CO129-304 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [1-4] — Page 28

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those for expenditure on other departments. In some of the

United States, this difficulty is met by endowing educa...

tion with a portion of the revenue from the State Domains.

Is this impossible in Hongkong, or is it impossible to ›

appropriate a fixed percentage" of the general revenue to

education?

(c) Tenuity of knowledge

acquired in Chinese Schools. (See para 10).

7. "So long as 99 per cent of the

boys leave school after only three years study it is

hardly possible to do anything for them beyond "teaching

them to read and write a number of isolated words. It is

only after they have acquired a fair knowledge of the

written character that they can be expected to read sen-

tences or to compose. In primary schools in England compo-

sition is not a subject required for examination before

the 5th Standard, and reading of an unseen" passage is not

required before the 3rd Standard. The language of the text

books used in China differs so greatly from the spoken

language that every, sentence must be translated and

explained before it is intelligible.

8. " (d) Actual and relative

decrease in the number of schools in the three highest

standards of the English Schools. (See para 18).

9.

• The actual decrease is from

812 to 155, and the relative decrease from 22.4 per cent

of all the scholars examined to 18.8 per cent. The actual

decrease is no doubt due to the great demand for Chines0

possessing a knowledge of English. As soon as a boy has

obtained sufficient knowledge of English to enable him to

earn a living as a clerk- and this can be done in the

Fifth Standard-- his father takes him away from school,

10. The

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