PART III
DEVELOPMENTS IN STUDIES AND TEACHING.
There are certain general considerations which affect fundamentally our recommendations for the development of the University.
In any university institution worthy of this name it is essential that teaching and research should both play their full part in the programme and that the primary objects should be the advancement of learning and the training of undergraduate and post-graduate students. We are fully aware that this principle must involve financial commitments of a substantial kind, com mitments moreover which must seem disproportionately large when the probable number of students is considered. We are however convinced that the respect of the Chinese people for learning and high standards of scholarship makes it imperative that this principle should be fully observed in the planning of the revived University of Hong Kong.
Faculty of Arts.
Our detailed consideration of the position of the Faculty of Arts have led us to the conclusion that there should be as a minimum five Departments varying in size and complexity, each of which should provide both for undergraduate and post-graduate students. These Departments re English Language and Literature, Chinese Language and Literature, Social Sciences, History and Mathematics. In addition to these there should be a Department of Philosophy and one of Geography. In these two Departments we are proposing a somewhat smaller provision for the present. Further there should be a Department of Education organized as a separate unit in the Faculty but with close liason with the other Departments in Arts and Science. In this Department the provision should be specifically for post- graduate students. There should also be opportunity for practical in- struction in French, and, at no distant date, adequate provision for the study of Portuguese. We are not at present proposing a separate Department of Modern Languages, but we look forward to the time when such a Department will be instituted. In particular we hope that the development of Portuguese studies will prove possible, partly because of the important place which the Portuguese held in the early western relations with the Far East, and partly because of the valuable contibution made to Hong Kong throughout the British period by its subjects of Portuguese origin whose language is still Portuguese.
Conception of the Function of the Faculty of Arts.
The primary function of the Faculty of Arts will be to train students in the proper disciplines and methods of English and Chinese Languages and Literatures, History, Philosophy, Mathematics and the Social Sciences. Undergraduate students in these subjects will prepare for Pass or Honours Degrees in all Departments. It is hoped that several Honours Schools will in fact be inaugurated from the start. The general principle which we should suggest for the consideration of the Senate of the University is that in every Department. which is headed by a Professor an Honours Course should be contemplated at an early date. In all these Departments further it is of great importance that provision should be made for post-graduate study. Research in the strict sense of the term must in the circumstances of the case be more practicable in some subjects than in others, for in some the necessary materials may for some time be lacking. Even in these cases however the provision of post-graduate courses will be of special importance. It is at the post-graduate stage, when students have already received their basic training in the disciplines and methods of their chosen subjects, that work can properly be one of a kind particularly suited to the ultimate object of the University. The training of students to understand and interpret western civilization and culture, particularly its British variant, to the peoples of the Far East is in ourview a
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