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quently sent to England or Scotland to finish their education, that their educa- tion gave them a contempt for un-educated Chinese women and that only in exceptional cases Chinese girls could be found who would be fit help-mates for them in domestic and conjugal respects.

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6. In educational matters the case of Hongkong is on all fours with the case of India, and therefore the educational principles and methods, which in the course of the last thirty-five years have commended themselves as practically sound and beneficial to the Government of India, deserve every attention in shaping the edu- cational policy of the Hongkong Government. In 1854 the education of the whole people of India (excluding no one class) was definitely accepted as a State duty and the famous Despatch of 1854, which still forms the charter of Education in India, laid it down that " English is to be taught wherever there is a demand for it, but it is not to be substituted for the vernacular languages of the country. Ac- cordingly the Government of India not only established Departmental Schools for girls as well as for boys wherever there was the smallest demand for English teach- ing, but liberally aided and encouraged Missionary Societies in promoting public and private (Zenana) instruction, in English, given to native girls. Accordingly we find among the recommendations made, after the most careful and wide-reaching investigations, by the Indian Education-Commission, the following Resolution (§ 682, No. 1), "that female_education be treated as a legitimate charge alike on Local, on Municipal, and on Provincial Funds, and receive special encouragement, and further (§ 682, No. 9) "that liberal aid be offered for the establishment, in suitable localities, of Girls' Schools in which English should be taught in addition to the vernacular."

7. In view of the above considerations and encouraged by the Minute (on C.S.O. 393 of 1889) in which His Excellency the Governor stated, with reference to my last Annual Report, that he will be prepared to consider, in connection with the Estimates for 1890, my recommendations with regard to a Girls' School, I now beg formally to recommend that measures be taken at once with a view to start, on 1st March, 1890, a Government Girls' School, offering to girls of all nationalities an elementary English or Anglo-Chinese education on the principles of the Govern- ment Central School (now Victoria College). The details of the scheme will be subject to the special consideration of the Government, as they practically come to the surface hereafter, but the general outlines of the scheme now. submitted for the approval of the Government are as follow.

8. As to House accommodation it is absolutely essential that the School be located in a central part of the town, because for various reasons Chinese girls could not be induced to go to school if the building were situated in an out-of-the- way locality. It is further essential for sanitary reasons that the School-house be of the European style of architecture. Eventually a building, specially to be de- signed for the purposes of a School, will have to be erected, but, to begin with, a house built in the European style and situated in a central part of the town might be utilized, until a proper School-building can be secured. The house to be rented for the present would also afford quarters for the Head-mistress, and her Assistant Teacher.

9. The Head-mistress should be obtained from England, under the approval of the Secretary of State. She should be a trained, certificated, uninarried English lady, not less than 22 and not over 28 years of age. She should possess experience in teaching, organizing or superintending elementary Girls' Schools, have a superior knowledge of needle-work and enjoy good health.

Her duties should be, to organize the proposed Girls' School with the aid of an Assistant Teacher and a Pupil Teacher, to instruct the upper classes of the English division of the School in the subjects of an ordinary English Middle Class School, to superintend the teaching to be given by the Assistant Teacher and Pupil Teacher in the lower classes of the English division, also to give general superintendence to the Chinese division of the School consisting of the already existing two Chinese Girls' Schools at present located in separate Chinese houses. Finally it should be a special duty incumbent on the Head-mistress, to assist the Inspector of Schools in the annual examinations of the needle-work done in the Grant-in-Aid Schools of the Colony.

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The terms to be offered to such a Head-mistress should be as follow :— class passage paid to Hongkong, but no subsequent passage paid, unless the engagement terminate at or (through illness) before the end of three years; salary