125
want Civil Engineers and neither has any advantage in training facilities; possibly Singapore is better off than we for Electrical Engineering - I do not know. But here again there seems to be a case for keeping step in developments. In Dentistry students would do the pre-clinical work and Engineering students would do their pre-technical science studies in their own College.
In the Arts and Sciences the advantages of close collaboration are less in normal courses than in provision for post-graduate research. Clearly neither place could attempt to cover more than a fraction of the new branches in Physics, Chemistry and Zoology and Botany. There are certain lines of research which have special relevance in the two places. Already we have launched a fairly ambitious scheme of fisheries research but we cannot pretend to have the facilities for adequate work or training in Forestry or Agriculture, though Hong Kong requires trained workers in both these fields. In all these matters, in History among the Arts planning in collaboration should produce better results and with greater economy, than competitive or uncoordinated development.
(I find that in explaining, I have slipped into the tone of advocacy. However I'll let it stand).
There is much more to be said on the head of co- operative planning but I have put down the argument I used with Channa in our many talks. This is something entirely different from arguing that neither Hong Kong nor Malaya should have its local University. In the first place a healthy University in Malaya must become progressively more and more an Anglo-Malay institution as a Hong Kong University must be Anglo-Chinese.
Το lump the two together as "British" is to embark on a dangerous and futile project. We are trying to make good Malays and Chinese not imitation Englishmen- but I need not labour this point with you! For Hong Kong I would maintain that however well we serve the needs of the Colony and of Overseas Chinese we still are failing of our primary justification unless our first aim is to give of the best that Great Britain can contribute to Continental China. And as I have said, until, I imagine, you are tired of the story, America is doing so much and so well in education in China, that unless we can offer something worthy of our own tradition and achievement, had better, as a University, take this convenient occasion of a quiet demi se.
I am not writing this letter to oppose the new project but as an outline of a positive policy that I believe to be practicable, economical and sound in an educational way.
Yours sincerely,
(Sgd.) D.J. Sloss
Page 130Page 131
Please
get your office to type thes lafore you by to read in.
DI.S.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.