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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 26TH JANUARY, 1878.
be given away.
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 26тH JANUARY, 1878.
29
of the pups in that particular class-room not one could speak English. These pupils, I was glad knowledge whatever of the English language. These three Chinese teachers spoke no English; and to see, were reading the Chinese classics. During the whole of the year we have had six hundred able to speak English, and he said under fifty or sixty, and this small number very imperfectly. Now, these are grave facts. They point to that which Mr. STEWART wishes to the desirability of our endeavouring to keep the pupils, a little longer in the school. In this English Colony we must school, and that imperfectly. After Hongkong has enjoyed thirty years of Colonial Government and not be satisfied with 60 out of 600 being able to speak English in our principal Government large annual grants for education, I expected to find the new generation with something like t knowledge of English. The system unfortunately is that after learning perhaps only what we might call a smattering of our language, a few of the pupils leave the school and go at once into native business houses, whilst nine tenths leave the Government school entirely ignorant of the English language. I believe Mr. STEWART will be able to suggest to me means by which we might induce the pupils to devote a longer period to their school studies. I do not mean a longer period each With whom do those day, but a greater number of years. But it also suggests something else. boys that I now see before me mix after they leave this school-how many English speaking associates or friends have they? Very, very few. In this Colony--and in that respect it is unlike Singapore
think one of our principal duties as educationists should be to increase the number of English you don't meet with many Chinese who in the ordinary course of business can speak or write English. speaking and English writing Chinese inhabitants of Hongkong. We must endeavour to do that not only by means of this valuable institution, but also by the other educational agencies in this Colony.
Now, Mr. STEWART has placed in my hands a list of the one hundred and forty-eight pupils of this school who left the school during last year, and I find on glancing through it that many of the I find the first pupil is now a master in this pupils left the school to obtain employment in life. very school, another pupil is a clerk to one of our leading merchants, another pupil is now employed in a piece goods shop, another pupil has become a compradore. I see another pupil has become an assistant in his father's business. Some of them have gone into business on their own account. One of them, I see, has become a medical student. Well, I read that, with great interest, but on looking a little closer at the list I see it is not a Chinese boy who has become a medical student, and this brings me to a suggestion I have to make to Mr. STEWART. I should like very much to ask Mr. STEWART whether it might be possible in connection with this school to do anything in the way of promoting medical education among the Chinese. (Applause.) We a large and excellent institution called the Tung Wah all know that there is in this Colony Hospital, supported and managed by the leading Chinese residents. Can we in any way combine clinical teaching which might be received in that establishment with a little instruction in physiology in this school? Will it be possible for Mr. STEWART, having consulted with the Colonial Surgeon and with some of our medical friends and the coramittee of that institution, will it be possible, I say, for Mr. STEWART to form a scheme by which we might have some young Chinese trained to a knowledge If he succeeds in putting a plan, a practical plan, before me, I certainly will consult my honourable friends on the Council as to providing funds for carrying it into effect.
I am bound, as the Governor of this Colony, to say that there is one object of public instruction that above all others should engage my attention. Nothing is now so universally recognised as this fact, that education is the greatest enemy to crime, and therefore it is my duty, and has been since 1 arrived here, to consider how far our educational system co-operates with the Government in the repression and in the prevention of crime. On this subject, I noticed a paragraph in the last report of the fact that whilst there were 26,247 children in the Colony, only 4,640 were attending school. my friend Mr. STEWART which is undoubtedly a very serious one. At the end of his report he mentions Deducting those under the age of six, there are, he says, no less than twelve thousand children of age Where are they? Well, as you go along to to attend school who are attending no school whatever. East Point, you have an opportunity of seeing some of these little boys. They are running about in the streets, picking up bits of coal or other articles that may fall from the bags that are carried from the stores to the ships. They are the very class a Government is bound to educate. As you come along here, you see numbers of them also. I say it is my first duty to endeavour with Mr. STEWART to educate as many of these uneducated children as we can. (Applause). I therefore contemplate consulting my Council upon the establishment in this Colony of an industrial school, and of extending the reformatory system, such as it is at this moment. It is our duty to do so, a duty we owe not only to the children, but a duty we also owe to the tax-payers of this Colony, to prevent our juvenile population from growing up into a criminal class. It is our duty on all hands to endeavour to diminish that serious number of twelve thousand which Mr. STEWART mentions. (Applause). I may tell you my own experience in the very last Colony I had the honour of governing I was looking only a few weeks ago over a parliamentary return laid before the House of Commons, in which it is said by the legislature of that Colony, that one in eighteen of the population are attending school. Well, in this Colony the number is only, as far as I have been able to ascertain, one in fifty-two, so that there is here a very large margin for educational work. We have much to do, and crowded as this hall is
told me so, many of the leading officials in the public service have told me that since this year established they find the tone of the service has improved and they have now an admirable staff of a clerks. I may add that in India a similar result has occurred. The system was, to a great extent,
brought into operation in the time of Lord LAWRENCE, and his present brilliant successor, Lord I anden pupils attending the school. I asked Mr. STEWART this morning how many of these were has borne testimony to the fact that the system of open competitions for the appointments in India has been most beneficial to the administration of that great Empire. Under these circumstance I thought it possible, perhaps, to introduce the system into this Colony, and accordingly we have had already one or two examinations. On one occasion there was a clerkship worth £200 per annum It was a Chinese clerkship, and usually such a post was given by the Governor the Colony, who looked over his list of applicants, and gave the appointment as he might think best but I thought it well to try the experiment of an open competition. Accordingly, I asked the head of the departinent (it was in the Magistracy) to become an examiner, and Mr. MAY was good enough to undertake the duty. I also asked a Chinese scholar, Bishop BURDON, and my Right Reverend friend consented, and to these two, I added Mr. No CHOY, a Chinese gentleman who is now a member of the English bar. Well, these three examiners were good enough to prepare the examination papers, and they made their report to me in course of time. I was disappointed, undoubtedly, at the result of that examination. The examiners reported that none of the candidates passed the examination sufficiently well to entitle them to the appointment. The examination consisted of translating a document which had come to the Magistracy in the ordinary course of business, a Chinese document, into English, I of translating the deposition of a witness taken at the Magistracy some weeks before into Chinese, and in reading and writing from dictation. That was a simple test, and, nevertheless, cleven candidates having presented themselves, I regretted to find that the examiners could not recommend to me any one of the eleven as having properly passed the examination. Now, it would be, I think, very foolish for us to shut our eyes to a fact of that kind. The examination could hardly be simpler than it was The clerkship to be given away was of some value, $80 a month, and the result was certainly somente disappointing. But, I venture to repeat what I at that time put in a minute, published in the Gaze that fooking at the report of the examiners, though I regretted the result, I felt the Chinese students who competed at that examination had shown great intelligence and industry, and I had every ho that at a subsequent examination some of them would be successful. I have no doubt that, in sub sequent examinations some of them will be successful. Whatever scheme I may establish, that scheas of examination should be in accordance with the educational position of the Colony, and in endeavouring to introduce this system, we must not fly too high at first, but if possible bring our standard down that which we know to exist in the Colony. And on this subject, I am bound to say-my friend Mr. STEWART mentioned there was a position in the Customs given by Mr. BREDON, which appointment has been awarded to-day to a Chinese youth whom I see here on my right--it is fair to mention that two of the best pupils in this school declined to take the small appointment given by Mr. BREDON. does not at all follow that the best pupils of this school, or of the others in the Colony, aspire Government employment. I may say for my own part, though I have the honour to be in the service of Her Majesty, I would not recommend the youth of this Colony, or any other, to look forward Government employment as the sole end or aim of their education. Fortunately, we are living in hof European medicine? centre of a great mercantile community, and I believe the small number that competed for the clerkship to which I have been referring is, to some extent, owing to the fact that many who could undoubte(Applause). have passed that examination with credit, preferred, and very rightly preferred, to devote themselve to other pursuits. Now, in giving whatever appointments may be at the disposal of the Governor a this Colony, I shall still adhere, within certain safe limits, to the arrangements already announced up this subject, but I believe I will be justified from time to time in selecting clerks from young men may be recommended to me by Mr. STEWART or other competent gentlemen in the colony. To gi occasionally an appointment by open competition, and on the other hand to retain in my own little share at all events of that patronage which all Governors heretofore have kept in their own hin exclusively, will, I believe, not be detrimental to the public service of Hongkong. (Applause).
Now, ladies and gentlemen, you are all aware that the subject of education is not one upon which people in this Colony have been silent. For many years past it has been discussed in every shape a form, and indeed I was not many hours in the Colony before it was brought to my notice; "even befor I went down to the Council Chamber to read Her Majesty's commission, I was advised by the intelligent organs of the Press to announce what was called my policy on the subject of education However, I had other things to do, and in addition to that, I thought it well to pay some attention t the actual educational condition of the Colony, to study it on the spot, before I ventured to expres any opinion. And what is my policy? It is to promote Education; and I may say in one word, that in doing this, I shall be most happy, during the five or six years that it may be my pleasure to be ber to do all in my power to promote the success of this institution, the Central School. (Applause.)
When I visited it the other day and saw Mr. FALCONER and the other gentlemen going throug the daily routine of their duties, I was struck by some incidents, which it is well for us to bear in mind because they suggest the possibility of improvements which I know Mr. STEWART has at heart. visited one large class-room, indeed a sort of double class-room, on the other side of that passage In that room I should think there must have been a hundred and fifty Chinese youths who we being instructed by three Chinese teachers. They were reading the Chinese classics. I found the the three Chinese teachers who were instructing them in the Chinese classics had themselves-day, we must have many halls like it filled before the public instruction of Hongkong will be on the
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