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THE QUESTION OF PRESTIGE
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The Committee appreciated that the death of the University would be a shock to the Colony and to sections of opinion in China and the Far East, It proceeded to consider therefore whether it would be justifiable to
store the university on net more than its formɛr seale
use of the claims of sentiment and prestigo, the practical value of the continuity of tradition, and the
d to avoid the embarrassing political implications involved in a decision to close the University. The information at the disposal of the Committen led it to believe that the University had to a great extent succeeded in maintaining British standards in its undergraduate training and examinations, but that university standards in research had been quite beyond its powers. The Committee recognized that a university in Hong Kong would in future have to stand far more severe tests of comparison Gilan before the Japanese occupation, in the face of the rapidly rising standards of the Chinese universities. If revived merely on its inadequate pre-war baris, the University would relatively be in an increasingly inferior position. It could not fairly claim to be a university unless its staff possessed the quality and facilities enablin: thom to make significant contributions to knowledge by research. Even in its undergraduate work, it would, in the new competitive conditions run the risk that ita degrees mécht come to be held in so little esteem that
paduates would be required in other Fritish, or in chine ana merican universities, to pursue further courses of undergraduate studies before they could be admitted to postgraduate courses. Such a position would be discreditable, indeed intolerable # suitish
"
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Miggity.
The Committee judg ¿ that the retentiousness maintaining a VAT institution with the title and by Buperficial attributes of a university would, Vy đơ more damage to British prestige than the Trank and intelligiblc decision now to substitute for the university a group of professional schools of first-class standards.
The Committee wo blue of opinion that neželen BIG present noeds of Hong Kʊn itself, nor the requirements of students in other British territories in the Far East, nor the two together, constituted sufficient justification for the great effort required and the heavy burden on local pandannes entailed in the establishment of a full university on a permanent basis. The Committee was, further, of opinion that to establish an institution of less than university standard and to call it a university would be seriously damaging to British prestige. Unless, therefore, there were different reasons for restoring a full university, the Committe felt that it could not recommend the continuation of the University of Hong Kong.
THE OFFORTÜHI Y FOR A SISTING ARGLC-CHINESE UNDERSTANDING.
The more deeply the Committee studied the University's past and the present situation, the more impressed it became with the need and opportunity for a University in liong kong which could serve the purpose originally envisaged for it by Lord Lugard A "the maintenance of good understanding with the neighbouring country of China". During the war, in February 1945, the Colonial Office expressed to the Far Eastern Committee the War Cabinet its conviction that "from the chaos of war an opportunity has arieen which can be used to establish the University finally on the lines intended by its founder and prove it to be an important practical contribution to anglo-chinese goodwill and understanding in the future", The Foreig. Office, et
Iyi 1939 had one sine, recorded itt 9pi don that the University is
in
a valuable
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