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MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN HONGKONG.
salt smuggling and pirating operations with their lawful fishing occupations.
Poor and lawless us must of the Chinese inhabitants of Hongkong were at the time, they were not forgetful of the valus of edu- cation. For at least a century before the British occupation of Dongkong, there were already small Chinese Schools in existence in the villages of Wonguaichung, Stanley, Little Hougkong and Aberdeen. Each of these Schools counted probably, year by year, an average attendance of some ten boys. These scholars, on an average 50 per annum, with their five teachers, represent- ed, previous to the advent of the English, the entire school-going population of Hong- kong, less than one (about .89) per cent. of the whole of the inhabitants.
Each of those 53 solulars used to pay to his teacher, apart from small presents of eggs, fruit or fowls, given at certain festivals, a monthly fee consisting of 30 cash and 4 catties of rice, representing the value of about 12 cents. In return for this fee, the young hopeful Hongkongites were taught to read and commit to memory a list of clan names (Pak-ku-sing), the Three-characters- classic (Sam-tsze-king), the Four characters- classic (Txin-taze-man), and the rare case of boys attending school for mora than three years-some of the so-called Four Books of ancient Chinese literature, In addition to reading and memoriter exer- cises, the scholars were taught to write Chinese characters, on wooden tablets at first, uud, in the case of the few who could afford the additional expense, even on paper (by means of copy slips which had to be traced through tissue paper). During harvest time in the Hakka villages, and during the annual fishing seasons among the Panti fishermen, the schools were closed and the teachers left without fees, except- ing what they earned by acting as letter- writers, accountants, fortune tellers and geomancers for the people in general.
However little positive knowledge, upart from mere reading and writing, was dis-
seminated by these Schools, the teachers' personal influence, rather than their teach- ing, served to keep alive among the people of Hongkong the national respect for Con- fucian tenets of morality and ceremonialism. Thus these little Schools did after ull a small modicum of genuine educational work by partaking of the general character of Chinese education which leans on ethics as Europeau education leans on religion.
Such was the state of education in Hong- kong previous to, and at the time when, the British tag was for the first time hoisted at the foot of Taipingshan, on Tuesday, 20 January, 1811, and when formal possession was taken, for all time, of the whole Island of Hongkong, in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
There is no record of any new School having been established in Hongkong during the first year of the Colony's existence. The attention of the Guvern- ment and of the European community was much engrossed with the removal of pro- perty and personnel from Masao to Hong- kong, with the selection and laying out of building lots and with the erection of re- sidences, offices and storehouses. Every- thing was altogether too unsettled yet, to admit even of the thought of any measures towards improving the educational condi- tion of the inhabitants. The Chinese alan, the refuse of whose lowest classes began, early in 1841, to flock to the site of the present city of Victoria, consisted during the first few years of our Colonial history, chiefly of boat-people, cuminon labourers, souffld-builders, bricklayers, carpenters, stone-masons, blacksmiths, and provision dealers, all of whom had come to Hong- kong, in defiance of Mandarin prohibitious, for temporary employment rather than as settlers and left their families on the main- land. They uaturally had neither time nor inclination to think of the education of the young. Some Protestant Missionaries, how- uver, and notably Drs. Bridgman, Ball, Hubson, and Reva. W. J. Boone, W. C.
MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN HONGKONG.
Milne and J. L. Schuck, who were settled at Macao at the time, came over to Hong- kong on sundry occasions in spring and summer 1841, to prospect the fature expahi- lities of the Island and to report to their respective Societies as to their making this new British Settlement the headquarters of their future evangelizing operationa Plans were formed and recommendations were made by the Missionaries, but none of them appears to have commenced any educational work in Hongkong during this ärst year of the young Colony's existence.
1842, The Grst to take active steps in this direction appear to have been the Trus- tees of the Morrison Education Society :-- Mesers. Lancelot Dent, Th. Fox, William Jardine, A. Matheson, W. Leslie, G. R. Morrison and Dr. G. S. Bridgman. This Society, organized by British and American merchants in Canton 9 November, 1936), to perpetuate the memory of the late Dr. R. Morrison (the famous pioneer of Protestant Missions in China, who had died on 2 Angust, 1834), had a distinct educational object, viz., the establishment and improvement of Schools in which Chinese youths should be taught to rend and write the English language in connection with their own." The Society started, in 1836, with a sub- errihed capital of $6,000 and a library of 1500 volumes (the first muelens of the pre- sent. Morrison Library in the City Hall), and, whilst commencing operations by sub- sidiary educational efforts made by Protest- not missionaries in Macao, Malacca, Singa- pore and Penang, resolved now at once ta procure two teachers, one from England and one from America, in order to start a School of their own.
No suitable teacher could be found in England, but on 23 February, 1839, the Rev. S. R. Brown frote Yale Col- lege, New Haven, Con. (with Mrs Brown) arrived, and commenced, at Mavao, the study of Chinese. They started, on 1 November, 1839, the Morrison Education Society's School with six Chinese scholars. The attenlause slowly increased to 12 boys
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(in 1840), to 13 boys (in 1811) and to 18 boys (in 1942), who were located as boarders in the Society's House next to St. Paul's at Macan, On 21 February 1812, the Trustees of the Society passed a resolution to the effect that the British Settlement of Hongkong presents a peculiarly eligible opportunity for extending the operations of the Society, as there alone in this country can exist protection and scope for carrying out its views to advantage.' On the same date, the President of the Society, Mr. L. Dent wrote to Sir Henry Pottinger in this sense and applied for a grant of land at Hongkong for the purpose of erecting a School building. The next day (22 February 1842) Mr. Dent was informed that Sir H. Pottinger would at once select and appro- priate a suitable locality for the purpose. A site on the hill, thenceforth cailed Morrison Hill, having socordingly been granted, a deputation of the Committee (Dr. Bridgman, and Messra A. Matheson and W. Leslic) waited on Sir H. Pottinger (5 April, 1842) to thank the Governor for his favour and to beg him to accept the post of Patron of the Society, which nomination Sir H. Pottinger cheerfully accepted. A few days later (9 April, 1842) the Trustees resolved to procura an additional teacher from Yale College as eoadjutor to Mr. Brown, and when Mr Dent made a donation to the Society of $3,000 for building purposes, the erection of a College was at once commenced on Morrison Hill (3 August, 1842), whilst the School was for some time longer continued at Macan, But on the expiry of the lease of the School- house there (1 Nov. 1842), the School was removed to temporary quarters in Hong- kong, with a loss of 6 out of 17 scholars,
1843. No additional educational effort appears to have been made by the European community in the year 1849, but a smail number of Chinese families (shopkeepers, artisans and boat-people) having by this time settled in the new city of Victoria, four or six Chinese elementary Schools appear to have been established in Hongkong, in addi-
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