CO129-260 - Governor Sir Robinson Acting Governor O-Brien - 1893 [9-12] — Page 88

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in which one set of gardeners is busily occupied in plant-

ing weeds which the other set of gardeners laboriously

strive to pull out one by one. Seeing the impossibility of

learning English and Chinese pari passu, the mass of Chinese

parents now put their sons first for four years or more

through local Grant-in-Aid Schools to read Chinese books

before sending them to Victoria College to learn English

and to keep up their Chinese attainments. But this only

auds to the difficulties. The boys' tongues and ears are

less pliable for English work and the great disparity of age

among the scholars necessitates rapia promotion of inaivi-

auals to the detriment of regular progress. The consequence

is great unevenness in the attainments of every single class

such as compels Masters in the highest classes either to ne-

glect rapidly promoted inaiviquals or to teach the A B C over

again. It stands to reason that the system, and not the Head.

master is to blame, if the results of both the elementary

English and the elementary Chinese teaching of the School

are unsatisfactory, as inaeea they are in all but exception-

al classes cases. Under the present system the School pro-

duces but smatterers in Chinese and stammerers in English.

I can only admire the pertinacity with which the Headmaster

continues to work on, in the face of manifest failure and in the old tralitional groove, towards a solution of this Anglo-Chinese problem which Bishop Smith in St. Paul's Col- lege and Dr. Legge in his Anglo-Chinese College long ago acknowledged themselves unable to solve. But the inherent difficulties of an Anglo-Chinese School naturally unable to produce good elementary English results have been terribly

increased

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