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and Class I, C, displayed even more shortcomings in Grammar, Geography, Euclid, Algebra and Latin. The School as a whole, however, does not only maintain firmly its leading position among the Educational Institutions of the Colony, but is developing its educational resources steadily from year to year, by adding new subjects to its program. The subject of Latin which in the preceding year had been introduced in 3 classes was, during the year 1888, systematically taught in 5 classes. The substitution of Trigonometry for Mensuration, which is one of the new features of the year 1888, com- mends itself. So also the introduction of the study of an entire play of Shakespeare, in Class I, 4, and I, B, is calculated to produce beneficial results, not merely because the methodical reading of a play of Shakespeare is an excellent means of curing that droning sing-song style of reading to which Chinese boys are specially addicted, but especially also because the substitution of a painstaking study of an entire play, for the superficial reading of disjecta membra poetæ, is calculated to develope a taste for the master pieces of English Literature. But in increasing thus the work of the higher classes of the Central School there is need to watch the tendency of such increase of school-work to impair the bodily health of the scholars. Such watchfulness will be specially called for in the case of Class III, B, which had four extra pensums (History, Composition, Euclid and Algebra) added in 1888 to its ordinary work. As to the Anglo-Chinese and Chinese classes of the Central School, the examinations have shewn as satisfactory results, as can be expected under the circumstances, and especially in view of the little time that can be spared in an English School for Chinese studies.

14. The Anglo-Chinese Schools, established by the Government many years ago at Saiyingpun, Wantsai, and in the villages at Yaumati, Wongnaichung and Stanley, received, in the year 1888, an addition to their number in the shape of an Anglo-Chinese School which was opened, at the request of the villagers, in Shaukiwan. This latest School, however, has not received proper support from the villagers who are hard to please and who desire separate teachers to be appointed for English and for Chinese teaching. The attendance at this School has been small and very irregular and consequently the results have been far from satisfactory, perhaps without any fault on the part of the teacher. At Yaumati also Anglo-Chinese teaching continues, year by year, to drag on a sluggish existence, there being among the villagers still very little appreciation of an English education. The Yaumati School has, however, a better future in prospect, for the boatmen and fishermen who hitherto constituted the residents of Yaumati, are gradually becoming outnumbered by town people and artizans from Hong- kong who are attracted to Yaumati by the lower rents charged there for house accommodation. If this change in the character of the population of Yaumati continues, we shall soon meet with a rapidly growing appreciation for and greater regularity of attendance at the Anglo-Chinese School. The other Anglo-Chinese Schools, those at Stanley and Wongnaichung, and especially the two Schools of Wantsai and Sayingpun are positively over-crowded, and months before a new school-year opens, the teachers of the latter two Schools are pestered with applications for admission which cannot be enter- tained for want of accommodation. The Anglo-Chinese Schools of Saiyingpun and Wantsai abso- lutely require enlarging, if they are at all to come up to the urgent demand, which has sprung up in these localities for Anglo-Chinese teaching. It is possible, however, that the opening of the new Victoria College may relieve the pressure which at present afflicts those two Schools. All these Anglo-Chinese Schools compete annually for the free-scholarships of the Government Central School and these competitions continue to prove, to the satisfaction of the Headmaster, the thoroughness and soundness of the English teaching given in these Schools.

15. Those Government Schools (including the Aided Schools in the villages), the teaching of which was formerly confined to giving a purely Chinese education, have displayed, in the year 1888, a praise- worthy effort in adding to the study of the Confucian Classics also the teaching of Arithmetic as well as Geography. Only a few schools, however, ventured to teach the European numerals (which most of the teachers have yet to learn themselves) and to make the children work out sums, in writing, according to European methods. But Mental Arithmetic, which all these Schools now teach with a will, has called forth the strongest approbation of the villagers and is now well established in popular favour, though formerly spoken against as a foreign innovation. What these Schools most needed was the introduction of a system of examination which requires the teacher to bring forward each boy, year after year, into a higher standard. So long as the education given in these Schools was confined to the Chinese Classics, in the case of which class-teaching is inapplicable, the progress of individual boys could only be measured by the number of books committed to memory, and by composition exercises in the case of the very few boys who stay in school for the number of years required for that. But now, since Geography teaching and Arithmetic have been introduced, which subjects admit of class- teaching, a rule has been made that every boy in the Government Schools who has entered his third school-year is required to pass, at the Annual Examinations, in the following subjects, viz. Schoolbook Committee's First Reader (in addition to memoriter repeating of Chinese Classics), Writing from Dic- tation 20 characters from First Reader, Mental Arithmetic (Addition and Subtraction), Geography (the eighteen Provinces). The subjects of the fourth school year are now, Repeating Chinese Classics, Antithetical Sentences, Schoolbook Committee's Second Reader, Writing from Dictation 30 characters from the same book, Mental Arithmetic (Addition, Subtraction and Multiplication), and Geography (the Chinese Empire). The subjects of the fifth school-year (unless the boys are, as usual in most cases, 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