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of mechanical design should be replaced and the new course or workshop practice discontinued at the end of this year. Surely the place to learn workshop practice is in the works where it can be assimilated more rapidly and effectively than in a University course of lectures?

I submit therefore, with the utmost respect, that our degree course is not really the concern of the engineers of the colony. It is a matter for the University alone and must stand substantially as at present constituted.

We have already examined in great detail the case of the trade apprentice at present employed by the local engineering works and I think it has been demon- strated beyond dispute that his standard of education on entering his identures is so low that it is impossible to impart engineering instruction to him during the term of his apprenticeship.

The Senate of the University grudgingly conceded a modified matriculation standard which it was hoped that this apprentice might reach but at present there seems no prospect that this scheme will ever mature and the cost of the apprentice course at the University remains to be provided.

The gap between the present trade apprentice and the University would appear to be too great to bridge and unless we are to abandon the problem altogether some intermediate solution must be found. I hope that the following suggestion which is an entirely new contribution may serve as a basis for discussion and result in a solution of this extremely difficult problem.

The problem has of course been solved elsewhere by technical institutes but there is no such institution in Hong Kong and the expenditure involved in its pro- vision could not be contemplated at the present juncture. Nor would it be possible to forecast with any accuracy the support which such an institution would receive if provided. My suggestion therefore is necessarily limited to the problem of using existing means to the best advantage and it postulates the existence in Hong Kong of a class who could reach say the junior standard before starting an apprentice- ship course in the local works.

If it can be assumed that such a class exists from whom apprentices satisfac- tory to local works can be selected I see no insuperable difficulty in their training. The University is closed for four months in the summer and has all the facilities in the way of class rooms, drafting rooms, laboratories etc., necessary for training to any theoretical standard required and these could be used without in any way interfering with the University work proper.

I suggest therefore as a basis for discussion that we try to find candidates of this kind and offer them an apprentice course consisting of eight months of the year in local works and four months at the University. If this is acceptable to Mr. Shaw and other managers of local engineering concerns a syllabus for the theoretical instruction can be evolved by the Education Department, the engineers of the works and the University working together and the scheme could be working by the end of the year.

The University could not undertake to provide the teaching staff but I suggest that Prof. Forster be consulted as to how far his final year students could help in this work and it is impossible to determine the staff that would be required until the numbers were known and the syllabus approximately decided.

I should be only too willing to co-operate to the fullest extent in the working out of this scheme if it is acceptable to the works and the Education Department.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

(sgd.) M. H. ROFFEY.