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Government Schools are as a rule better provided for, than the Voluntary religious Schools, as regards money matters, house accommodation, school materials, staff, organisation and discipline, and, where charging fees, keep their fees far below the rate charged in Voluntary Schools of a corresponding class. Nevertheless the Voluntary Schools, which freely teach Christianity without the restraint of any con- science clause whatsoever, and are in every respect conducted as denominational Mission Schools, receive from the public double the amount of patronage bestowed on Government Schools. This clearly shews that parents of children, in Hongkong as in Europe, prefer on the whole religious to secular education, even when the latter is cheaper. I subjoin a table shewing the comparative growth of secular Government Schools and religious Voluntary Schools since the time (1873) when the Grant-in-Aid Scheme was introduced in the Colony. In explanation of the changes revealed by the subjoined Table, I have to state that from 1845 to 1865 all the Government Schools in the Colony were worked under a Committee or Board in which Protestant Missionaries had a paramount influence, as strictly Christian Schools, the Bible being, during those twenty, years. a reading book of all Government Schools. Shortly after the abrogation of the Board of Education and the consequent establishment of the Education Department (in 1865), all Christian teaching was excluded from the Government Schools, the Government confining itself to promote purely secular education (though Confucianism, Tauism and Buddhism could not be eliminated from the Chinese School-books) and giving no aid whatever to Christian Mission Schools, down to the year 1872. Even when the Government at last, stimulated by Forster's Education Act of 1870, offered Grants-in-Aid to Christian Mission Schools. the Grants were limited to payments for results ascertained in purely secular and elementary subjects. Voluntary Schools thus began in 1873 to come under the supervision of the Education Department, but their numbers and attendances were very small. In 1879, however, the Revised Grant-in-Aid Scheme came into force, giving the Voluntary Schools absolute liberty to give religious teaching in every school-hour and extending its provisions to Secondary as well as to Primary Schools, and from that year the proportion of scholars attending Government Schools and Voluntary Schools became gradually reversed. With these prefatory remarks I leave the subjoined comparative Table to speak for itself.
COMPARATIVE STATISTICS OF RELIGIOUS AND SECULAR SCHOOLS.
Religious Grant-in-Aid Schools.
Secular Government Schools.
Year.
Schools,
Scholars.
Schools.
Scholars.
1873,
6
442
30
1,838
1874,
9
632
30
1,931
1875,
9
679
30
1,927
1876,
11
751
30
2,171
1877,
14
996
30
2,148
1878,
17
1,021
30
2,101
1879,
19
1,417
31
2,043
1880,
27
1,808
36
2,078
1881,
37
2,237
35-
1,986
1882,
41
3,068
39
2,114
1883,
48
3,517
39
2,080
1884,
55
3,907
35
1,978
1885,
55
4,041
35
1,803
1886,
1887, 1888,
56
3,951
34
1,893
61
4,160
33
1,814
63
4,325
34
1,933
1889,
69
4,814
35
2,293
6. Educational EXPENDITURE OF THE GOVERNMENT.-The expenses incurred by the Govern- ment during the year 1889, on account of education in general, amounted (including the expenses connected with two Government Scholarships, but excluding the cost of new School buildings) to a total of $53,901.86 (as compared with $45,518.93 in the year 1888) or $6.58 per scholar (as com- pared with $7.27 per scholar in 1888). These expenses were distributed as follows. The Govern- ment Victoria College (the former Central School) with 919 scholars cost the Government (apart from cost of Building which amounted to an aggregate of over a quarter of a million dollars) $15,018.20 or $16.34 per scholar enrolled. The expenses of the other Government Schools (including the Aided Village Schools), attended by 1,374 scholars, amounted in the year 1889 to $10,566.66 or $7.69 per scholar. On the Voluntary Schools, with 4,814 scholars, the Government spent, in the year 1889, under the provisions of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme, the sum of $18,737.12 or $3 89 per scholar. This com- parison, however, is only based on the financial status which each kind of Schools occupies, and indicates therefore no more but that a development of the Grant-in-Aid Scheme rather than a multiplication of Government Schools should be looked to for meeting the annually increasing demands made upon the financial resources of the Government to supply an annually increasing population with Schools. Comparing, however, the cost of education in Schools giving the same education, say in the case of Schools giving a European education in a European (English or Portuguese) language, the result is as follows:-the cost of education, so far as the Government was concerned, was, in the Victoria College
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