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8. If you concur in my opinion that the institution may as a Reformatory be abolished and devoted to the education of the children of British parents, it will be necessary to obtain the permission of Mr. E. R. BELILIOS, C.M.G., to change the character of his gift to the Colony and to turn it into a School; and it will be necessary in the second place to consider the cases of Messrs. CURWEN and BULLIN, who were obtained from England as masters of the Reformatory at salaries of $1,488 and $960 per annum respectively, and whose services in connection with the Re- formatory the Government has not yet been able to utilise. Up to a recent date temporary employment was found for both Mr. CURWEN and Mr. BULLIN, and it has been possible therefore to save any material loss to the public revenues owing to their non-employment in the offices which they were engaged to fill. I have now, provisionally and subject to your approval, appointed Mr. CURWEN to a clerkship in the Post Office, allowing him to draw the same salary which he drew as master of the Reformatory. It may be possible to find him other employment later on which will carry with it some slight increase of salary, but meanwhile he has expressed himself satisfied with the arrangement which I have already provision- ally made. I have similarly appointed Mr. BULLIN to be First Clerk in the Registrar General's Office, in which a vacancy was recently created by the resignation of Mr. WONG. The salary which I have tentatively attached to the post is $1,380 rising to $1,800 by annual increments of $120.
9. I have now the honour to enquire whether you approve of the abolition of the Reformatory and its re-establishment as a British School; of the tentative agreement which I have arrived at with Mr. Ho TUNG as regards the Kowloon School; and the arrangements which I have made to utilise the services of Messrs. CURWEN and BULLIN. If you approve I have the honour to suggest that the consent of Mr. BELILIOS, who is at present in England, should be obtained to the proposed establishment of the Victoria British School, in the title of which the Government would of course be glad to associate his name. Mr. IRVING would be able to satisfy him in regard to any details involved in the proposed change.
I have, &c.,
W. J. GASCOIGNE, Major-General.
(Enclosures.)
REGISTRAR GENERAL'S OFFice,
Hongkong, 28th January, 1902.
SIR, AS the late and present Heads of the Education Department, we have the honour to address the following recommendations to you for the better success of the British Kowloon School.
2. This School has been built at the expense of Mr. Ho TUNG on the condition that it should be taken over by Government as a school where an English Edu- cation should be given to boys and girls of all nationalities. The building is finish- ed; and a Master and Mistress have been engaged, and will shortly be here.
3. Since Mr. Ho TUNG's offer and conditions were accepted, some two years ago, the theory of education in the Colony has made a great advance in the direc- tion of differentiating between the requirements of the different classes of students; and in particular we have recommended, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies has in principle approved, of the founding of two classes of schools hitherto un- known here, one for the sons of British parentage and one for the higher classes of Chinese.
4. Other radical reforins having at various times been suggested by us, the Government has recently appointed a Committee, of which we are members, to consider in detail the whole educational problem of the Colony. We are now in a position to state that the Committee is unanimous in confirming our opinion as to the undesirability of "mixed" schools.
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