[ { "id": 207156, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n221 \n\n(4) Diocesan BOYS SCHOOL AND LA SALLE College, KOWLOON \n\nSATURDAY, 4 May, 1974 \n\nThe purpose of this visit is to see and enjoy the grounds and buildings of these two major Hong Kong schools and thereby to learn something of the history of education in the Colony. The visits are entirely due to the courtesy and cooperation of their Head-masters. \n\nThe sites are extensive (23 and 10 acres respectively) and the buildings are of interest. \n\n'DBS', as it is familiarly known, originated in 1869 with the Diocesan Home & Orphanage for English, Eurasian, Chinese and other scholars (male and female) which links with an earlier body, the Diocesan Native Female Training School of 1860-68. (From 1880 no more girls were received as boarders, though they still remained as day scholars. All girls left when Fairlea Girls School was opened in 1892. In 1900 a Diocesan Girls School was opened.) Located for many years at Bonham Road, the school moved to its present site in 1926. It may be truly said that its history is that of Hong Kong itself. \n\nThe La Salle College is much newer, opening in 1932. However, its connection with Catholic education in the Colony is much longer. The La Salle Brothers had a record of 42 years' work in St. Joseph's College in Hong Kong when they opened their Kowloon Branch in 1917, and after two of the Fathers had 'gone together over the hills and lowlands of Kowloon' (as they then were) they found and purchased a 10-acre site by auction in 1928. \n\nIts premises are architecturally striking. As the then Roman Catholic Bishop said at the time, “Great though my hopes and expectations of the Christian Brothers were, I never dared to expect from them such a magnificent building as La Salle College.\"* \n\nAmong the points to be specially noted on the visit are the following: \n\nDBS \n\n1. the extensive grounds and playing fields (also made available to primary schools from resettlement estates). \n\n*Thomas F. Ryan, The Story of a Hundred Years: the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.) in Hong Kong 1858-1958. (Hong Kong, Catholic Truth Society, 1959) p. 199.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207163, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 234, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "228 \n\nNOTES AND QUERIES \n\nThe few houses on the southern side of Boundary Street, just completed for the Credit Foncier d'Extreme-Orient, were the only buildings around; further at the junction of this street with Prince Edward Road was 'Mignon', a small bungalow occupied by Miss Santos; the rest was either carved out of Chinese gardens or totally undeveloped. Across what was later on to become La Salle Road was a garden lot of some three acres which Brother Aimar had acquired lately from Mrs. Chan Kwing Min, the wife of the former Waichow war-lord [the present site of La Salle Primary School]; there was a small Chinese house on the grounds, in which the Canadian Sisters of Our Lady of the Angels, newly arrived in the Colony, resided temporarily. There was not a single house standing on the southern side of Prince Edward Road. \n\nThe locality was admirably situated, equally distant from Kowloon City and Kowloon Tong: two abundant reservoirs for a Chinese school population; and Homantin, where a large number of Portuguese families then resided. \n\nThe Hong Kong architectural firm of Messrs. Little, Adams and Wood was engaged to draw up plans. This was the same firm that had designed not long before the nearby Diocesan Boys' School. In their plans for the new College they incorporated features of ecclesiastical architecture that we do not find in the D.B.S. building, such as columned porticos and a domed chapel. The dome is one of the most interesting architectural features to be found in Kowloon. The Great Hall was said to be modelled after the Theatre Royal of Naples, and the mushroom columns in the open area under the Great Hall reminds one of the pillars under the demonstration building of the Medical Faculty in Paris. The buildings were designed to accommodate 700 pupils, 350 of these being Portuguese boys living in Kowloon, and as Brother Aimar remarked at the Foundation Stone Laying, “We thought it only right to provision, as in St. Joseph's, for an equal number of boys of Chinese parentage and for a boarding department.\" (South China Morning Post, Nov. 5, 1930.) \n\nThough the land was bought in 1924, the plans for the building were not approved until 1929. The following year Governor Sir William Peel laid the foundation stone. The building was first occupied for classes in December, 1931, and the following month", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207164, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 235, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n229 \n\nthe building was blessed. There were then 540 pupils in fourteen classes. The first matriculation class was formed in 1933.\n\nWith the beginning of the European War in 1939, the Government interned enemy aliens on the College premises. The Japanese used it as a hospital. The Brothers re-occupied the buildings after the liberation of Hong Kong, but from 1949 the British Army took it over for use as a hospital. During these periods the College was housed in temporary quarters.\n\nToday the school is under the direction of Brother Raphael Egan. There is a student body of some 1,500, the greater majority being Chinese, though there is still in the student body a number of Portuguese boys. They continue the contribution this part of Hong Kong's population has made to the history of the school.\n\nOther Schools in the Area\n\nNorth of Boundary Street between Waterloo Road and La Salle Road is Oxford Road. In one block there are six Middle Schools: Pui Shing Middle School, Tung Wah Hospital No. 1 College, Ying Wa College, Moral Training English School, Jockey Club Government Technical School, and Bishop Hall Jubilee School. Maryknoll Convent School opened in 1936 is nearby at the corner of Boundary Street and Waterloo Road.\n\nOf these schools, three have roots in Hong Kong's early history. While the association of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club with education through financial support is of recent origin, the Race Meets were a prominent feature of Hong Kong life from early days.\n\nYing Wa College continues the tradition of the Anglo-Chinese College established by the missionaries Robert Morrison and William Milne at Malacca in 1819. In 1843 it was moved to Hong Kong by the Rev. James Legge. The school was closed in 1856. It had been organised and conducted by representatives of the London Missionary Society. In 1914 the Society opened a school in Kowloon bearing the Chinese version of the English name, of their former school: Ying Wah, that is 'Anglo-Chinese'.\n\nThe Tung Wah No. 1 College opened in 1962 is a part of Tung Wah Hospital efforts to provide education for under-privileged children. This programme began in 1880 when a Free Primary School was opened in the Chung Wah College premises adjoining the Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road. A school under the direction of the Temple Committee had been operated on these premises for many years previous. A lot had been granted by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 } ]