suficinat reasons for the thin attendance a that particular day.
I began to suspect that the rolls were not marked until the masters were sure that it was too late in the day for w arrival, and then they were filled up, I have no hesitation in saying, with greater regard to appearance than to truth. one pocasion I found a large attendance given when the master was absent two days on leave. When this was pointed o to him he answered, without any compunction, that the boys came to watch the School till he should return. Such a state things was only counteracted when the masters became aware that, in the monthly reports to the Board of Education, I gat only the number-in several cases nothing-which I happened to find present on the days of inspection.
}
279
142
If from 124-the average attendance during 1803-we subtract 200, the average attendance at the Central School; and if from 200-the minimum attendance for the year-we take 150, the minimum attendance at the Central School; the numbers remaining, when divided among sixteen Schools, showed no great appreciation of the advantages of free education on the part of the villagers of Hongkong, and completely justified the action of the Board of Education in suppressing kvw of the worst of the Schools
Since that time, without any great accession to the number enrolled, the regular attendance, calculated always from the numbers actually found present, has been sensibly increasing. If we apply the same rule to 1883 which has just been done 1802 it will be found that the averages amount to 30, as the maximum attendance for rack School, in the one case, and 14, as the minimum, in the other.
But this, even in a thinly populated district, which is not the case with Hongkong, is not the attendance ons is entitled to expect, since the Schools are free to all who choose to go to learn. It prevents me from recommending the re-opening of any of the five Schools which were discontinued in 1802. The Chinese are evidently quite callous to the best interests of their children, and under no circumstances can Government afford to offer advantages which are not availed of.
Of the Schools now under consideration the Punti one at Tang-lung-chau occupies, as it hus always done, the first place, if not this year in numbers, in efficiency. With all the disadvantages nuder which it has laboured during the two last years from the removal of the houses in that neighbourhood-nothing being left but a part of Jardine's Bazaar-the master has been able to secure a very good attendance. I was particularly pleased, at the late examination of his School, not only with the number of books his boys bad read but with the necuracy with which they had been learnt.
Great attention is paid at this School to the explanation of the books. Most of the boys, except those in the lowest classes, understood what they had committed to memory. The children too are, considering the circumstances of their parents, remarkably clean and tidy, and one has only to look at their intelligent countenances, contrasting them with the different state of things in some of the other Schools, to obtain a proof of the superior character of the instruction and disciplina. Here, as at West Point, a new and commodious School-rooin was opened last year, and this has also added its part to the favourable state of the School. Although a much greater attendance was expected when the Board of Education approved of the erection of a School-house bere I have already explained why those expectations have not been realized. As the houses in the neighbourhood are rebuilt the attendance will gradually increass.
In the same building with this School there is also one for Hakkas, which bas suffered very severely from the removal of the houses. There were but three boys present on the examination day, and the master is afraid that he will have no scholars at all when the School is re-opeal after the Chinese New Year. prospect at present of anything beyond the most meagre attendance. Nearly all the Hakka families that used to live here I hope his tears are groundless, although there is little have removed to the Kowloon side of the Harbour. It will be a question for future consideration whether the master should not be sent after them.
The School next in order is the one at Stanley. Under the present master this School has made wonderful progress. In so pour a state was it in 1862 that had a change of master not produced the good effect now observable it would have been discontinued in 1863.
Stanley School is undoubtedly inferior to the one at Tang-lung-chau; but, nevertheless, it way of improvement. The worst feature connected with it is the School-room which is not Government property, being may be said to be in a fair merely rented. Although one of the best houses in the village it is not suitable for its present purpose; and, if I may be allowed to do so, I would strongly recommend the building of a good School-room here. The present one is low and damp; very badly lighted and ventilated. If it is advisable to make the most of the Schools which are at present supported, befure establishing others, nothing would tend more to add to the efficiency of the Stanley School than a suitable School-house.
The School which stands third in order is the one at West Point. Here there is a very great improvement over læst year. To so low an ebb had it been reduced then, not in numbers, but in efficiency, that it was found necessary to warn the master that, if no improvement was found in another year, he would either be put into the second grade or dismissed. He maile a promise of antendment and he has so far fulfilled it.
The Girls' School comes next in order. Here too there have not been wanting signs of improvement during the last
two years.
I should be glad if more could be done for girls in the Colony in the way of giving them a purely Chinese education, as is done at this School, without turning their heads by teaching them English or any other so-called accomplishment which would give them a distaste for their future humble sphere of life. I could wish to see a male and female School in each of the villages-the master giving instruction in reading and writing during certain hours of the day, and his wife in sewing, knitting, and other things which may be considered necessary in every family. But, I am before this can be accomplished. The masters though anxious to have the addition to their incomes which such an afraid, it will be many years i arrangement would imply fad it impossible to carry it out on account of the ignorance and helplessness of their wives, searcaly
one of whom is able to read a single word or make the most necessary article of personal attire.
I have been led to entertain hopes that the Chinese themselves will soon do something in the matter of female education. At present, the fear of "kidnapping" prevents many who would otherwise do so from sending their girls to the School in the Upper Bazaar. During last year six girls were removed on this account. A gambling house was established in the immediate neighbourhood, and parents, knowing the extremities to which frequenters of such places are sometimes reduced, were afraid to allow their daughters to continue at School. Nearly all those who do attend have some one to guard them in going to and returning from School
It is much to be regretted that so many obstacles stand in the way of giving dus effect to female education here. Taking the present School as a means of judging of probable results there would seem to be every prospect of success. The girls are by no means behind the boys in intelligence; they learn their lessons with laudable accuracy, and their copy books are models of taste and cars.
I ought to mention that in this School, as well as in the three before reported on, great attention is paid to the reading of the Bible in Chinese, All the masters are Christions and they appear to discharge this part of their duties with praiseworthy diligence. The Scriptures are read in the other Schools also, but not nearly to the same extent or with the mme
$access.
Without reporting individually on each of the other Schools, it will be sufficient to give the order in which, as regards efficiency, they follow each other:
8th.........................................
7th....
.Bowrington. West End. Aberdeen, .Mosque.
Wong-nei-chang Tang-lang-chau (Hakka.)
11th.............................................................................. Webster's Crescent,
The first of these, Bowrington, has suffered much from masters of bad character, rendering no fewer than four changes accessary in as many years, I hope, however, to give the School a higher place next year. The present master has been known to me for three years, and I shall be disappointed if he does not give satisfaction.
On the three Hakka Schools now remaining, those, namely, at West End, the Mosque, and Tang-lung-chan, I have little that is favourable to report. I doubt much whether the distinction of Punti and Hakks Schools should be allowed to remain longer. There is great difficulty with interpretation in the Courts and other public offices in the Colony, and it seems
Page 145Page 146
RECORD OFFICE