Sessional_Paper_1903 — Page 536

449

but inasmuch as it was word for word the equivalent of the English words, they appeared to think that though meaningless, it was in some peculiar way, a tran- slation.

A

The Upper School was set short papers in these subjects. Three passages from a Chinese newspaper were set for translation into English. This paper was done by 242 boys, and was on the whole done very badly. In Classes I and II a boy was considered to have passed if he made a fair attempt at two passages, and succeeded in translating them in such a way that the meaning would be intelligible to a person who had not seen the original. boy in Class III was considered to have passed if he understood one passage, and did not make more than four gross blunders in translating it into English. Judged according to this standard in Classes I and II 21 boys passed, and 117 boys failed to pass, of whom 77 sent in exercises which were quite worthless. In Class III, 55 boys attempted the translation into English and 7 passed; 48 failed, of whom 26 sent in work which was worthless. Translation would appear to be little practised in the school. Many boys are unable to transliterate the commonest characters. The character for instance appears as Ga, Gar, and Car, while

appears under an infinite number of forms; Chuk, Chirk, Chur, Churk, Chak, etc. The simplest titles are misunderstood: LI KA CH'EOK, the well-known Official in Canton, is variously described as a Viceroy, a General, an Admiral, an Ambas- sador, a Corporal and a Policeman. H. E. the Viceroy of Canton was usually spoken of as Mr. SAM. The failure of the boys was due as much to their inability to write correct English as to their ignorance of written Chinese. Few shewed themselves able to write three consecutive lines in English without at least one gross blunder. It is needless to multiply examples of this; the 8th boy in the school who has presumably been learning English for some time, and who (if one may judge from the exercise he sent in) is quite unable to write a sentence in correct Chinese, composes the following sentence in English "The two generals are also received from the Japanese King of stars," meaning to say "the two generals also received stars from the Japanese King." Papers were also set for translation from English into Chinese. In Class I AB 10 boys wrote correct Chinese, but the Chinese written by four boys out of this number, though correct, had so little relation to the English set, that it was worthless considered as translation.

.

Classes II and III did better than Class I, the English passages set were casier. Too many common characters are however written wrong, and the style was seldom good. The almost universal use of for the plural should be discouraged. Many common English words were not understood, e.g., Pirate, Junk, Fort, Tear off, etc.. It is curious that only 15 boys out of 106 knew the Chinese for the Bogue Forts. Class I B. failed absolutely: of the 13 boys in this Division 36 sent in exercises which were quite worthless. They appeared to be neither able to understand the English nor to write Chinese. We consider that the teaching of translation from English into Chinese and vice versa, and the teaching of Chinese at Queen's College is unduly neglected. In our opinion there is no boy in the school at present who could make a translation of a despatch or petition from Chinese to English, which could be accepted without very careful checking.

A Chinese boy who enters Queen's College knowing nothing of his own written language is not likely to learn any, while the boy who enters knowing some- thing about it, is, under the present system, extremely likely to forget what he already knows.

Mathematics.--The Arithmetic was good on the whole, but rather slow, though some improvement was apparent in the higher. Classes.

The importance of smartness in addition to accuracy should be impressed up- on the scholars. Their slowness was sometimes caused by the desire for unnecessary neatness, and by using their rulers too often. Discipline was excellent throughour, with this modification that there was some 'cribbing among the lower Classes. It is satisfactory to note however that this fault diminishes in the higher Classes and disappears about Class IV.