CO129-594-1 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 29-3-1946 - 3-7-1946 — Page 53

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as first-aid measures and must not be allowed to prejudice, or serve as an excuse for postponing, permanent plans. Quite apart from the fact that the cheap and the temporary always prove a false economy in university develop- ment, a university in Hong Kong could not recruit staff or in other ways attain the standards necessary to represent British scholarship and could not become a centre of learning unless it had the self-confidence provided by the intention and assurance of permanence. The purpose it is designed to serve, namely the maintenance of good understanding, is literally a permanent

It should one, whatever changes may occur in the ephemeral political scene. be constructed and planned to survive any change that might take place in the status of Hong Kong; even if a radical change occurred, the University's functions would become more, no less, important as a living source of British invluence and as an established centre of Sino-British contact.

of permanence to which Two practical consequences follow from this principle the Committee wishes to draw attention. The University should have a long- term building plan for the most efficient use of its site or sites, in orde to ensure that each stage of its physical reconstruction or expansion con- tributes towards this final pattern. The University could best achieve permanence if it could be given financial support in the form of endowment, particularly endowment of certain chairs and of some of its special activities such as its scholarship scheme and its library.

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19.

Secondly, the plans for the University must ensure that it has adequate funds, In no sense is the University called upon to compete in size and scope with the great universities on the mainland, which have

It must received and will receive generous financial support from America. however within its carefully chosen field of activity be financially strong in terms of attracting a and stable enough to achieve the highest quality distinguished staff, of providing the staff with adequate time and facilities for research and with study leave for keeping contact with their Chinese and British colleagues, of subsidizing selected students through the provision of hostels so that they gain the full benefit of university life. The history of Hong Kong University in the past thirty years is final proof of the wasteful extravagance of under-financing.

20.

Thirdly, the University must continue to be an autonomous institution. The usual and conclusive arguments for university autonomy need not be repeated. It is sufficient to point out that in addition to these, there is, in the particular case of Hong Kong University, the fact that it would not be the university of the Colony in which it is situated so that local governmental control would be peculiarly inappropriate; the fact that it could better survive political changes if it were an independ- ent, self-governing entity; and the fact that it could more successfully fulfil its special mission if it were formally as well as actually to be free from government direction.

21. Fourthly, the policy governing the resuscitation of the University for its original purpose must rest on an appreciation that that purpose will be achieved by indirect and not by direct means. The Committee does not envisage the University as representing British scholarship by means of lectures on British institutions or British the p thought; such elementary propaganda, would not be compatible with its function as a university. It will have its influence by being an inst: tution of British origin and a centre of learning linked to British standards and tradition; it will represent Britain, not by tendentious studies and teaching, but by providing access to the experience and pro- gress of British science and scholarship and by itself achieving the highest possible standards in its own work, whether that work be related to specifically "British" subjects (such as the appreciation of literature through the study of English literature) or not (as in the case of medicine or statistics). Equally, it will act as a centre of contact between British and Chinese culture by oblique rather than direct methods; it will for example not necessarily specialize in the study of Chinese philosophy, or in hybrid studies like comparative languages or research on the

Such historical and sociological aspects of Western influence on China. studies are likely to arise but they are incidental to the essence of the contot, which is that British anl Chinese scholars will be working in

Col·la ation with the

A.

Ejectare of andive