American help in China.
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education in China ads, "To put the matter in a nutsholl, if Hong Kong University is to achieve a status at which it can discuss on equal terms with the best Universities of China, such as those of Picching, Chinghua, Nankai, Chikiang, then it must itself take on the qualities of a great University. This needs at least gomo strong research schools.
The most informed criticism of its failure and the most confident hopes of success were spoken by teachers of the University who, not depressed by the completely inadequate provision of time and equipment in which for years they had been required to work, met at intervals in the Japaneso internment camp at Stanley, defying prohibition of meetings, to console themselves with visions of what they could make of the University if only the funds were forthcoming. Of the intellectual quality of the stulents they had no doubt; and first hand knowledge of the Japanese habits of mind convinced them that in the worlds of the mind and spirit, the British have a congenial task in the rebuilding of a region in which mental and moral barbarity had done its worst.
Meetings of old students of the University in Hong Kong and Shanghai have passed resolutions praying for an early reopening of the University, not as it was, but on more generous lincs; and again the stress is on its power to aid in the rehabilitation of China.
17. In not one of the opinions to which reference has been made is there any suggestion that we should enter into competition with America. It is generally expected that American aid to Chinese Universities will increase rather than diminish, that still larger numbers of Chinese students will find the way to America made easy for ability. It would be absurd to embark on any rivalry of the kind. Underlying all, is the conviction that there is something unique that we can offer, distinctively British quality in Western civilization which makes no slight appeal, to the Chinese who frequently have expressed admiration of British methods in higher education, of the independence, the self-reliance, the sense of
that
responsibility, the balance and senso of proportion that scem to the marks of an English education. We believe these things are good and we therefore think that our credit is involved in
maintaining
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