villages the number of scholars, desiring to learn both English and Chinese at the same time, is too small to justify the additional expense involved. The need of a Training School to provide teachers for the Government Schools (outside the Central School) makes itself constantly felt and this need is not likely to be supplied by the training class now formed in the Government Central School.
13. The work of those Government Schools and Aided Schools which give but a Chinese education in the Chinese language, has continued during the year 1880 its usual course, and calls for no special remarks. Special effort has been made, by allotting separate prizes at the annual prize-giving, to extend the teaching of geography and of Chinese composition in these Schools, and some improvement has taken place in these respects. In the case of one Aided School, that at Aberdeen, the unhealthiness of the locality, which compelled the Government to remove the Police Station, has also necessitated the removal of the School to the opposite island of Aplichau. In the case of another Aided School, that of Shamshuipo, where the Aided system year by year showed very poor results, an attempt has been made to improve the School by the application of the Grant-in-Aid system. The first year's trial did not improve matters, but there is hope that in course of time better results may be obtained.
14. As regards the Grant-in-Aid Schools, the year 1886 has afforded fresh proof that the alterations introduced in the Grant-in-Aid Scheme in 1883, principally affecting schools in Class I (i.e., Schools giving a Chinese education in the Chinese language) are beneficial. The subjoined Comparative Table, exhibiting the working of the Revised Scheme (of 1883) which came into operation in the year 1884, clearly proves, as far as Schools in Class I are concerned, that the desire of the Government to reduce the earning power of these inexpensive Schools (whilst increasing the pensum of work to be done under some Standards), and to encourage the teachers to bring more children under instruction in the higher Standards without skipping the lower ones, has been attained.
TABLE SHEWING EFFECTS OF REVISION OF SCHEME (1883) ON SCHOOLS IN CLASS 1.
Standards Number of Scholars Examined Amount earned by Passes (apart from Capitation Grant and Needle work) 1884 1885 1886 1884 1885 1886 I 76 128 271 $146 $160 $462 II 557 823 652 $3,124 $3,052 $2,496 III 470 446 474 $2,208 $2,196 $2,184 IV 120 128 138 $840 $624 $640 V 26 44 $210 $320 VI 2 9 11 $24 $108 $120 Total 1,251* 1,560 1,590 $6,572 $6,350 $6,222*This reduction was caused by local disturbances unconnected with the Revision of the Scheme.
15. As regards the Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class III there are, this year also, but few special features calling for comment. The history and composition teaching in Schools in Class III continues to show improved results. The facility with which Chinese children, after five years' teaching of the Romanized system, write composition exercises in Romanized Chinese Colloquial, is quite equal to the average attainments of English children in the corresponding English subjects, whilst the same Chinese children would require additional five years' teaching to gain similar facility in expressing their thoughts in the written Chinese character. Nevertheless, I think, so far as practical utility is concerned, a child educated in a purely Chinese School in Class I, able to read and write a Chinese letter in the Chinese character, possesses a better training for practical life than the Romanized system, encroaching by the time it demands upon the time absolutely required for the teaching of the written Chinese character, can possibly give, unless the school-age is abnormally extended.
16. The Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class IV continue to improve year by year in organisation and effectiveness of teaching. It is noticeable that the Portuguese community are every year sending more and more children to pass first, for three or four years, through a purely Portuguese School before sending them to an English School. The more this movement extends, the more solid appear to be the results of the English teaching in the higher Standards. As regards the English Schools in Class IV, the Diocesan School and St. Joseph's College require special mention.
The Diocesan School continues, as before, to distinguish itself by combining with solid teaching in the ordinary Standards also the special subjects of physical geography, algebra and Euclid, good results being exhibited in every Standard. St. Joseph's College has made a new move, in the year 1886, which is a move in the right direction. Whilst formerly teaching Portuguese and Chinese youths in separate classes, an arrangement has been made to confine this separate system to the lower Standards, and to move all Chinese scholars who have passed Standard III into the European Division where now Chinese and Portuguese youths are taught side by side. By this arrangement, the Chinese gain the advantage of association with Portuguese who are better speakers of English, and the Portuguese gain at the same time the stimulus arising from emulation. The consequence of this measure was also a considerable increase of numbers in the Chinese Division. At the annual examination, this Chinese Division did very well in all subjects, and in some classes the English reading was exceptionally good. As to the European Division of St. Joseph's College, there has been manifest progress in all directions. Quarterly examinations were introduced in 1886, in addition to the weekly examinations, and the organisation, method and discipline of this Division now leave little to be desired. The boys in Standard III were somewhat weak in grammar, and those of Standard V in composition (principally in consequence of the admixture of Chinese), but the composition in Standard VI was very good on the whole, and so also the arithmetic in all Standards. The cheerful spirit animating all the classes of the European Division is, side by side with the strict discipline of the whole School, a very noticeable feature of St. Joseph's College.
17. The needle-work examination was conducted in 1886 on the plan resorted to in 1885 and explained in my last Annual Report. The needle-work submitted for examination was done in my presence and then forwarded, together with a Schedule detailing the particulars of each child, to a Lady who chose her own Committee and adjudged the merits of each piece of work. This Committee reports having observed real progress made since the previous year. The Committee find that most teachers have been very successful, but that some seem hardly qualified for their position as needle-work teachers. In some cases the Committee were sorely puzzled, the needle-work done in the presence of the examiner being bad and dirty while the other portion of the work was good and clean. It is possible that this may be accounted for by assuming that the children were nervous in the presence of the examiner, but even that does not fully explain the very great difference noticed in some specimens of needle-work. The thanks of the Government are again due to the Lady and her Committee who conducted this needle-work examination with such painstaking minuteness and scrupulous impartiality.
18. The educational movement of the Colony received a considerable stimulus in the year by the introduction of the system of the Cambridge Local Examinations and by the arrangements made for establishing a Medical School in connection with the Alice Memorial Hospital, admission to which may soon become a keenly contested prize, like the Scholarships of the Colony, if the students receive regular and progressive teaching. With the increase of stimulants tending to promote mental exertion, it behoves educationists also to keep an eye on the encroaches which stimulated mental exertion is, especially in this climate, liable to make upon health, and to discern at an early stage what children are and what children are not fitted for the severe and protracted exertion of the mind called forth by a multiplication of competitive examinations. In this Colony, where there is hardly any sphere for the industrial education of the children of European and Portuguese residents, the tendency which Mr. GLADSTONE has described as the fault of modern education, is specially strong, viz., to overcrowd the professions that depend upon the mind as distinguished from those dependent on the hand. There is serious risk in trying might and main to fit young people for the learned and clerical professions that they may be spoiled for handicraft only in order to discover too late that they have not the natural gifts indispensable to success in the more intellectual order.
19. I enclose the usual Tables, I to XVI, containing the Educational Statistics for the year 1886.
I have the honour to be,
The Honourable F. STEWART, LL.D.,
Colonial Secretary.
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
E. J. EITEL, A.M., PH.D.,
Inspector of Schools.
villages the number of scholars, desiring to learn both English and Chinese at the same time, is too small to justify the additional expense involved. The need of a Training School to provide teachers for the Government Schools (ontside the Central School) makes itself constantly felt and this need is not likely to be supplied by the training class now formed in the Government Central School.
13. The work of those Government Schools and Aided Schools which give but a Chinese education in the Chinese language, has continued during the year 1880 its usual course, and calls for no special remarks. Special effort has been made, by allotting separate prizes at the annual prize-giving, to extend the teaching of geography and of Chinese composition in these Schools, and some improvement has taken place in these respects. In the case of one Aided School, that at Aberdeen, the unhealthiness of the locality, which compelled the Government to remove the Police Station, has also necessitated the removal of the School to the opposite island of Aplichau. In the case of another Aided School, that of Shamshuipo, where the Aided system year by year showed very poor results, an attempt has been made to improve the School by the application of the Grant-in-Aid system. The first year's trial did not improve matters, but there is hope that in course of time better results may be obtained.
14. As regards the Grant-in-Aid Schools, the year 1886 has afforded fresh proof that the alter- ations introduced in the Grant-in-Aid Scheme in 1883, principally affecting schools in Class I (Le. The subjoined Comparative Schools giving a Chinese education in the Chinese language) are beneficial. Table, exhibiting the working of the Revised Scheme (of 1883) which came into operation in the year 1884, clearly proves, as far as Schools in Class I are concerned, that the desire of the Government to reduce the earning power of these inexpensive Schools (whilst increasing the pensum of work to be done under some Standards), and to encourage the teachers to bring more children under instruction in the higher Standards without skipping the lower ones, has been attained.
TABLE SHEWING EFFECTS OF REVISION OF SCHEME (1883) ON SCHOOLS IN CLASS 1.
Number of Scholars Examined.
Standards.
1884.
1885.
Amount earned by Passes (apart from Capitation Grant and Needle work).
1886.
1884.
1885.
$
1886.
$
I.,
76
128
271
146
160
462
II.,.
557
823
652
3,124
3,052
2,496
III.,
470
446
474
2,208
2,196
2,184
IV..
120
128
138
840
624
640
V.,
26
44
230
210
320
VI.,
$2
9
11
24
108
120
ཤྲཱ མཾ
1,251*
1,560
1,590
$6,572
$6,350
$ 6,222
*This reduction was caused by local disturbances unconnected with the Revision of the Scheme.
15. As regards the Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class III there are, this year also, but few special features calling for comment. The history and composition teaching in Schools in Class III continues to show improved results. The facility with which Chinese children, after five years' teaching of the Romanized system, write composition exercises in Romanized Chinese Colloquial, is quite equal to the average attainments of English children in the corresponding English subjects, whilst the same Chinese children would require additional five years' teaching to gain similar facility in expressing their thoughts in the written Chinese character. Nevertheless, I think, so far as practical utility is con cerned, a child educated in a purely Chinese School in Class I, able to read and write a Chinese letter in the Chinese character, possesses a better training for practical life than the Romanized system, encroaching by the time it demands upon the time absolutely required for the teaching of the written Chinese character, can possibly give, unless the school-age is abnormally extended.
16. The Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class IV continue to improve year by year in organisation and effectiveness of teaching. It is noticeable that the Portuguese community are every year sending more and more children to pass first, for three or four years, through a purely Portuguese School before sending then to an English School. The more this movement extends, the more solid appear to be the results of the English teaching in the higher Standards. As regards the English Schools in Class IV, the Diocesan School and St. Joseph's College require special mention.
The Diocesan School
333
continues, us before, to distinguish itself by combining with solid teaching in the ordinary Standards also the special subjects of physical geography, algebra and euclid, good results being exhibited in every Standard. St. Joseph's College has made a new move, in the year 1886, which is a move in he right direction. Whilst formerly teaching Portuguese and Chinese youths in separate classes, an rangement has been made to confine this separate system to the lower Standards, and to move all Chinese scholars who have passed Standard III into the European Division where now Chinese and Portuguese youths are taught side by side. By this arrangement, the Chinese gain the advantage of association with Portuguese who are better speakers of English, and the Portuguese gain at the same time the stimulus arising from emulation. The consequence of this measure was also a considerable increase of numbers in the Chinese Division. At the annual examination, this Chinese Division did very well in all subjects, and in some classes the English reading was exceptionally good. As to the European Division of St. Joseph's College, there has been manifest progress in all directions. Quarterly examinations were introduced in 1886, in addition to the weekly examinations, and the organisation, method and discipline of this Division now leave little to be desired. The boys in Standard III were somewhat weak in grammar, and those of Standard V in composition (principally in consequence of the admixture of Chinese), but the composition in Standard VI was very good on the whole, and so also the arithmetic in all Standards. The cheerful spirit animating all the classes of the European Division is, side by side with the strict discipline of the whole School, a very noticeable fenture of St. Joseph's College.
17. The needle-work examination was conducted in 1886 on the plan resorted to in 1885 and explained in my last Annual Report. The needle-work submitted for examination was done in my présence and then forwarded, together with a Schedule detailing the particulars of each child, to a Lady who chose her own Committee and adjudged the merits of each piece of work. This Committee reports having observed real progress made since the previous year. The Committee find that most teachers have been very successful, but that some seein hardly qualified for their position as needle- work teachers. In some cases the Committee were sorely puzzled, the needle-work done in the presence of the examiner being bad and dirty while the other portion of the work was good and clean. It is possible that this may be accounted for by assuming that the children were nervous in the presence of the examiner, but even that does not fully explain the very great difference noticed in some specimens of needle-work. The thanks of the Government are again due to the Lady and her Committee who conducted this needle-work examination with such painstaking minuteness and scrupu- lous impartiality.
1886
18. The educational movement of the Colony received a considerable stimulus in the year by the introduction of the system of the Cambridge Local Examinations and by the arrangements made for establishing a Medical School in connection with the Alice Memorial Hospital, admission to which may soon become a keenly contested prize, like the Scholarships of the Colony, if the students receive regular and progressive teaching. With the increase of stimulants tending to promote mental exertion, it behoves educationists also to keep an eye on the encroaches which stimulated mental exertion is, especially in this climate, liable to make upou health, and to discern at an early stage what children are and what children are not fitted for the severe and protracted exertion of the mind called forth by a multiplication of competitive examinations. In this Colony, where there is hardly any sphere for the industrial education of the children of European and Portuguese residents, the tendency which Mr. GLADSTONE has described as the fault of modern education, is specially strong, viz., to overcrowd the professions that depend upon the mind as distinguished from those dependent on the hand. There is serious risk in trying might and main to fit young people for the learned and clerical professions that they may be spoiled for handicraft only in order to discover too late that they have not the natural gifts indispensable to success in the more intellectual order.
19. I enclose the usual Tables, I to XVI, containing the Educational Statistics for the
I have the honour to be,
The Honourable F. STEWART, LL.D.,
Colonial Secretary.
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant.
year
1886.
E. J. EITEL, A.M., PH.D.,
Inspector of Schools.
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