CO129-524-2 Hong Kong University- financial position- Chinese studies- future of the Chinese school and the Annual... 27-1-1930 - 12-8-1930 — Page 42

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from the misfortunes of the last four years

Trade is

better than it was but is still far from normal. The

raising of more money for the University locally is not at

the moment an easy matter. The fate of the Chinese Depart-

ment is at the moment trembling in the balance.

✔ In addressing the Annual Congregation in 1927 I spoke

as follows:-

"When the University was first founded it devoted its slender resources to medicine and engineering. There was from the beginning a Faculty of Arts, but it was supported for the first years of its difficult existence by the special contribution and guarantee of a generous and public spirited Chinese gentleman. But it was always in the mind of Sir Frederick Lugard, as it was in the mind of Sir Charles Eliot, that this University should, as soon as possible, take up the comparative study of Chinese and western culture. Unforeseen events inter- vened,

The Great War cane and Sir Charles Eliot went away. The University got into financial difficulties, and, as a result the study of Chinese had to be releg- ated to a position of being a subject which might be taken as an alternative in one of the courses of the Arts Faculty, and that up to the intermediate stage only. We have never had on our staff a full time teach- er of Chinese. All this was of course hopelessly wrong. Accordingly, in the forefront of the programme which we laid before the Indemnity Delegation we placed e scheme for a Chinese Faculty.

"In seeking to establish a Chinese Faculty we have a three-fold aim in view. We must of course teach the Chinese classics, but we do not propose to confine our efforts to the production of old-fashioned Chinese scholars. We reverence the old Chinese scholar, but we realise that while the China of to-day and to-morrow cannot afford not to look back, she can equally not afford to refrain from looking forward. We dream there- fore of a comparative study of Chinese and Western law, history, philosophy, literature and someday perhaps, art. We have already outlined a scheme for the comparative study of Chinese and Roman law. It is only the mis- erable lack of a few paltry dollars which prevents us from making an immediate start with this most essential line of research. Lastly we want to establish a school