CO129-531-9 Hong Kong University- proposal to found faculty of Chinese studies 17-10-1930 - 10-6-1931 — Page 52

UNIVERSITY

Tel. No. 28056.

Code: A. B. C. 5th. Ed.

-2-

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OF HONG KONG.

because no one talked Cantonese in Hong Kong. Then again, as

regards the Chinese Classics, some say that a knowledge of Confucius

is necessary if Chinese nationality, to say nothing of Chinese

morality, is to survive.

Others say, what is the use of teaching in

a republic a canon of ethics and behaviour which hinges on a

divinely appointed Emperor as the centre of the social and political

ค

system.

One of the ablest young administrators in Nanking, one

Foo Ping-sheung, whose father was a Chinese Classical Scholar, and

who was himself driven through all the Chinese Classical before he

was ten, maintains that he got no benefit out of this study and

that some of the cardinal principles of Confucius were denied by

Mencius.

If the Chinese are unanimous in thinking that some

amount of Chinese Classics is an essential part of school education

let them and the sinologues get together and agree as to what

is the irreducible minimum. If the irreducible minimum is such

that some boys have to stay in school till they are 25 before they

can pass the Matriculation test in Chinese Literature and Language,

then it does seem to me that there is some thing impracticable some-