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in the year 1895) amounted, after deducting school fees and educational refunds paid into the Treasury ($10,443.00 as compared with $13,635.00 in 1895) to $66,158.76 as compared with $60,140.24 in 1895. The details of educational expenditure incurred in the year 1896 are as follow:-Office of Education Department (including rent of premises) $6,026.21; Queen's College (after deducting school fees and refunds) $27,541.15; Belilios Public School (after deducting school fees) $3,043.39; fifteen other Departmental Schools $5,488.10; 101 Grant-in-Aid Schools (for 1895) $24,249.64; Special Educational Grants $647.92; Government Scholarship $1,848.91; Physical Training $192. The nett cost of education ($66,158.76) amounted in the year 1896 to 2.52 per cent. of the total Colonial Revenue (as compared with 2.37 per cent. in 1895 and 2.07 per cent. in 1894). As the total number of scholars nnder instruction, during the year 1896, at the expense or with the aid of the Government (the Police School excepted) was 7,301, the education of each scholar cost the Govern- ment $9.06, as compared with $7.69 in 1895 and $7.66 in 1894. In the several classes of educational institutions in the Colony, the cost to Government of the education of each scholar under instruction was as follows:-in Queen's College, $27.87; in Belilios Public School $19.14; in the Departmental Schools, $5.60; in the Graut-in-Aid Schools which have the largest number of scholars (5,178 out of 7,301) $4.68. The Managers of those 101 Grant-in-Aid Schools, who received from the Govern- ment, during the year 1896 altogether the sum of $24,897.56, expended during the same year on those Schools, out of the resources of their respective Missionary Societies, supplemented in the case of seven Schools by school fees, an aggregate of $59,102.23.
9. NATURE OF THE EDUCATION GIVEN IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE COLONY.-No material change has taken place, as regards the nature of the education given in local Schools, since the Government (in 1895) announced its determination henceforth to promote English rather than Chinese education among the native population, except that the Chinese classes of Queen's College have been abolished. There has been, however, a tendency observable among the Managers of Grant-in-Aid Schools to conform, as soon as possible, to this new policy of the Government which, since the desire for an education revolution is spreading among the Chinese people, for political reasons, now animates also to some extent, the native population of Hongkong. As the demand, on the part of the Chinese, for an English education is increasing, the Government and the Managers of Grant-in-Aid Schools will pari passu be moved to increase both the existing staff and the existing accommodation for English teaching in the Colony. The need for a Training School for native teachers of English, for the benefit of local Schools in general, is gradually becoming more pressing. Unless this need is supplied by the Government, English education will, so far as the native population of this Colony is concerned, continue to be what it has been all along, viz., an expensive luxury beyond the means of the mass of the people. As things are at present, two thirds of all our local Schools offer a Chinese, and one third a European education.
10. FEMALE EDUCATION. According to the Census of 1881 and 1891, it appears that the average proportion of girls to boys of school-going age in the Colony, is equal to 48.08 per cent. From the subjoined Table it will be seen that the proportion of girls under instruction in the year 1896 has slightly improved during the last three years, as it has risen from 32.49 per cent. (in 1894) to 33:26 per cent. of the whole number of children known to have attended school in 1896. But it will also be observed that that proportion is still considerably below the normal rate (48.08). Though the number of girls in school has fallen in 1896 (because of the plague) below what it was in 1894, yet there is abundant evidence to indicate that there is a progressive movement at work and that the old prejudice of the Chinese people against female education is giving way so far as a Chinese education is concerned. But as regards bringing the Chinese girls of the Colony under the influence of an English education, there is among the Chinese residing in this Colony, and even among those who have themselves studied English, with the sole exception of those who have been abroad for many years, the old prejudice, viz. the fear that an English education would instil in the minds of Chinese girls a desire for liberty and independence incompatible with the subordinate status which Chinese society assigns to woman. The only class among whom English education has of late made consider- able strides in advance, and whose English attainments are now meeting with laudable appreciation, are the Eurasian girls whose educational interests had in former years been neglected through local prejudice.
Table shewing the Proportion of Boys and Girls under instruction in Local Schools.
Boys.
GIRLS.
Years,
Government
Schools.
Kaifong
Schools.
Grant-in-Aid
Schools.
Private
Schoots.
Total Boys.
Government!
Schools.
Kaifong
Schools.
Grant-in-Aid
Schools.
1894,
1,928 1,735 3,251
102
1896,
1895,............ 1,752 2,170 3,091
1,745 1,604 2,856
67
7,016 402
7,080
380
21
6,226 378
282
22 2,713
Private
Schools.
Total Girls.
Propor-
tion of Girls to
Total of Scholars.
30 2,593
241 3,378
453
Percentage.
32.49
3,456 32.80
21 2,322 383 3,104 33.26
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