568 THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 23RD NOVEMBER, 1878.
perhaps suffice to purchase stationery, but certainly not to provide a passage from England, and here you are supporting a middle-class school destroying voluntary effort. This question, as my Honourable friend well knows, has been argued before. The Central School, it is said, is a secular one, and the State, forsooth, is to spend nearly all its money on secular education, and in a country like this, under a Christian Government, we are to say to St. Paul's College, because the Bible is taught there, you must occupy a secondary place, and we shall give the greater part of the grant to a school which is purely secular. My Honourable friend refers to ecclesiastical influences. Let me tell him the most active friends of education in this Colony are the missionaries of all denominations and the societies to which they belong. Who are the men who visit the schools, who are always to be seen at the schools? The missionaries. But, forsooth, in this Colony we are to have another system-a system which, let me remind my Honourable friend, exists in no other part of the British Empire, a system by which we are to support one party, the secular party, in opposition to the ecclesiastical influences he refers to. In Ceylon and Singapore, the Eastern Colonies nearest to us, the rule is, no matter who occupies the school, no matter whether the Bible is taught in the school or not, the Government will give that school the same support as it will to a purely secular institution. The State, you say, is secular, and therefore the school to which you give the vote should be secular. That is a fallacy. It is not accepted in England, and I am happy to say Her Majesty's Government have recognised in my own country the fairer principle of payment by results. If my Honourable friend would endeavour to follow the example of Englishmen he would see at once the thing to be accomplished is Education, and, to achieve that, payment by results. The way to obtain Education is not to taboo a man because he teaches the Bible. But there is something else. Is the Central School purely secular? What is taught in the Central School? The Central School is a school where religion is taught, but it is not the Christian religion. In the Central School there are books in use every day inculcating upon the students who go to that school what is called ancestral worship. They are in the list of printed school books. Every day they are used. In other words, the keystone of the religion of China is taught in that school, and, forsooth, because in a school not half a mile away, in St. Paul's College, because the Bible is taught, the other school which teaches the religion of China is to receive nearly the whole of the Government grant and a miserable pittance be given to St. Paul's College. What is the result to St. Paul's College? Bishop BURDON told me he feared he would have to close it at the end of the year; it could no longer compete with the Central School. I have ventured to a few friends to express a hope that some means may be found to prevent that, but if it should come to pass that that valuable institution, which gave a sounder English education to children in the time of Bishop SMITH, Bishop ALFORD, and the present Bishop than has been given during the whole régime of the Central School-I say it will not be creditable to the Colony if St. Paul's College is to be driven from the field on the ground that it did not ignore religion. But I have some reason to hope that St. Paul's College will yet be saved. What does the head of the Church Mission say on this subject? He takes great interest in education. His society all over the British Empire does. What is his objection to the Central School? That it destroys voluntary effort, and that that school is supported by the State because it is supposed to be purely secular. Now, is my Honourable friend prepared to enter the lists against the whole of the religious education party, not only in this Colony but in England, where those who desire that the State education should be purely secular are still a very small number? But there are others to whose views my Honourable friend ought to pay some attention, and they are the parents of those children who go to our schools. Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY, the last time he was at the Central School, said he was prepared in matters of education to pay entire deference to the views of the parents of the oh men who go to school. Now, has my Honourable friend taken any pains to ascertain the views, first, of the Christian parents, and, second, of the Chinese parents? I have done so with great care, and I can assure my Honourable friend the Christian parents totally differ from him.
Honourable W. KESWICK.-I expressed no opinion with regard to the teaching, and I am not aware your Excellency is acquainted with my views on the subject. I referred to the cause of the delay in the building of the school, and that there was a rumour I should like have set at rest that it was an ecclesiastical difficulty. I do not admit for a moment that your Excellency is acquainted with my views.
HIS EXCELLENCY.-I hope my Honourable friend is in favour of perfect equality in matters of education, and I trust that when the question comes before us, after Her Majesty's Government have considered my recommendations, I may find him then supporting the views I have expressed and which undoutedly prevail in England and prevail throughout the vast majority of Christian parents in this Colony who send children to school, and throughout the whole body of Chinese who have communicated with me over and over again on the subject. They naturally say we wish to have some little management in the school in which our children are to be educated, and for which we pay taxes. The Chinese inhabitants are entitled, for two reasons, to have some voice in the management of that school. First, they are the parents of the children who attend the school, and secondly, they are by far the largest tax-payers in the Colony, and when they come to me and tell me the objections they have to it and the changes they would like, can I conceal these facts from Her Majesty's Government? I must tell the truth to the Government, and I must let Her Majesty's Government distinctly understand that if they desire to have an education here in accordance with the wants and wishes of the vast majority of the parents of the children, in accordance with the views of the Chinese community, as well as in accordance with the principles followed in every other part of the British Empire, some change must be made in the existing system; and if any change is made it must be a change in the direction of having perfect fair-play and even-handed justice for all. I am not prepared to carry out any scheme that is to be made an agent for still further destroying voluntary effort in this Colony, but I yield to no one in an anxious desire to make the Central School more useful and efficient. I think the Secretary of State was right when, referring to Mr. STEWART's reports on the examination of the boys in English, he referred to the lack of English teaching as a grave defect in the Central School. The reports were sent home, with Mr. STEWART's explanations, and Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH speaks of it as a grave defect. Well, I appeal to you all, whether I did not take steps to remedy it. I laid before you the whole question. We had a Conference on the teaching of English at the Central School, and changes are going on in the direction of teaching English efficiently. Whatever can be done to render it more efficient I am prepared to do, but I am not prepared to recommend Her Majesty's Government to spend more money on the Central School until Her Majesty's Government have fully made up their minds as to the principle on which the money for the education grant is to be spent. My Honourable friend has said not one word as to those little children running about the streets, and if we are to educate them we must not be spending too much money on a middle-class education for people who can afford to pay for it in great measure for themselves.
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