CO129-002 - Sir Henry Pottinger - 1843 — Page 261

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and an Office for Painting bo

In accordance with their instructions we

have and, and deliberated

στι

the measures

which appear requisites to secure the future Prosperity of the above Institution, and we hope

Your

: Excellency will excuse us for taking the present opportunity to submit a brief outline for your consideration,

four

The original and unalterable objects of the

4

C. College is twofold the reciprocal cultivation of Chinese and English literature, and the spread

of

the gospel of Jesus Christ; the former being carried with a view to the promotion of the latter. It is necessary for us to refer at length to its past

You

Shistory.

many years

in which it has

OD during the been in operation in Malacca, several hundreds

" Country Com Chinese have received in it

a very

tolerable

tolerable English Education. Some of them act

Oct

Interpreters to the Courts in the several settlements

in the Straits, and others

are

among

native merchants, Their progress

the wealthiest

in Chinese was

necessarily more slow and incomplete, Malay

- tongue, and there being

being their mother tongue,

no

motives sufficiently weighty to counterbalance the labour necessary to obtain a mastery of that most difficult of languages.

The location indeed of the College in

settlement was

that-

unfortunate, for in a few years

after it had been founded, the Community of

Malacca was almost entirely

transferred to Singapore,

and the number of Chinese inhabitants decreased. The young

necessarily decreased. The

young and enterprising

flock'd to that island, where they found an appropriate field for the employment of their Energies, and the Institution was left amid

i