Copy of letter from the Vice Chancellor of Hong Kong University to Mr. Pickthorn, dated 3rd Se, tember, 1938.
154
Dear Mr. Pickthorn,
I have had e chance this morning of talking with the Governor about your visit to Malay. ke you may know it was his decision, in which I entirely acquiesced, that the sabatance of the liong Kong University Report which created so unk feeling here, did not warrant request to the Secretary of State for the dispatch of & University Commission to Hong Kong. Thle Whɛ not e decision that our wisdom suffioed, but rather that the Univer- sity should first try to clear up the confusion. An ettempt has been made at this with a far greater measure of support from the men who had been offended than one could have anticipated. fying the organisation of the University, cutting down expenditure in certain directions and savoosting increased expenditure else- where at best merely conciliated the staff and what goes for public opinion in the Colony: it has done nothing to induce flow of life through the University. Two new projects, one for a Teachers' Treining Institute and the other for an Institute of Public Health, if properly organised, muy serve not merely Colonial but Southern
Chinese interests.
Simpli-
It is now, when we are bound to look to the future, taut expert advice would be most valuɛble. My conclusion is that we have suffered in the phat because there has never been a oleur view of what we nuve been trying to do. If the University is merely to serve the Colony, a view that in practice, if not in policy, has prevailed, I am of opinion that we are pretentious and very expensive. If, on the other hand, the work of the University has a relation with British policy in China, then we have not done anything like enough. I doubt whether we are offering the Chinese anything that they cannot do just as well themselves.
ay conclusion, in which the Governor very largely agrees, is tant we had better now make up our minds about what we
re to
do hereafter, adjust our work to the needs of the Colony or offer
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