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MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN HONGKONG.
under the lead of Dr. Stewart, furnished unwittingly by this very Grant-in-Aid Sehewe the means to develop religious edu- cation to an extent never before witnessed in Hongkong, and to enable the de- nominational institutions to outstrip by far, in aumber of Schools and scholars as well as in popularity, the secular Schools of the Government. For six yeare, indeed, a few Mission Schools groaned in the chains of secularism, but when, by what the aderers of the secular system called a few merely verbal alterations,' the secular elementary Grant-in-Aid Scheme of 1878 had been transformed into a Scheme which left the primary Mission Schools absolutely unfet- tered in religion and free to develop into secondary Schools, the denominational Schools, and particularly those of the Pro- testant Missions, multiplied and improved at an extraordinary rate, apeedily making up for lost time, and yet, though rapidly distancing the Government Schools, hardly able to come up to the educational wants of an even more rapidly increasing population. The highest praise for this wonderful success is due in the first instance to Dr. Stewart, who deftly launched the Graut-in- Aid Scheme in 1873, and, in the second instance, to Governor Sir John Pope Hen- Lussy who successfully reformed it in 1870.
On 14th February, 1973, Dr. Stewart submitted for the approval of the Govern- mout a Grant-in-Aid Scheme differing in no material points from Foster's Education Act 01 1870 except that, while the latter, respect- ing the conscientious religious scruples of parents, left the knotty point of religious instruction to the discretion of the Seboo Bourds, the former dispensed with School Boards and religions education altogether and made it a preliminary condition of a grant that four consecutive hours per diem should be set apart for purely secular instruction and that the grant should be paid exclusively for results ascertained by examination in sccular subjects. The chuf- ing point of this yoke of secularism was by
no means the allotting of the grant on the exclusive basis of an examination in s eniar subjects on the contrary, all the Mission Schools, were and are quite willing to sub- it to this test- but what worried all the Mission Schools under this Scheme, and soon caused the Catholics to withdraw altogether From it, was the iron rule us to four con- secutive Imura,' necessarily the very best part (he forenoon) of every day, to he devated to exelusively secular instruction. This was the sore point, and it was a sore grievance to the friends of religious educa- tion, because this appropriation of the very best part of every day to exclusively non- religious work was felt by sobolars and teachers as a virtual exaltation of secular education and practical relegation of re- ligion to a back seat. In vain did the writer of this implore Dr. Stewart to make a concession on this point. Dr. Stewart was inexorable; he considered this very point the backbone and marrow of his whole Grant-in-Aid Scheme,
Excellently adapted as Dr. Stewart's Grant-in-Aid Scheme was to the peculiar circumstances of the Colony, it contained- like Foster's Act-sowe radical defects, which immediately made themselves felt by causing considerable friction. No one has more clearly and concisely defined those defects than an American Educationist (Franklin Rhods) who took great pains in studying ( May, 1888, the history of our Grant-in-Aid Scheme. Referring to Dr. Stewart's Scheme of 1873, he says; --' The friction lay in the following conditions:—
First-The plan was applied to elemen- tary Schools only and so tailed to fill the demands of a complete system.
*Secondly-It gave no aid to any School whose average attendance was under twenty and so left the weak School without belp at ita most critical time.
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Thirdly-A School must devote at least
four consecutive hours a day to secular in- struction, and thus it not only exalted th
MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN HONGKONG.
secular in undue measure but virtually ex- eluded religious teaching,
• Fourth'y-The text-books must be gutli- cient as regards seentar instruction, thus making the whole standing of the Sekool turn on its secular character."
Before the Scheme was formally approved, Dr. Stewart, acknowledging that there were no Chinese schoullooks in existence satisfy- ing the demands of his Sabeme, recom- mended (17th April, 18781 that the Go- vernor should appoint a Committee for the compilation of Chinese schoolbooks with Dr. Eitel as Chairman, This was done. A Committee of Protestant Missionaries (together with Dr. Stewart) immediately set to work and compiled a series of three graduated Chinese Readers after the pat- torn of the Irish National Schoolbook So. ciety's publications, each Reader containing a few deistio-religions articles, devoid of A prelí- anything essentially Christian. minary hornbook containing graduated exercises for writing Chinese was also adopted. These books are in use in the Government Schools and Grant-in-Aid Schools to the present day, But no English Readers, adapted to the peculiar needs of children whose mother tongue is other than English, have ever been prepared here, though this want is badly felt. On 24th April, 1873, the Grant-in-Aid Scheme was approved by the Governor in Legislative Council and the following six Schools, at- tended by a total of 442 scholars, were at once placed under the Scheme:--St. Sa- viour's English Day School (Catholic). St. Stephen's Chinese School (Church Mission). Victoria English Boys' School (taught by Mr. Hanlon, managed by Mr. Ryrie and described as 'andenominational', Wantsai and Taipingshan Chapel Schools for Chinese (London Mission) and a Baxter Vernacular Chinese Girls School (Church of England).
In his report for 1873, Dr. Stewart states that the Scheme has met with the approval
of all denominations, Catholis and Protest- aut alike,' But that the approval of the
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Missionaries, who took up the Scheme to give it a fair trial, was not an unqualified one, will be seen from the following extract from local paper.
The China Overland Trade Report (summarizing several articles which had appeared in the columns of the Daily Press and referring to errtain eor- respondance which had appeared in the China Mail) contains the following editorial remarks in its issue of 25th December, 1873, A lively controversy has been go- ing on with reference to the system of education provided at the Government Schools. That system is based upon the secular principle, and as far as possible all religious lessons are eliminated; but on account of the extent to which ideas con- neeted with quasi religious systems among the Chinese are mixed up with everything in Chinese books, it is impossible entirely to eliminate them from the books used to teach the natives their own language. On account of this difficulty, Dr. Eitel of the Londou Mission has attacked the system, arguing that the Schools should be made christian as otherwise we exclude Christian- ity whilst we teach Paganism. The sup- porters of the secular system, in reply, point out that this is the only system which is suited to the Colony and prove their asser- tion incontestihly by the official statistics which present a total of over 1,300 Chinese scholars at the Government Schools against 147 (sic) at the Missionary Schools.' Un- fortunately for the framer of this argument, the proportion of scholars at Government Schools, as compared with the number of scholars attending the Missionary Schools, drereased steadily from year to year, and ten years later, the relations were reversed, for there were (in the year 1883) 3,517 scholars attending the Christian Mission Schools (under the Grant-in-Aid Scheme) and only 2 080 scholars attending the secu- lar Government Schulars. Last year (1890) the proportion was 4,656 scholars in the Christian Mission Schools to 2,514 sobolars in the secular Government Schools, And
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