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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 30TH MARCH, 1889.
removed then to an Anglo-Chinese School) are Repeating Chinese Classics, Reading and Explaining Schoolbook Committee's Third Reader, Chinese Essay Writing, Writing from Dictation 40 characters from the same book, Arithmetic (up to Division), and Geography (the two hemispheres). This arrangement has now brought the teaching of the Government Schools into conformity with the educa- tional system of the rest of the Colony, and the Aided Schools in the Villages are also having the same system applied to them step by step.
16. The Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class I have suffered, during the year 1888, far more than any other Class of Schools, from small-pox and fever, and also from the excessively high house rents and the consequent movement of the population. Though the total of children enrolled in all Schools has increased, individual Schools in the centre of the town have had their numbers materially reduced, while Schools in the outskirts of the town have profited. But in almost all cases the average of results, as ascertained by the examination, has been in respect of quality below the average
of former years, and the number of children brought under examination has materially fallen off in the case of Schools in Class I, being only 1,533 in the year 1888, as compared with 1,696 in the year 1887, although the enrolment was higher. I subjoin a comparative Table, exhibiting the results of the working of the Revised Grant-in-Aid Scheme of 1883, so far as Schools in Class I are concerned, for whom that revision was specially intended.
TABLE shewing the EFFECTS of REVISION of SCHEME (1883) on SCHOOLS in CLASS I.
Number of Scholars examined in Schools
in Class I.
Amount earned by Passes (apart from Capitation Grant and Needle-work).
Standards.
1884.
1885.
1886.
1887.
1888.
1884.
1885.
1886. 1887.
1888.
I.,
76
128
271
372
279
$ 146
$
$
$
160
462
654
558
II.,
557
739
652
639
752
2,124 2,052 2,496
2,464 3,008
III,
470
446
474
487
336
2,208
2,196
2,184 2,100
2,286
IV.,
120
128
138
153
111
840
624
640
856
888
26
26
44
33
31
230
210
320
250
150
VI.,
2
11
13
24
24
108
120
108
84
1,251 1,476 1,590
1,696
1,533 $5,572 $5,350 $6,222
|$6,432 $6,974
17. It is evident from the foregoing Tables that one aim of the Revision of the Scheme has been partially secured, viz., to encourage the teachers of these purely Chinese Schools to bring forward more children into the higher Standards. This has been attained, as far as Standard VI is concerned, and partially also in the case of Standard V, in both of which Standards the number of children brought under examination has pretty steadily increased from year to year. But after all, to bring only 45 out of 1,696 children, or 55 out of 1,533 children into these highest Standards, is not much to rejoice over. The movement in advance, in this respect, is principally due to the Girls Schools, boys being as a rule drafted off into Anglo-Chinese or English Schools after passing Standard III. It is further satisfactory to observe that the number of children brought forward in Standard I has steadily increased from year to year, but the number of children placed in Standard II (without previously passing through Standard I) is abnormally large, more especially in comparison with the excessively low numbers examined under Standard III. The cause of this objectionable tendency on the part of teachers, crowding as many children as possible into Standard II, to the neglect of Standards I and III, is that the Scheme allows, in the case of Standard II, copy writing to make up for failure in one of the other subjects. Many teachers have accordingly taken advantage of this means of passing children with ease through the examination in Standard II, and habitually crowd as many children as possible into this Standard, putting them through the Reading and Memoriter Repeating drill of one small book which it would be difficult to fail in, and giving the children a great deal of mechanical copywriting to do, which entails little effort on the part of the teacher, whilst Writing from Dictation is almost entirely neglected. By this means the teacher swells the amount of his bonus at the end of the year, at the expense of the real educational interests of the children which remain neglected. This defect in the Scheme can be obviated by abolishing the compensating power of Copywriting (or rather mechanical tracing) in the case of these Chinese Schools. There are other considerations which point in the direction of the advisability of revising the Code. The general tendency which has set in, during the last few years, to aim at a higher
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