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language and teaching neither English nor Chinese. The fourth class consisted of 8 Anglo-Chinese Schools (with 1,160 sclrolars) giving a European education in both the English and Chinese languages. The fifth class consisted of 6 Schools (with 688 scholars) giving a European education exclusively in the English language.
7. Ever since Schools were established in this Colony, a disproportionate amount of attention has been given to the education of boys as compared with girls. In the early times of the Colony thet") was good reason for that, for the Chinese community consisted during the first two decades of the Colony's existence almost exclusively of men. It is only since the last 20 or 25 years that the Chinese began on a gradually increasing scale to settle down here together with their families, and it is very probable that the census of 1881 will show that the Chinese population of the Colony will in the near future attain to an approximately normal proportion of males and females. I shewed in my Report for last year that, thanks to the successful working of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme, there has been, ever since the year 1873, a steady increase from year to year, both in the number of Schools established in the Colony for the special purpose of promoting female education, and in the proportion of girls to boys under instruction in the various Schools of the Colony. Among 5,974 children attending Schools under the supervision and examination of the Government, there were 4,195 boys and 1,779 girls in the year 1887.
This constitutes a slight increase as compared with the statistics of the preceding year. But the gradual progress made in this direction becomes more striking if we compare the proportion of girls to boys during the last twenty years. In 1867, among 700 children then attending Schools under Government, the girls counted only 6.86 per cent. In 1877, in the case of 3,144 children attending such Schools, the percentage of girls had risen to 19.84 per cent, and in the year 1897 we had, among It is evident that female education in 5,974 children in School, girls to the number of 29.77 per cent. this Colony, although in a backward condition and requiring to be fostered in every legitimate way, has in it the elements of healthy progress.
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8. Apart from the 94 Schools under Government supervision and examination, with their 5,974 scholars, there were, in the year 1887, about 110 Private Schools (including Night Schools) at work in the Colony, attended by about 2,300 children, so that the total number of scholars under instruction in As the population of Schools of all classes amounted to 8,272 scholars, distributed over 204 Schools. the Colony, apart from the Army and Navy, amounted, in the year 1887, to about 181,000 souls, it appears therefore that about 4.54 per cent of the whole resident population were under instruction in Schools, public or private, within the Colony. In European countries, where education is compulsory, the number of children actually attending School formas generally about 10 per cent. (more or less) of the population. Under the exceptional circumstances of this Colony and in the absence of . compelling attendance at School, it would be unreasonable to expect an equally high percentage here. European families still continue to send their children to Europe for reasons of health or to complete their education, and Chinese families, although they have now to some extent taken to bringing up their children in the Colony, send them away to their ancestral homes on the neighbouring mainland at the slightest provocation, such as the outbreak of epidemic disease or the spread of vague rumoms We have no accurate data to ascertain the number of children of concerning expected disturbances. local school-age (6-16 years) residing in the Colony in the year 1887. When the last census was taken (in 1881), the number of children of local school-age approximated 9 26 per cent, of the popula- tion. Applying this proportion to the population of the year 1887, it would appear that the number of children of local school-age amounted in 1887 to 16,843. Deducting therefrom the number of children actually in School (8,274), it appears that the number of uneducated children in the Colony, in 1887, amounted to 8,569. In other words, a little under one half of the children of local school-age actually came under instruction in Hongkong during the year 1887. There is nothing abnormal in this discrepancy. Educational statistics of quite recent date show that in England and Wales some- what over one half, and in Ireland less than one half, of those children (5-18 years of age) who ought to attend School, actually come under instruction. There are in this Colony hardly any industries which employ great numbers of children. One Sugar-Refinery employs a small gang of children in packing cube sugar in tins, and public road-making gives here and there parents an opportunity to employ their children in breaking small stones (to be mixed with cement), but there is very little in- The employment of children terference at present with school attendance arising from these sources. by their parents in carrying loads of soil or bricks to or from building sites has very much decreased during the last 10 years. The principal causes that interfere with school attendance in the Colony are domestic employment within the family, bond-servitude in the case of purchased servant girls, and fishing in the case of a few villages. The Government Schools (outside the Central School) and the Chinese Grant-in-Aid Schools offer, in every part of the Colony both in town and villages, an ordinary Chinese education absolutely free of charge. In the Aided Village Schools (also giving an ordinary Chinese education in the vernacular) a small charge is made by the village communities amounting, on an average, to 30 cash and 3 catties of rice (total value about 12 cents) a month for each child in actual attendance. There are moreover 5 Government Schools in different parts of the Colony which give an elementary English education (up to Standard IV) absolutely free of charge. It is only in the middle-class Schools of the Colony which give an English education (with or without Chinese in addition) and in Private Schools that fees are charged such as are beyond the means of the poor, Thanks to the Grant-in-Aid Scheme, the lowest classes of the Chinese population have the most liberal
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provision made for them by Government to furnish their children with an ordinary Chinese education. The mass of the Chinese lower classes do not yet sufficiently appreciate an English education, because their necessities demand Chinese rather than English knowledge. But the well-to-do classes of the Chinese community are now from year to year becoming more alive to the advantages of an English elucation (based on 3 or 4 years previous study of the Chinese classics) and the existing educational achinery is quite capable of any modification that way be required in order to keep pace with the gradually increasing demand for a higher and broader standard of school teaching. One great charac- teristic of our educational system is that, being the outcome of a slow but natural process of evolution, it is not only in vital sympathy with all the constituent clements of our. heterogeneous community, equitably representing the varions factors of differentiation, but it represents also a mighty force of unification. In social life and even in commercial life we have in this Colony sundry unbridged chasms, widely separating the different strata of the community, and this exclusivism seeks al o to secure se- parate Schools for separate classes of society, but the innin current of the educational movement in the Colony runs so strongly in the direction of unity that the Schools of the Colony are either forced to abandon their exclusivism or to eke out a scanty existence by constant appeals to the charity of a small section of the community. The Government Central School, the largest and most flourishing educational institution in the Colony, was originally established for Chinese only hat was soon compelled by the sheer force of circumstances to admit all other nationalities, and here we see now all the strata of Colonial society brought together in a harmonious co-operation which has (to a certain extent) a unifying effect on society itself. St. Joseph's College, originally established exclusively for Portuguese boys, soon found itself compelled to admit also Chinese boys, who were at first taught in entire separation from the Portuguese, but this partition wall had also to be lowered after some years, and now we see in the upper classes of St. Joseph's College Portuguese and Chinese harmoniously intermixed. Even the Hongkong Public School, established on a strictly exclusivist principle, being intended for Euro- pean Protestants only, found itself compelled to open its doors also to Portuguese, Jews and Mahome- dans. The writer of the article on Hongkong, in the book published under the title "Her Majesty's Colonies," concludes a fair sketch of the educational system of Hongkong (reprinted in a recent work entitled The Schools of Greater Britain"), by saying that this system is very well adapted to the views of the Chinese inhabitants, as a great element in popularising British rule and inducing respect- able Chinese to settle in the Colony." What our educational system has thus done for the Chinese, it is also doing for all the other nationalities represented in the Colony, by striving to remove all unnatural distinctious of race and creed and to bridge over every chasm and gulf that divides one class of society from the other, in order to unite all in mutual subservience to the interests of the common weal.
9. In one respect most of our educational agencies are labouring under a serious disadvantage. The question of accommodation seriously affects the results of school teaching in every country, and more particularly so in a tropical climate. Yet in this very matter of house accommodation most of the Schools in the Colony are in a very backward condition. Among our 204 Schools there are hardly ten or twelve which are located in suitable premises. The vast majority of our Schools are at present accommodated in ordinary semi-Chinese or Chinese dwelling houses, ill suited for the purpose of class rooms and are in most cases deficient as regards light and ventilation and especially in respect of lavatories. Even the Government Schools, with the exception of four, are all more or less hudly housed, being located in narrow tenements of Chinese construction which were originally built for Chinese domestic purposes and for which the Government pays a heavy monthly rent. The Grant-in-Aidl Schools are, with a few exceptions, in the same plight. The Aided Schools in the Villages are mostly accommodated in window-less cottages, generally of a worse type than the dwellings of the villagers themselves, wanny of these Schools receiving light and ventilation exclusively from the open door-way. There is therefore great need for improvement in the matter of school accommodation. But at present there is little prospect of an early change for the better. House rent has risen enormously in the main parts of the town. All new houses, that have been built of late, are of smaller dimensions than the old houses of the town. Houses coutaining rooms suitable for the purposes of a School have of late become very rare in the Colony. The Goverment and private Managers of Schools are thus being forced to face the problem of providing school accommoda- tion of a suitable and sanitary type. The Grant-in-Aid Scheme offers indeed Building Grants under certain conditions and one very fine College (St. Joseph's) has been built with such aid, but Managers of Grant-in-Aid Schools appear to consider the restrictions with which Building Grants are hedged in too irksome still, although these restrictions have lately been modified to meet some objections. The Government has also lately made several grants of building sites for Village Schools, but in the thickly populated parts of the town there is a lamentable death of available sites suitable for Schools. The sanitary supervision of Public Schools which, under the Grant-in-Aid Scheme, devolved hitherto upon the Inspector of Schools, has at my request been entrusted, since 1887, to the care of the Sanitary Board, a measure of some importance as, in the case of an outbreak of epidemic disease, Schools serve as powerful centres for the propagation of the infection.
10. The results of the annual examinations of the Schools under the supervision of the Govern- ent will be found detailed in Table X-XV appended to this Report, and as far as the Government Central School is concerned, in the Report of its Headmaster. A few supplementary statistical details
and general observations regarding the principal classes of Schools may however be of interest.
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