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quietly and thoroughly educational work of the kind
wanted in Hong Kong. He has a sense of humour and
would, we think, be tactful and get on well with
people. The Board of Education papers bear out this impression. Sir Andrew Caldecott felt that
there was a risk of his taking things too easily. I suggested that he would not have got where he is in the Board of Education if he had been slack, and that if there had been much danger of slackness he would not have been recommended by the Board.
5.
He raised no question of pay or prospects, but would, I think, consider only secondment. He
might on quite general grounds, e.g. the effect of
the climate on books, turn down an offer.
But he
was more favourably inclined at the end of the inter-
view that he seemed to be at the beginning.
6.
Mr. Nicol's career up to 1935, when he
retired from Malaya, is recorded in the files of the
Colonial Office and was eminently satisfactory.
Educated and trained in Scotland, served for 13
years in the Malayan Education Service as master in
the Penang English School and as Inspector of
Schools. He persuaded a medical board to retire
him, though they advised him to wait for another
six months before a decision was arrived at, because
he felt unfit for future service in Malaya owing to
an attack of pneumonis and a bicycle accident, and
also what he thought at the time to be heart weak-
ness. He told us that since then he has been passed
completely sound so far as work in England is con-
cerned. He has not yet been put in charge of a
district, since he became H.M.I. only in January,
1936. I understood from the Board of Education
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