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EDUCATION IN HONGKONG.
(Daily Press, 25th June)
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY,PRESS AND
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(June 30, 1906.
sought to be crammed, and when curtail- | rearguard are upon us. They can scarcely ment becomes inevitable, öme useful rise after sitting down at our door to beg, subject is dropped and a less useful retained and they have still fifteen hundred miles to It will not be easy, except for those who simply because it is "olo custom
Thus go
Briefly, that is the terrible story take a special interest in the subject, to sift French may be dropped, and Scripture held. unfolded. It is the only evidence we have from the mass of detail in the annual report Moreover, time is wasted by learning so far, and whether we accept deny, or of the INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS a sufficiently statistics which are of little educational minimise the charges, we have to depend clear" bird's-eye view". That a hundred value, e.g., the population of towns". We upon this narrative of Mr. CROFTS until and fifty-nine thousand dollars was spent in welcome this dawn of commonsense in we hear from Yungan. We may say at 1905 on the education of Hongkong youth, in official reports by School Inspectors, and once that our feeling is against accepting We have no hesitation in 83 schools, and that the average attendance | trust that when found it will be made note such a story. at these schools increased considerably, are of. But we delved the quotation from a believing that the missionary was imposed ttle in facts worth noting; but the utilitarian-report on a girls' school, and we find that upon by beggars; and hut minded reader will want to know more, the INSPECTOR still holds it necessary to suggesting that his feelings of humanity That upper grade schools attract more the training of housewives and mothers have run away with his pen, causing his scholars than lower grade schools sounds that they should be able to make sketch phraseology to take on an exaggerated tone. well, as also that some of the private schools maps which distinguish the important cities We have bud such a recent lesson in the are turning to "the new method", whatever by classifying marks showing them "as under misrepresentations of the coolie's lot in that may be, as against “the time-honoured and over 100,000 and 1,000,000”. Tu history South Africa that it is only sensible, to say classical education ". The net cost of we regret to note that the same girls show nothing of fair, to hesitate about swallowing pupils in Government Schools was a little a tendency to give information that is not entire these allegations of inhumanity and worse. The reverend raconteur admits that over forty-six dollars per head, as against asked for.. That is quite feminine, and we forty-one in 1904; but that is based on
dare not say it is far wide of the practice of the stories struck him as incredible at first, many expenditure on new plant, and is a quite many biɛtorinus. The Chinese pupil who but says conviction c.me with
almost verbatim ". That useless calculation. Much similar detail concluded that by cooking millions of germs repetitions, has to be skimmed before we come to the in our fool we can escape from disense sug- peculiarity of the trumped-up story would have made some men still more incredulous. mportant statement that the shifting nature
gests metaphorically a needful educational of the population makes a fixed course of remedy. The system is infected by germs, Take the complaint that no money was instruction difficult. That is a pity, and sequacious germs, bad habits and traditional paid to the mey, in conjunction with the seems to point to the need of making certain mistakes. A little boiling, such as is description of their desolate, mountainous that the curriculum includes no merely
now going on in Europe, might make it surroundings, and then consider what could· ornamental subjects. Without saying any healthier.
be their burry. Good reasons at once suggest themselves for the deferred thing unpalatable about the inatter memor-
payment. The remark that rice was ised as per the Rev. C. H. HICKLING'S
charged for "at famine prices" has report from the Kowloon British School, or
a touch of hyperbole about it, though the still more importaut subject dealt with
it might well be true, as recent market by Mr. FULLER, F.R.C.O., L.R.A.M., we may
prices have been quoted on a famine quote the official note that "there seems some danger that competitions such as those
basis. for the Belilios Medal and for the prize for Scottish History may disorganize the routine school work". That is worth pondering over, and the authorities might be well. advised to consider the matter of putting the children's limited time to its fullest practical use.
Itisinteresting to see that Chinese parents are becoming more inclined to give their daughters English education, and that they were also not averse to paying for it. But we can hardly admit that the INSPECTOR chose well his word when be wrote that the
imposition of a monthly fee of twenty-five cents was a severe test of the interest of parents in their daughter's education. However, if there were people who previous ly asserted that "selfishness and benighted. ness of the Chinese" would make them baulk at even that we are glad to see them confuted. Mr. MORRIS is one of the masters who has hit upon a most agreeable method of imparting instruction, taking parties of boys to inspect manufactories and public works. Such expeditions may not directly "prove of a high educational value", but they should awaken a healthy curiosity in the minds of the boys. A boy who has had his inquisitive brain directed to some useful practical invention is in a better way to become a useful citizen than the poor wight who pleases t'e Rev. Mr HICKLING by memorising two long Oriental poems. The peculiar needs of the Colony ought to be constantly borne in mind in the training of its young people. A capital step in this direction was the GOVERNOR's introduction of hygiene as a subject; but we fear its object is being defeated either by too much technicality or lack of tutorial enthusiasm. The simple principles of hygiene, thoroughly inculcated, should have far-reaching efficis upon the lives of future generations; and certainly do more immediate good that the bending of little falsetto voices to tonic sal-fa harmony. But at Hongkong the faults frequently the subject of complaint in England are noticeable. Too much
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INEXACT TERMINOLOGY.
(Daily Press, 26th June.)
<
A member of the China Inland Mission, the Rev. D. W. CROFTS, whose address is
That many lives ended in Chenyuan via Yochow, has written to the North-China Daily News a letter containing agony " before the expiry of the first two months is a manifest expansion of truth, grave charges against the officials of the syndicate constructing the Yunnan railway.and in the letter itself we read of others Bands of Chinese labourers, "hig, strong, who survived these unbelittled hardships rawboned countrymen from the neighbour. for nearly a year before it occurred to them It is included as part of the hood of Tientsin ", called at bis house, and to run away. from their stories he has acquired an idea indictment that while "begging their way of what he calls "the plainly murderou, towards home, many fell victims to disease, exploitation of labourers by the syndicate". want, and weather", and this alone should The coolies told him they were engaged to upset the obvious inference of the stateinent work on the liue for a dollar a day, their that the men as seen by the complainant wore in a state of exhaustion. A Sanitary ssage being paid to Haiphong. Thy did not like their new surroundings, desolate Board coo ie absconding from Hongkong, to
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big mountains", and they iad to make Peking might truthfully be described as in huts for themselves by gathering
grass a sorry state at Shanghai, #ithout reflecting and brushwood" from the mountain sides, upon the local corporation. As for the They received no wages, but rice was doled hundred applicants per day, kneeling at the "at famine prices". Only missionary's door, they seem to bare struck to them daily one catty a day was their last allowance, and
a charitable gold-mine ;-- and if the reverend were gentleman sets a watch, we suspect be will no vegetables, meat, salt, or vil
Each man
find that many of them are making the furnished, so Mr. Crofts says, had to gather his own fuel. They endured circuit of his compound, and re-appearing this state of things for two months, and in the procession more exhausted than In any case, these very serious then asked for their wages. Being refused before.
At least some of charges are iade on heur-saý «vidence they began to desert.
most notoriously untrustworthy them did: some could not, as according to of the the missionary's story, "insufficient food, character; nothing personal y observed by strange clima e, and poisonous gases the writer can be fairly set down as the
were effect of the aileged causes; and we fear. (specially in tunnels where mea drives to work by armed guards) ended that we have here another case of possible There were also mischief to be worked by the too much many lives in agony other deserters who had actually worked complacence with which some missionaries for ten or clever months, and been told are ready to listen to evil tales and to pass that if they would work till the job was them on. completed, about five years, they would receive their wages in full "The most that any had received in ready money was one or two dollars". A Inter_gang, recruited from the Shanghai ant Ningpo neighbourhood, was also deserting in groups, "sometimes more than one hundro per day kneeling at our door and asking help.”
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Taking his own testimony, as presented in the letter quoted, no judge could accept the evidence as sufficient sto warrant the Rey.-D, W. Chores conclusion that these coolies were poor, unfortunate,
We do not suppose victimised men
the matter will be permitted to rest it does.
The directors of the We
Co., Ltd., expected that the to San Francisco would.
As soon as they went to work they began to sicken and die, so the foremen turned them adrift to get home as they could"
samyer. They have roosivadi. As late as May 15th, Mr. Corrs could write, gold dollars per ton, the valuat « The stronger of these refugees have now effect that the yield was only $2,477 gold for passed us and the poor crawling, staggering | fifty-sight tous.
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