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353
In the Annual Report for 1876 Dr. STEWART wrote:-"The School Book Committee's books, which were at first neglected and not a little despised. are now read in all the schools in the Colony over "which there is Government supervision.
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The series promises to have more success than could ever have been anticipated for it." My predecessor held that Chinese must be taught according to Chinese methods, and that accounts perhaps for my finding that, with very few exceptions, these books are no longer to be met with in our schools. I am unable to believe that the Chinese have said the last word on education and that no progress is possible. According to the Code, in all standards except the first, explanation is required of the text-book which has been learnt by heart, but the masters have found it easier to teach their pupils to get the explanation itself by rote, than to train them to exercise their intelligence. The teaching of English to Chinese instead of their own language has not a few advocates, but to make a proper use of their English, Chinese ought to have a fair knowledge of their own language first, and con- sidering the short time that the ordinary Chinese boy stays at school, the small knowledge of English acquired by him does not compensate him for his complete ignorance of his own language. In his report for the year 1888 Dr. EITEL wrote:-"to enable every child first to learn to express thought "and feeling correctly in the vernacular tongue, before attempting to acquire a foreign language
(is a) sound pedagogical principle.
C
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"Too many Portuguese parents, who speak l'ortuguese only, send their boys, when six years old, to an English school and insist upon their being hurried as quickly as possible through standard after "standard, in order that they may the sooner get employment as clerks and contribute towards the support of the family. (The result in most cases is that the mental progress of such scholars is but "superficial, that they become mere smatterers in English and, worst of all, such systematic hot-house "training stunts not only the growth of the mental energies but has often also the effect of a blight
'upon the higher moral perceptions." The above remarks would be still more true of Chinese.
K
10. FEMALE EDUCATION.-Very good work is being done among the Chinese by the various Missions which undertake female education. Its chief value, which lies not in any purely educational results but in the great progress which has been made in overcoming the distrust with which Chinese view advances made by Europeans, is derived from the close supervision exercised by European ladies and from the education and training of Chinese teachers having also been conducted by Europeans. I do not view with much sympathy efforts made to induce Chinese girls to learn English. Under present circumstances an education in English may tend to unfit them for the position which they expect to take in their own society. It certainly will not render them fitter to take it, nor to enter any other society. Improvements in the education of men must precede improvements in the education of women. (The Chinese have not yet shown any appreciation of an education in English for their boys except as a means of making money, and it is idle to expect them to give to their daughters what they have not given to their sons. The objections which Chinese parents have to their daughters learning English are not based on unworthy motives, but are very natural and laudable. As a rule girls stay at school longer than boys, and twice as many girls as boys are presented for examination in the four highest standards. This has an important bearing on statistics dealing with the percentage of children at school, and also on the relative value of the education received at boys' and at girls' schools. The knowledge acquired in Chinese schools by children who leave before reaching the IVth Standard can hardly be said to have any immediate practical value. The actual number of girls at school is greater than it has ever been, though the proportion of girls to boys is not so high as it was in 1893. This is due to the large increase in the number of boys in schools in which English is taught.
Table showing the proportion of Boys and Girls under instruction in local Schools.
Boys.
GIRLS.
Govern-
Years. ment
Schools.
Kaifong Schools.
Grant-in- Aid Schools.
Private Total Schools. Boys.
Govern- ment Schools.
Kaifong Schools.
Grant-in- Aid Schools.
Total Private Schools, Girls.
Proportion of girls to total of scholars.
Percentage.
1894
1,928
1,735
3,251
102
7,016
402
222
2,713
241
3,878
32.49
1895
1,752
2,170
3,091
67
7,080
380
30
2,593
453
3,456
32.80
1896
1,745
2,856 1,604
21
6,226
378
21
2,322
383
3,104
33.26
1897
1,645
2,217
2,975
108
6,945
488
30
2,547
479
3,544
32.71
11. KINDERGARTENS.-- The Kindergarten School attached to the Basel Mission is still in existence, but is no longer under trained European supervision. An application was made to have the school placed under the Grant-in-Aid Code, but it was not granted, and unless the Government is willing to make a grant to a considerable number of such schools, it will not be worth the while of any
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