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10. In addition to the remarks of the Headmaster, which will be found in the third paragraph of his Report, I have to make but a few general observations concerning the Government Central School. Comparing the results of the Government Central School examination, as above tabulated, with the results of the previous year's examination, it is evident there has been in most classes a falling off in the following subjects, viz., English reading, dictation, and composition. In all other subjects the School did, with the exception of Classes II, V and VI, as well as or better than last year. It is noteworthy that the subjects, in which there has been a considerable falling off, are the very subjects in which the Central School would naturally be expected to be, and to my knowledge is, deficient as compared with other Schools in the Colony, such as the Diocesan School, St. Joseph's College or the Hongkong Public School. As the vast majority of the boys of the Central School are Chinese boys who do not speak English nor hear English spoken out of school, and as the Central School gives a valuable portion of its time to Chinese teaching, the natural consequence is that the results obtained in the Central School in speaking and understanding English, and in English reading, dictation and composition are somewhat below the results obtained in other Schools, although the staff, organisation and method of the Central School are of a superior character. The Central School sends out annually a number of youths thoroughly well grounded in the rudiments of an English education, but the number of English speaking people in the Colony receives but a very small increase thereby year by year. A considerable proportion of the boys trained in the Central School go abroad. Most of those who remain, enter into business relations where they have little opportunity of keeping up or adding to their stock of English knowledge and consequently they have soon but little more than a smattering knowledge of English left. The principal point, however, is that the results of the Chinese teaching, which encroaches so much upon the English, are decidedly disappointing. The vast majority of the Chinese boys enter the Central School to learn English, after having studied Chinese classics in purely Chinese Schools, for four years or so. Whilst they are studying at the Central School for some 6 or 7 years longer, a portion of their school time is devoted to Chinese studies. Yet the best that can be said of the results of the Chinese teaching given at the Central School is that, on the whole, it keeps up the amount of knowledge of Chinese which each boy brings with him on entering the School. When the present system was inaugurated, the Chinese who send their children to the Central School had but few Schools outside the Central School where their boys might keep up their knowledge of Chinese, and it was therefore necessary to teach in the Central School both the English and Chinese languages. But things are different now. Chinese parents are now universally convinced that their children must first get a good grounding in the Chinese language for some 3 or 4 years at least, before they send them to the Central School. There are now Schools enough in the Colony, both Day Schools and Night Schools, which answer the purpose of giving Chinese boys a preliminary grounding in Chinese and which would answer the purpose, by the system of Evening Schools, of advancing the Chinese knowledge of the boys of the Central School, and they would answer that purpose better than the Central School can do it. I am therefore of opinion that the time has come for relieving the English teaching of the Central School from the trammels imposed upon it by teaching the Chinese language in addition to English. If the ordinary school-hours were devoted exclusively to the subjects of an English education, the Chinese language being used only as a medium for teaching English (when required), the Central School would continue to keep ahead of all the other educational establishments in the Colony. There would be no difficulty, if required, to insist upon every Chinese boy, unacquainted with English colloquial, qualifying himself for admission into the Central School by passing an entrance examination in Chinese, equal to the third or fourth Standard examination of Chinese Grant-in-Aid Schools. Nor would there be any difficulty in teaching the classical Chinese language at the Central School, as an extra subject, out of the ordinary school-hours, on special appli- cation and by special teachers.

11. There is one other point connected with the future of the Central School which I deem it important to refer to. The fees charged at the Central School might well be raised after the completion of the new buildings, so as to pay at least two thirds of the working expenses of the School. Under the present system the children of wealthy and well-to-do Chinese are educated partly at the expense of tax-payers who cannot afford a similar education for their own children, and the low fees charged at the Government Central School put a handicap on private efforts in the sphere of education. Considering also that in other Colonies the desire is felt to enable the Government to withdraw, when practicable, from direct interference in educational efforts, it is quite within the horizon of probabilities that the Central School may at some future time be made a self-supporting institution under a governing body representing the taxpayers rather than the Government.

12. The Anglo-Chinese Schools of the Government, located at Sayingp'ún, Wongnaich'ung, Wántsai, Stanley and Yaumáti, continue to show fair results. Two of these Schools, located in town, are in charge of exceptionally good teachers and are every year besieged with crowds of applicants for admission who have to be refused for want of space and corresponding teaching power. In the villages, however, there is constantly a complaint that our teachers, if able to teach English, are incompetent as regards Chinese teaching, and the desire of the parents, based on the general experience that natives can ordinarily gain proficiency in English only at the expense of proficiency in Classical Chinese, generally is, that the Government should provide in Anglo-Chinese Schools a special teacher for each of the two languages. This has been done in the case of the two Schools located in town, but in the