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Non-Chinese Boys.
They will most of them understand spoken English well.
Their first year's education will consist of lessons tending to cultivate memory, to teach them the elements of Arithmetic and to read and write. It will be broken
into short lessons and will be con- bined with "action-song &c."
Chinese Boys.
None of them will understand English.
It will consist of the mastery of the art of reading and writing, and as much colloquial English as they can assimilate with a little Arithmetic
in which they will soon be far beyond the non-Chinese class. They will also be pursuing the study of their own language.
The difference will continue in each class. The
Chinese boy will spend hours a week on the practice of Colloquial
English and of writing idiomatic English and of translating from and
into Chinese. Be will be mentally and physically far superior to the
little boys with whom his limited knowledge of English must class him.
As time goes on after say 3 years his
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knowledge of English will be so much increased that he will be better
able to study side by side with non-Chinese boys and the arguments
against amalgamation will be lessened. At Queen's College however
by what seems to me an extraordinary disregard of expediency, the
amalgamation ceases and the differentiation begins at this point.
My contention may be summed up in an exaggerated
example. Non-Chinese and Chinese should be taught apart, for the
reasons which would urge one to dissuade a Frenchman desirous of
learning English from attending an English Infant School.
(Sd.) E. A Irving.
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