134
Chapter 1.
Speech made by the Chancellor, His Excellency Sir Geoffry Northcote, K.C.M.G. at a Meeting of the University
Council, held on the 10th February, 1938.
From the time of its foundation onwards the existence of a University in this Colony has been justified on the ground that it could serve its great neighbour China, the implication being that the needs of the Colony alone could be met by an institution on a lower scale quite recently the University Committee threw emphasis on that function in their valuable report.
Unfortunately, owing to causes so familiar to us all that there is no need to recount them here, the University has not achieved all that it set out to do and the chief issue before it to-day is whether it shall continue to regard the training of students from China as being its vocation equally with the education of Hong Kong citizens in science and art up to the standard requisite for a small British colony: or, alternatively, whether the latter only should be its objective in the future.
I do not think that it will be seriously denied that in order to serve that wider purpose a considerable development of the University's staff and equipment is called for. On the other hand, for the narrower purpose there will be general agreement that the present organisation of the University is needlessly ambitious and costly. Such, at any rate, is the view which the Vice-Chancellor and I hold on this subject.
I am convinced that I may speak not only for the Colony of Hong Kong but also for a great number of British subjects living elsewhere when I say that we should do all in our power to hold to the noble aims which Lord Lugard proclaimed so eloquently twenty-seven years ago. Given that, it follows that our first task must be to discover our shortcomings and our second to bring about their repair. It was with this object that I asked the Vice-Chancellor for a note on the developments in University studies which are necessary for the fulfilment of our wider mission.
Copies of that note have been circulated to you and its contents are up for discussion this afternoon. At the present time I have only one or two comments to make on them. The first finds mention therein, it is that such
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.