Sessional_Paper_1887-1888 — Page 153

16. It will be seen from the above Tables that the amounts earned by these Grant-in-Aid. Schools in Class I has increased from year to year but the rate of increase has been far below the natural increase of the number of children in attendance. It will further be observed that there has been from year to year an increase in the number of children annually brought forward into the higher Standards. The increase has indeed been rather small. Yet it is evident that the aim which was kept in view in revising the Scheme in 1883 has been fairly attained. There is, however, another point in connection with the above Table that requires comment. It appears from the above figures, on taking an average of the last four years, that from 1884 to 1887 the average number of scholars annually examined in the successive Standards of the Schools in Class I was as follows:-Standard I, 211 scholars; Standard II, 617; Standard III, 469; Standard IV, 135; Standard V, 32; and Standard VI, 9. At first glance, these figures appear to indicate that the children attending these Schools generally remain under instruction only some 3 or 4 years, that few stay in school 5 years, and that a very small proportion of children complete their course of education by reaching Standard VI. Now it is true indeed that, as a general rule, very few children and especially very few girls are left long enough in these purely Chinese Schools to finish their education there. But that does not prove that none of them continue their education in a higher Class of Schools. Chinese girls indeed are not sent to English Schools, and so far as they are concerned the above figures undoubtedly prove that Chinese girls are, as a rule, removed from school before they reach the highest Standards. But the above figures must also be read in the light of the fact that the vast majority of boys attending these Chinese Schools in Class I, pass on, after reaching Standard III or IV, into the Government Central School or into other English or Anglo-Chinese Schools (in Class IV of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme) to learn English there, whilst continuing, privately. or in those Anglo-Chinese Schools, to keep up that Chinese knowledge obtained by them in the lower Standards of those Primary Chinese Schools in Class I. In other words, the above figures, whilst in- dicating a defect in the education of Chinese girls, shew also, in the case of boys, that those Primary Chinese Schools in Class I act as the natural feeders of our Middle Class Schools, so far as the Chinese population is concerned, and that in their case a sound knowledge of the vernacular is now generally made the preliminary stepping stone for reaching a sound English education. The same important principle has been recognized also, as I have shewn in former Reports, by the Portuguese community in this Colony. It is a principle which is now in India persistently urged upon educationists, since it has been generally recognized that the preservation of the vernacular in all Classes of Schools is required in order that the mental progress of the scholar may be reflected in his increased power to make use of his own language.

17. The Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class III (Basel and Berlin Missions) continue to show good results. In these Schools, which give a European education (to Chinese Girls) in the Chinese language, a laudable tendency has of late set in, to confine the use of the Romanized system of writing Chinese within reasonable limits and to teach in the higher Standards as much as possible of the written Chinese character. Evidence of the beneficial effect of this movement presented itself in a marked manner at the examinations held at the end of the year 1887. Formerly showy results in Chinese composition and letter writing were obtained, in the Romanized character, in these Schools, but, through comparative neglect of the use of the written Chinese character, children who passed successfully Standard VI were generally left unable to read or write an ordinary Chinese letter or simple bill for goods bought or sold. At the last examinations I noticed in this respect a great change for the better. The Chinese girls in these Schools are, for instance, still taught to write in good colloquial prose (Romanized) answers to searching questions in the history of Babylonia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, but they are now also gaining profi- ciency in writing simple prose or ordinary letters in the common Chinese character. It is to be regretted that the history teaching of these Schools excludes at present, for want of a suitable manual, the history of China. But as besides History, also Arithmetic (as far as decimal fractions) and Geography are added in these Schools to the ordinary subjects of an elementary Chinese education, it must be admitted that the wide range of education given in these Schools is eminently satisfactory, and does credit to the Basel and Berlin Missions.

18. The Grant-in-Aid Schools in Class IV have made extraordinary progress in the year 1887. I referred in the previous year's Report to the stimulus which had been given to the educational move- ment in this Colony by the introduction (at the instance of Mr. C. J. BATEMAN, Headmaster of the Hongkong Public School) of the system of non-gremial examinations conducted by the Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. I expected this measure to exercise, in time, a great and healthful in- fluence towards raising the standard of English education in the Colony. I apprehended also certain draw-backs, temptations and dangers to attach themselves to this as to every other strong stimulative measure. Surveying now the educational work of the year 1887, I certainly see, even at present, some of the draw-backs I referred to, but the suddenness and the extent of the healthful impulse which the introduction of the Cambridge Local Examinations gave, in the year 1887, to the study of the higher branches of an English education, has surpassed all my expectations. There was hitherto only one School, the Diocesan Home and Orphanage, which, during the last 5 years, annually took up three of the special subjects of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme, viz., Algebra, Euclid, and Physical Geography. But in 1887, suddenly 5 other Schools, St. Joseph's College, the two Victoria English Schools (including even a Girl's School), St. Paul's College (Anglo-Chinese School) and the Hongkong Public School,