CO129-519-2 Estimates for 1930 19-9-1929 - 19-9-1929 — Page 187

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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Account. I believe there was a time when there was a separate fund for widows and orphans but this has long since been merged in the Colony's general funds.

The Colony may at some future time be called upon to make a capital provision for these liabilities.

University.

I see there are two grants to the University, one of $50,000 and the other of $40,000, (items 25 and 26 on page 102 of the Estimates). The University serves a most useful purpose not only as an educating factor but in providing the Colony with useful citizens. I am some- times inclined to wonder whether either this Government or the commercial concerns of this Colony avail themselves sufficiently of the facilities which our University provides. It appears to me there must be many positions which our University graduates could fill with ease and possibly distinction,

My personal opinion is that our contribution to the University is wholly insufficient.

The conception that the University is a luxurious appendage to the ordinary educational course still lingers here, though it has been entirely abandoned in England. Universities are no longer the preserves of the intellectual rich but are accepted as an integral part of the community's life. They are expected to perform a social service for the whole surrounding district by maintaining and improving the cultural standards, by providing a steady stream of highly educated men and women for the various professions and commerce and by increasing the sum of human knowledge.

There also seems to be an impression abroad that because a University accepts Government assistance it must of necessity sacrifice its dignity and lose its independence. If that were so, then there is not a University in Great Britain that can command respect. They have had to ask for a substantial dole which has been the more readily granted because of the very important part the modern University must play. This Government aid too has been given without imperilling the autonomy of these institutions in England for there has been no interference of any kind on the part of the Government as appears from the very interesting speech of the Right Honourable H. A. L. Fisher in his centenary address at University College, London, in April 1927.

Up to the conclusion of the Great War, the Oxford and Cam- bridge Universities did not require Government financial assistance, but at the conclusion of the War it was found that they would not be able to continue their activities as in the past unless substantial Government financial assistance was granted, and this applied even more to the other Universities.

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