CO129-594-2 Rehabilitation of Hong Kong University. For extracted photographs see CN 3-45- Advisory Committee report 1-7-1946 - 19-8-1946 — Page 138

165

Perfallen

(54

Start here

-14-

which we suggest for the consile ration of the Sen-te of the University is that in every Department which is headed by a Professor an Honours Course should be contemplated at an early Jate. In all these Departments 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; in some the necessary materials may for some time be locking, but even in these the provision of post-graduate courses will be of importance. It is at the post-graduate stage, when students have alrendy received their basic training in the disciplines and mcthous of their chosen subjects, that work can properly be done of a kind particularly suited to the special purposes 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 our view a fund you atenee which the University. should fulfil. This purpost can b

realised only if there are active Dietgracnto courses where que can be encourage to discuss and stuly problems which require for their lui a considerable background of knowledge.

-

·

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE)

مقام

re

The task of the Department

ntf English must cesarily be wofold. Special emphasis wi bviously be

plarer

on the training of stuents in a knowledge of the language, by methods developed in Modern Language Departments in Universities in this country. An effective mastery of spoken and written English should clearly be one of the characteristics of students who have taken a University curse at Hong Kong. The use of the latest te chniques

would

bc needed for this purpose, and special attention いい nccessary to phonetics. Close co-operation with the

Department of Education would be a natural development in this connectiɔn. The second fundamental object is the intruction of students to a critical appreciation of western civilizati ›n and its variants, specially the British, through the study of English Literature. It is only upon the basis of a thorough training in both language and literature that stuents could be prepared in advanced work. One of the main lines f post-graduate work might appropriately be the comparative study of English and Chine se literary forms. We suggest that one at least of the lecturers in the Department should be a Chinese well-grounded in his own and in English literature.

DUPARTMENT CF CHINESE (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE):

36

This Department would give Chinese from oversens and some non-Chinese students an elementary training in the Chinese language and an introduction to its literature, but its main work would be among Chine se students already well-grounded in this subjuct. It might also become a research centre for British sinologues, like the Ecole Francaise de l'Extreme Orient, at Hanoi. Useful work might be a ne on the Chinese linlects and in literary nl historical research. Et woull certainly be surprising if this Department became a greater centre of Chinese stulics than those in Ching itself, but in any case its staff woull be gesential for the purpose of comparative studies undertaken in conjunction, with Du prtments of English Language and Literaturs, of Social Sciences and of Philosophy.

1994

DEPARTMENT

17