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promoted with the other boys of his Class to Class I.A. but he, being at the head of his Class, is offered à monitorship at $5 a month. Tempted by the money which to him is a great deal, he accepts the post, and has now to devote part of his time to the teaching and supervision of the lower Classes of the College, part to the ordinary lessons of his own Class, and (since 1859) for two hours a week he receives special lessons in the science and art of teaching. As a natural consequence, when the examinations come round at the end of the year, he now takes the lowest place in his class (unless he has been driven to over-pressure to maintain a middling place), and at the next public competitive examination for employment in the Government Service or in the Chinese Customs, he fails. He then offers himself to be articled as pupil teacher and if accepted proceeds as above and is employed as teacher in the three divisions of the Preparatory Class of the College. Now the defects of the system are these. The pupil teacher is a Chinese boy, who never hears English spoken out of school hours, and is naturally deficient as regards English pronunciation and idiom. Moreover his proficiency in the subjects taught in the higher Classes of the College has been impaired by his monitorial duties. But he is set to teach the rudiments of English pronunciation and idiom in the Lower Division of the College. The consequence is first, that the parents of children in the Lower School of the College complain that they have to pay high school fees for a low quality of teaching, and secondly the English Masters in the Upper School of the College complain that they are hampered in their teaching by having to teach the A B C over again. There is, however, a third point for consideration. What Chinese parents, appreciating an English education, are most anxious for, is that their children should be taught English by Englishmen. For such teaching, if combined with proper method and discipline such as they do. get at Victoria College, they are willing to pay the full value. But this present monitorial and pupil- teacher system of the Victoria College puts Chinese into places in the Government Service which ought to be filled by Englishmen or by sons of local English residents, be they non-English Europeans or Portuguese or Indians or Chinese whose mother tongue is English. I do not advocate the exclusion of Chinese from employment in the English Schools of the Colony. On the contrary, I am convinced that, if the promotion of English teaching in the Colony is to depend exclusively on the costly impor- tation of trained teachers from England, unsupplemented by the assistance of trained native (Chinese) teachers of English, it will never expand its sphere of influence so as to reach classes of the population hitherto not leavened with English knowledge. But I think there are places in the Education Depart- ment where none but Englishmen, and others where none but Chinamen, are properly employed. In all secondary English Schools, and especially in a model School such as the Victoria College has ever been and shall ever continue to be, English ought to be taught by Englishmen, and what explanations are required to be given in Chinese can be given by the Chinese teachers with whom every English Master is supplied at Government expense until he has himself mastered Chinese colloquial. But in all elementary English Schools which offer an English or Anglo-Chinese education gratis, charging no fees, English should be taught (if possible under the supervision of an English-born Headmaster) by the cheaper agency of Chinese teachers of English. But these Chinese teachers of elementary English or Anglo-Chinese Schools require training as much, or rather more so, than English-born teachers of secondary English Schools. The sum and substance, therefore, of my suggestion is that the Autho- rities of the Victoria College might profitably reconsider the pupil-teacher system now attached to the College, with a view to re-model it so as in the first instance to hold out an inducement to English speaking sons of local European or Indian residents to qualify themselves for eventual employment as English masters (at the present salary of $150 a month or say $120 a month which would be a sufficient inducement) in the Victoria College or elsewhere, and in the second instance to provide trained Chinese-born masters for the elementary English and Anglo-Chinese Government Schools or Grant-in-Aid Schools of the Colony. If anything further were needed to recommend the above scheme, I would solicit attention to the following considerations. I am fully aware that as a matter of policy it is desirable to keep up the connection between this Colony and the home country by filling the higher offices of the local Government Service with men selected in England. But I contend that the sound reasons underlying this policy do not apply to the filling up of any post below that of the Headmaster. It might indeed be said that the above scheme will not supply the Colony with English-born masters at a much cheaper rate. To this argument I would reply that under the present system masters are procured from England under engagements for three years, receiving a free passage out and at the end of the three years a free passage back. Not only will the above scheme remove payments of passages, but it will obviate the frequent complaints of masters engaged in England that they had been misled as to the value of the dollar, cost of living and prospects of advancement in the Colony.

12. GOVERNMENT Schools OUTSIDE VICTORIA COLLEGE.-The Anglo-Chinese Government Schools in town and in the four larger villages (Wongnaichung, Stanley, Shaukiwán and Yaumáti) call this year for no special remark. They are, with the exception of Shaukiwán, filled with scholars to overflowing and call urgently for the new buildings the erection of which has been sanctioned twelve years ago, but has not been commenced yet. The two Schools in town, most especially, are besieged at the beginning of every school year with numbers of applicants who have to be turned away for want of accommodation. The most crying needs of these Government Schools, which give a gratuitous elementary English or Anglo-Chinese education, are larger and better accommodation and a staff of trained native teachers.