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ed in 1927, one is a mill engineer in Java and the other is a student apprentice with the British Thomas-Houston firm, Rugby, England. One of the two mechanical engineers who graduated in 1927 is also a student apprentice with the same firm.
Sooner or later China will have to carry out all sorts of public works some activity is apparent even now. When this day of real development arrives, the University will undoubtedly be called upon to deal with a steadily, and even rapidly, increas- ing demand for admission on the part of those young men who want to be engineers. Meanwhile the problem of taking into the University indentured apprentices from local engineering workshops is no nearer solution. The Employment Committee of the University has addressed Government with an urgent re- quest for the establishment of an efficient institution in which apprentices and other workers could continue their education during their off-hours. No reply has as yet been received to this communication.
ments.
FACULTY OF ARTS
The Faculty comprises six groups of studies and two depart- The number of students on the rolls of the Faculty on the 31st December, 1928, was 95 as compared with 90 on the same date in the preceding year. Twenty-two of the 95 students
were women.
The number of students taking English in the Faculty of Arts during 1928 was 83. The Professor of English remarks that the standard of attainment in the first year classes is very unequal and that this constitutes one of the chief difficulties of the English department. He observes that the difficulty could be overcome by demanding a higher standard of English in the Matriculation examination, but that this would mean excluding from the University many Chinese of considerable mental calibre who, although backward in English at the beginning of the course sometimes succeed in drawing level with the others, or even surpassing them, before the course is finished.'
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The Professor of Education remarks on the great number of students who take the science, rather than the general, course. He thinks that this is probably in accordance with the general trend in China towards scientific method, but that it is in part due to the better provision in staff and equipment made for the science side of the University.
It is
The most urgent needs of the Faculty of Arts are a chair of philosophy and a readership in geography. Logic and ethics are taught, but for this purpose a part-time lecturer has to be engaged. This is a most unsatisfactory arrangement. Indeed, it is ludicrous that a University whose obvious business it is to bridge over the chasm which now yawns between Western and Chinese culture, should have no philosopher on its staff. almost equally ludicrous that there should not be on the University staff any one with any special knowledge of geography. For some three years previous to May, 1928, geography was taught by a member of the English staff who had been specially trained in the subject, but he resigned last year and such teaching of geography as is now being attempted has had to be left to the voluntary efforts of the Professor of Political Economy (who has recently resigned), the Professor of Physiology and the Reader in History.
By the end of 1928 the Faculty of Arts was in a position to admit students into a Chinese school. At present this school is controlled and directed by the Chinese School Committee-a sub-committee of the Faculty of Arts. It is hoped that from this school a Chinese faculty will eventually develop. But such a development is a costly one.
THE LIBRARY.
The
At the end of 1928 the Library contained some 25,061 volumes. This figure excludes some 663 sets of Chinese books in 27,865 volumes and some, 2,000 which came to the University with the Morrison collection. The amount of money which the University can afford to spend on books is lamentably inadequate, for the range of the University's interest is a wide one, and there is no other serious library of any sort in the Colony. University received some generous gifts during the year, notably some 150 publications from the Hispanic Society of America. The medical library is not housed in the main University building but in one of the outlying medical schools. This is not a good arrangement. A student who goes to look up some medical matter must often require some general books of reference. accommodation in the Medical School now devoted to the medical library, is badly required for the more specific medical purposes for which the building was provided.
9
The
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