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providing additional masters and improved appliances. It is committing itself more deeply, more irrevo- cably to the support of a purely secular system of education. The secular schools are the Governmčat schools, with all the prestige and pre-eminence belonging to that position and a large additional sums of will money will be wasted on them. A boy who now costs at the Central School from $20 to $30 a year not cost less than $50 or $60 at the new Schools, an extravagance which has never been witnessed in any other British Colony; leaving without education more than 14,000 poor children, who will naturally grow up rogues and thieves in the interests of secularism. Nor it is necessary to expend so much money on behalf of one Secular School on the pretext of forming interpreters to the Government, as experience proves, that good interpreters can be had cheaply from Denominational Schools. Denominational Schools are refused recognition as such. Government will only look at them in their secular aspect, and even then gives them but a very disproportionate share of its countenance and support. They are to be subordinated to the Government Schools and under the Government secular inspectors. This is an unsatisfactory position and one we can hardly accept with any degree of self respect.
We are under the conviction that the Government in favouring so extravagantly the secular system of education is not carrying on in Hongkong the wishes of the majority. It is a right inherent to the parents to choose the system of education for their children and if we take into consideration the number of child- ren frequenting school in Hongkong, we shall see that the secular Government Schools with all their immense advantages have a less number of pupils than the denominational Schools with all their innumer able disadvantages. Number together the pupils frequenting Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Confucionist Schools you will have not less than 3,000, while from the 2,000 and odd children frequenting the Govern- ment, Schools you have to take away the pupils of some of the Village Schools, where in spite of the prin- ciples proclaimed by the Government in favour of purely secular education, the system of education is practically Confucionist. Even if we consider the tax-payers we are of opinion, that were the Chinese residing in Hongkong to be formally and clearly asked, whether they prefer that the money they annually pay should be employed in giving to Chinese children a purcly secular education, or in imparting them an education according to their religious ideas, I am sure two-thirds would be in favour of the latter.
Government must either cease to interfere directly in the work of education by handing its Schools over to some secular organisation, and putting all the schools alike under a liberal grant-in-aid scheme or, if it is impossible for it now to draw back from the position it has taken up, then let that portion of the Government scheme which affects denominational Schools be so modeled that religionists and secularists derive equal benefits from the Government grants.
If Denominational Schools enter into the Government system, they enter as an inferior class, under restrictions and not entitled to equal consideration and equal rewards with the Government Schools.
Till this inequality is removed how can we enter into the Government system? If we do, we ratify the view the Government takes of us and condone the injury done us in the past. It is enticing Christian boys to go against their conscience, if you favour the secular schools more than the denominational ones.
This inequality of the Denominational and Secular Schools and school systems in the eyes of the Government is the great obstacle to a speedy settlement of the education question. His Excellency the Governor has keenly scized the point and clearly demonstrate the possible solution in his speech at St. G Paul's College on the occasion of the last distribution of prizes, which took place there. Tet that be done and every thing will be right. Grant us equality in any shape or form and we shall be content.
I sunex copy of a semi-official letter dated the 10th July last addressed by me to the Acting In- spector of Schools Dr. ETTEL.
In it, I detailed the alterations I should like to see made in the Grant-in-aid Scheme. I can add nothing to what I have said in that letter. I have only to suggest now that if the Grant-in-aid scheme should be amended in the sense of that letter, and if the capitation grant should be increased to something like an adequate figure, and some provision could be inade for building grants to Denominational Schools, there would then be something more like equality of treatment and some more reasonable hope of a satis factorily settlement, but these four things are indispensable:--
1.-Proportionate building grants for Denominational Schools.
2.--Adequate capitation grants.
3.-Payments for results at such rates as will enable a properly conducted school to compete on something like even terms with the Government Schools.
4.--Freedom from restrictions as to methods so long as the required results are obtained. Apologising for the length to which this letter has run, I have the honour to be
Sir,
Your most obedient humble servant,
Bishop
lesa
Vicad Apostoling
MY DEAR SIR,
Ramax Cxruone Mission HOUSE,
Hongkong, 10th July, 1878.
I have the honour to return herewith a letter of DR. BURDON on the subject of grants-in-aid, which you were so good as to leave with me for perusal and consideration. I have already more than once pointed out the gross inequality of the amounts assigned for the standards in purely Chinese schools and in schools for Europeans. Of course I do not mean absolutely inequality, but inequality when compared. with the expenditure necessary for the maintenance of each class of school. The grant-in-aid given to a Chinese school nearly covers the whole annual expenses of the school, or at least goes a long way towards it. The largest grant-in-aid that can be earned by a school for Europeans will not cover one month's necessary expenditure in salaries of teachers. The grant-in-aid scheme is liberal as regards the purely Chinese school. It is niggardly as regards schools for Europeans.
It is difficult to imagine how with the enormous expenditure of the Central School present to his mind, MR. STEWART could have prepared a scheme so unfair to such schools as that of St. Joseph's,
I suppose it is useless to ask now for any change in the amounts assigned to each standard. Your proposal to give a capitation graut, however, affords an easy remedy. Let the capitation grant for every European child receiving a suitable education be raised to at least six dollars. This will go some way towards removing the inequality complained of and for the attendance for capitation at 160 days as it is elsewhere.
Referring to our conversation on the subject of the grant-in-aid scheme generally, I shall put down here in writing our objections to this scheme as it now stands. I shall point out in what way it might easily be amended, so as, without undergoing any substantial alteration, to get rid of those objections, and then I shall add a few words from our stand point on the educational policy of the government generally, I shall be glad if you can lay my views before His Excellency the Governor, giving him of course to understand that this communication is at most semi-official and that if he wishes to have my views in a more formal shape I shall be happy to communicate them officially in answer to any application to that effect.
The Grant-in-Aid scheme is based on the principle of payment by results. It says in effect to the Managers of schools: Satisfy the government that during the year you have educated so many boys up to a certain standard and we will pay yon for what you have done at so much per head. The grant-in-aid scheme professes to be indifferent, within very wide limits as to how the result is attained. It professes to leave the teacher, the books, and the religious instruction to be given in the school to the free choice of the school manager. Why does it not carry out this principle to its fullest extent and leave the manager free in all respects to attain the required results how he pleases, so long as they are satisfactorily attained? Of course, government must exercise a certain amount of supervision, a very large amount if you will, over government aided schools, but if they are open to inspection at all times, if the Iuspector has the power to reduce the entire grant-in-aid by cumulative penalties under the heads mentioned in section 3 of the Grant- in-Aid Scheme, published in last Saturday's Gazette, and if the Government has the right to withdraw or refuse a grant on assigning sufficient reasons, it seems to me that enough is done to socure the proper management of the school without dictating how many days each boy must attend school in the year or how many hours each day he must give to particular studies. The use of the word "secular" as applied to instruction throughout the Code and the stipulations in Sections 1 and 2 that "secular" instruction should be given for not less than four hours daily, and that religious instruction should only be given before or after these four bours secular instruction, are most objectionable to as Catholics, who believe and teach that religion ought to pervade every action of our daily lives, and who, on principle, refuse to disas- sociate religion from education. The phrase "secular instruction" has got, through the writings and teachings of the Secularists, a distinct and definite meaning and implies in their minds and in the minds of their followers, teaching from which faith, religions faith is excluded and in which reason reigns supreme. Our principles are the very reverse of all this, aud our system of teaching corresponds with our prin- ciples. The books we use are drawn up on the plan of combining moral and religious instruction with lessons in reading, in history, geography, and natural science, in fact with everything that is taught. You give us permission to use what books we please provided they contain sufficient matter to satisfy the stand- ards whatever else they may contain. Why not leave our time equally at our disposal, provided we attain the required result of turning out so many boys each year up to the required standards ? If we do not do so, we are punished by a diminished grant.
So long
as the word "secular" now the recognised shibboleth of a class of educationists, remains in the Code we are in danger, at any change in the Inspector, or in the personnel of the Government of Hongkong, of finding our books, our teachers, our methods of instruction, found fault with on the ground
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