ENG-1953 — Page 260

HISTORY

insistence of religious opinion at home and in the Colony, though the immediate result was merely to drive them over to the Chinese side of the border in Kowloon City. There was also the great social problem of overcrowding, with associated problems of water supply and sanitation. In 1882, Oswald Chadwick was sent out to the Colony as Special Sanitary Commissioner, and as a result of his report a Sanitary Board was set up in 1883, its powers and duties being defined by a Sanitary Ordinance, though in fact it was not until the plague of 1894 that the problem of overcrowding was seriously tackled.

The growth of the Chinese population led in this period to great changes, and advances, in the field of education. A Board of Education had been established as early as 1845, composed chiefly of Protestant missionaries, and the establish- ment of schools with Christian teaching was one of its main objects. In 1865, there was a reversal of policy and a reorganization; the Board was abolished, and Christian teaching was excluded from all government schools which became secular. A central school was established, the Headmaster of which became the head of the Education Department. In 1873, a grant-in-aid scheme was introduced to help the religious bodies; at first the grants were based on secular subjects only, but in 1879, more liberal treatment was given.

The next period in the Colony's history, 1882-1914, may be defined as the period of steady administration and growing prosperity. The main lines of policy had now been laid down, and the period was one of allround steady growth and progress. The coming of the bubonic plague, in 1894, shook the Colony's complacency, and there was a serious exodus of Chinese from the Colony to the mainland. Drastic measures were necessary, involving house visitation, limewashing, and treatment of infected premises. This created opposition among the Chinese who still evinced a complete lack of faith in the efficacy of western medicine.

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