EDUCATION IN HONG KONG Pre-1841 to 1941: FACT AND OPINION
Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong
Anthony Sweeting
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HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by Hong Kong University Press University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
c Hong Kong University Press, 1990
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or tramit-ted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher
ISBN 962-209-258-6
Printed in Hong Kong by Elite Printing Co. Ltd. The author and publisher wish to thank the WIDELAND FOUNDATION for its generous subsidy towards the publication costs of this book
PREFACE
The elephantine gestation period of this book has enabled a number of revisions to be made, not least to its title and chronological scope. It is now in one sense less synoptical than originally planned, because the study ends in December 1941, rather than at the present time. On the other hand, December 1941 is a very appropriate end-date. It marks the forced, if temporary, end of British-style educa-tion in the territory. The other advantages of chronological restriction include the extended opportunities it offers in the three main segments of the book: Commen-tary, Chronicle, and Evidence. In particular, it provides more room for a consid-eration of education in the Hong Kong region before the arrival of British adminis-trators, traders, and missionaries. More generally, it also provides the reason for a sequel.
Later in the book, I take the liberty to remark on a number of errors of fact and to query several interpretations contained in other publications. Correction of fact and questioning of opinion need not derive from arrogance. Here the source is an abiding interest in the Hong Kong's history of education. I, therefore, invite similar treatment with regard to the material in this book.
One of the frustrations which all writers on Hong Kong's past have to deal with concerns the romanization of Chinese proper names. Despite the apparent anomalies (e.g., seeing Hong Kong's neighbour spelled as 'Macao' in some parts of the book and 'Macau' in others), the policy which I have adopted is to reproduce the romanization used in whatever document I happen to be quoting from and, elsewhere, in Commentary and Chronicle sections, to use the forms commonly accepted in Hong Kong (including 'Hong Kong').
The number of people who have, wittingly or unwittingly, contributed to the production of this work is huge. Countless students over the past twenty years have generously provided evidence about their schools and families. Others who are uncategorizable have also offered their memories. To all of these, so numerous that they must remain nameless, I give my thanks.
A smaller number of individuals have contributed in more specific ways. As mentioned overleaf, the publication of this work owes much to Sir Q.W. Lee whose Wideland Foundation offered a generous subsidy towards the publishing costs. The staff of the Hong Kong Public Records Office, in particular Mr Ian Diamond, Ms Robyn Maclean, and Dr Choi Chee Cheung, were unfailingly help-ful in the process of searching for relevant documentary sources. The same was true of the staff of the Rhodes House Library in the Oxford University and the staff of the British Public Records Office at Kew Gardens. Ms Hora Kan Lai Fong, Dr Julian Leung Yat Ming, Mrs Winnie Lai Auyeung Yu Wing, and Ms Margaret Ng gave me valuable advice and help over translation from the Chinese. None of them should be held responsible, however, for any infelicities or inaccuracies created by me. Mr William Pang facilitated my translation of ideas into cartoons. Mr S.D. Yip permitted me to examine Queen's College's collection of historical photographs. Dr Richard Irving provided a great deal of help over the maps showing early schools in Hong Kong. Mr Johnnie C.K. Fung advised over graphics and the presentation of the original manuscript. Dr Paul Morris, Professor Brian Cooke, and Professor Dafydd Evans were generous with their time and advice concerning details, style, and organization. I am deeply indebted to them. The last named also offered freely the fruits of his own work on early Hong Kong, includ-ing a biographical index and a key to the early land-lots. These materially assisted several of my various quests. Mrs Louise Ching and Dr Renald Ching, my mother and father-in-law, provided a wealth of fascinating anecdotes, numerous docu-mentary treasures related to family history, and even more importantly, a sense of being accepted into a Hong Kong Chinese family. Most important of all, my wife and children fashioned the environment and exercised the patience which enabled the work to be completed.
Anthony Sweeting
Hong Kong, 1989
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In a book which is so dependent upon the display of hard evidence, the right to reproduce extracts from a range of information sources was indispensable. I am very happy to acknowledge and record my debt. Almost invariably, requests for permission to quote from published works or from tape-recorded interviews received immediate approval. I name these sources with gratitude and pride below.
All other quotations in the book are taken from what I believe to be the public domain. If I have unwittingly impinged upon anyone's copyright, I apologize unreservedly and would attempt to explain my error by claiming that it was committed in an enthusiasm for truth and history.
Thanks are therefore extended to the following (listed alphabetically):
Miss Kay Barker; Dr Alan Birch; Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong; Chinese University Press, Hong Kong; Dr Renald and Mrs Louise Ching; Brigadier Hilary Cree; Diocesan Boys School; Professor Dafydd E.M. Evans; Dr Davis Faure; Mr Fong Mee Yin; Mr Norman Gillanders, Registrar of the University of Hong Kong; Mr Timothy Ha; Dr James Hayes; Hong Kong Government Information Services; Mr Rufus Huang; Mr Ip Shing Dock;
Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society; Journal of Education, University of Hong Kong; Mr Patrick Lau; DrK.S.Lo; Dr Bernard H.K. Luk; Dr Bernard Mellor; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Mrs Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha; Oxford University Press (Hong Kong); Mr William Pang; Public Records Office, Hong Kong; Public Records Office, Kew Gardens;
Queen's College; Rhodes House, Oxford University; Dr Elizabeth Sinn; Rev. Carl Smith; St. Paul's College; St. Paul's Convent School; St. Stephen's Girls' College; Mr John Stokes and Mrs Gwynneth Stokes; Tung Wah Group of Hospitals; Wah Yan College; Ying Wa College; Ying Wah Girls College.
CONTENTS
Preface Vll Acknowledgements ix Chapter One Introduction 1 Chapter Two Education in Pre-Colonial Hong Kong 7-1841/1860/1898 87 Chapter Three Variations on a Missionary Theme 1841-65 139 Chapter Four Consolidation, Conflict and Control 1865-1913 195 Chapter Five Enlargement and Vernacularization 1914-41 341 Bibliography 479 Index 491
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION
COMMENTARY
Fact and opinion serve as the Yin and Yang of Education in Hong Kong, at least as far as its historical development is concerned. Like the ancient Chinese symbols, educational fact and opinion have persistently interacted to complement each other. This interaction produces at any given time the characteristic, often conten-tious, and invariably concerned mood adopted by participants and observers towards educational matters in Hong Kong.
The mutual dependence of fact and opinion, their symbiotic relationship in the history of education in Hong Kong, could be emphasized by the coining of tra-ditional sounding aphorisms. 'Fact without opinion is dry dust: opinion without fact is hot air'; or, more positively, 'Facts provide the fuel for educational develop-ment; opinions provide the spark'. And one could quote many examples to sub-stantiate these general laws. Even the most basic 'facts' about schooling, such as enrolment figures for the different ethnic groups, social classes or genders, require an understanding of opinions and attitudes before they can make worthwhile sense. Reports of more informal educational activity, such as discussion groups, concerts, games, museum exhibitions, and different types of clubs or associations need to be supplemented and thus, informed by an awareness of the feelings and viewpoints which led to these encounters and those which were provoked by them.
Hong Kong's geographical position has contributed to the importance of extraneous factors in the shaping of the local educational milieu. The operation of these extraneous factors may be detected most clearly and easily in Hong Kong's post-1841 history �X particularly in relation to the influx of people and ideas from the Chinese mainland and elsewhere. One may, however, extrapolate that outside influences had significant impact even in the pre-Chinese and very early Chinese periods.1 There can be little doubt that these influences were the outcome of a combination of fact and opinion.
1. For further details about the earliest periods in the history of the Hong Kong region, see Lo Hsiang-Lin, Hong Kong and Its External Communications before 1842: The History of Hong Kong prior to the British Arrival (Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963); Sung Hok P'ang, 'Legends and Stories of the New Territories Kam Tin', reprinted from The Hong Kong Naturalist 6-8 (1935-38) in the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 13 (1973), 110-32, and 14 (1974), 160-85; S.F. Balfour, 'Hong Kong before the British', reprinted from Tien Hsia Monthly (Shanghai) 11-12 (1940-41) in theJournal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 10 (1970), 134-79; K.M.A. Barnett, Hong Kong before the Chinese: The Frame, The Puzzle and The Missing Pieces' (a lecture delivered on 18 November 1963),
This does not mean that all educational development resulted from the inter-play of extraneous factors, or that the local situation was some sort of 'tabula rasa' on which only newcomers made their mark or messages appeared by some type of remote control. In pre-British Hong Kong, as in other parts of the Chinese Empire, local initiative, as well as the energies of visiting officials, stimulated the establish-ment of schools and other educational activities, centuries before the arrival of the British. For post-1841 Hong Kong, one does not have to espouse an explanation of educational development via the concept of colonialism, in its guise of cultural imperialism.2
It is true that there are certain 'facts' which seem to emphasize the importance of Hong Kong's colonial status. In the early years of Hong Kong's existence as a colony, a Governor requested Colonial Office permission to offer financial assis-tance to local schools.3 A later Governor called an 'Education Conference' which, under his direct influence, concluded that 'political and commercial considera-tions rendered the study of English of primary importance in all Government schools'.4 Over thirty years later, an 'Education Committee' proclaimed that 'bet-ter results will be obtained by assisting to enlighten the ignorance of the upper classes of Chinese than by attempting to force new ideas on the mass of the people. Civilized ideas among the leaders of thought are the best and perhaps the only means at present available for permeating the general ignorance.. .'5 Each of these facts, no matter how congruent with the interpretations of Carnoy, Altbach and Kelly et ah, needs to be balanced with an understanding of opinions as well as circumstances. The early Government assistance to local schools was a deliberate alternative to subsidizing the missionary schools and was officially designed to avoid interfering with local customs and beliefs. The Governor who called the Education Conference believed, with some justification, that he was acting in the interests of the local Chinese who were fully convinced of the value of learning English. To the dismay of many upwardly-mobile Chinese, the Inspector of Schools had been insisting that Chinese pupils of the principal Government school possess a strong foundation in Chinese language and culture!6 The Education Committee's
Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 4 (1964), 42-67; Peter Y.L. Ng, New Peace County: A Chinese Gazetteer of the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univer-sity Press, 1983). For some specific references to educational developments in this early period, see Chapter 2 below.
2.
The 'classic' exposition of this interpretation is to be found in Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: McKay, 1974). P.G. Altbach and G.P. Kelly (eds.), Education and the Colonial Experience, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick, U.S.A.: Transaction Books, 1984) offers quite detailed comparative perspectives from a similar viewpoint.
3.
For further details, see the Chronicle for 1845,1847 and 1848 in Chapter 3.
4.
See the Chronicle for 1878 and Evidence 4(c) in Chapter 4 .
5.
See the Chronicle for 1901,1902 and 1903, as well as Evidence 16 and 17(a) in Chapter 4 .
6.
See Evidence 1(a), 1(b) and especially 1(d), as well as Evidence 4(a), 4(b) and 4(c) in Chapter 4.
INTRODUCTION
argument in favour of elitist education was rejected by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies, who declared that 'certainly it would need very strong grounds to justify withholding Government assistance from Vernacular education in a large native community such as exists in Hong Kong, thereby presumably excluding the very poorest from the benefits of education'.7 Missionaries may have sounded at times dismissive of traditional Chinese education and culture, but many of them worked hard and sincerely in what they considered to be the interests of the Chinese, perhaps most notably in the field of female education; and some of them respected the culture sufficiently to become distinguished sino-logues. There can be little doubt, then, that the crude and simplistic 'colonialistic' interpretation of educational development in Hong Kong cannot encompass the whole of the situation.
This is reinforced by a further set of facts and opinions. It is important to remember that both prior to and contemporary with colonial (if not colonialist) education in Hong Kong, there were Chinese educational enterprises. Some of these were survivals of the traditional village schools, temple schools, study halls, other tutorial institutions and colleges. By the late nineteenth century, some were influenced by the Self-strengthening Movement and by pressures for reform or even revolution in China. At the same time, successful individuals and voluntary associations, recognizing their responsibilities as 'noble' or 'superior' men (and later women), opened schools for poor children in Hong Kong. And the various influxes of population into Hong Kong, provoked by disturbances in China, invariably included aspiring teachers ready to set up school, often in the sense of setting up shop. For almost the whole of the pre-1941 period of Hong Kong's history, these Chinese schools received little or no assistance from 'the Govern-ment', whether this term refers to the Chinese Imperial Government, the Provin-cial Government, the Government of the Chinese Republic, the Hong Kong Gov-ernment or the British Government. The reason for this has as much to do with a desire, at the periphery, to escape control from the centre, as it has to do with disdain or discrimination from the centre. Avoiding the attention of inspectors is a strong predisposition in Hong Kong, perhaps the obverse side to Hong Kong initiative and enterprise. It is undeniably based upon both fact and opinion.
There are occasions in the history of education in Hong Kong when fact and opinion seem to be confused. At times, a spokesman conveys facts as if they were an assertion of his original opinion, presumably to add weight and stature to his public image. More frequently, opinions are disguised as unchallengeable fact. If they are corroborated at all, it is with the flimsiest of factual backing. In this particular respect, there is nothing unique or even special in education or in Hong Kong. What is special to Education in Hong Kong is the further confounding of the confusion between fact and opinion by commentators. Far too often, a reader of the limited literature about education in Hong Kong discovers that the author has intruded his or her own opinions and assumptions, or has unconsciously reflected the prejudices of the time.
7. See Evidence 17(a) in Chapter 4 .
At the present time, the imminent change in Hong Kong's constitutional status may well stimulate an interest in Hong Kong's past. Educational matters have always been regarded as important and have often been seen to be controver-sial. Unresolved issues persist. As an essential preliminary to in-depth discussion about past, present and future educational concerns, what appears to be keenly needed is the collection, collation and production of authentic 'materials', based on a firm chronology with the compiler, editor and author at least attempting to eschew persuasion. The collection and creation of such materials would seem to be a pre-requisite to a more rigorous examination of the history of education in Hong Kong.
The expression 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong' is itself an historic one. Dr E.J. Eitel used it as the title for two articles which he wrote in 1891.8 Of German origin, Eitel was the Inspector of Schools in Hong Kong from 1878 to 1897. He was also an ex-missionary, a sinologue and local historian of note.9 He possessed, therefore, personal knowledge, access to a range of sources and skills relevant to the task of assembling and commenting upon materials for a history of education in Hong Kong. The numerous controversies punctuating his career may help to explain the disclaimer, which he inserted at the beginning of his first article, that he had 'no further aim on this occasion beyond putting together desultory fragments of information on the subject which he has so far been able to collect.'10 Although the disclaimer might well have been disingenuous, the collec-tion of facts and opinions which Eitel produced has certainly merited very serious and respectful consideration by all later historians of education in Hong Kong. Regrettably, there have been few historians of education in Hong Kong to succeed him; some of these have failed to build upon the foundations which he laid. The present publication, therefore, attempts to follow largely in the tradition which Eitel established, its principal function being similar to that which he sketched for himself in 1891:
If anyone better qualified will some day undertake the task of writing a pragmatic history of local education, he may find this collection of mate-rials of considerable help, for, as the years pass by, the sources of informa-
8.
E.J. Eitel, 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong', The China Review XIX (5X1890-91), 308-24; XIX (6X1890-91), 335-68. The China Review was a missionary journal, which Eitel also edited.
9.
For a summary and appraisal of Eitel's life and work, especially his general history of Hong Kong, see G.B. Endacott, 'A Hong Kong History: Europe in China, by E.J. Eitel �X The Man and the Book', Journal of Oriental Studies IV (l-2)(1957/58)(Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong); and H.J. Lethbridge, 'Introduction' to E.J. Eitel, Europe in China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. v-xiv.
10.
Eitel, E.J., 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong', The China Review XIX (5), 308.
INTRODUCTION
tion as to the earlier decades of our local history become less accessible
and less intelligible.11
The wholesale destruction of documents during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (December 1941-August 1945) has strengthened Eitel's argument. Towards and beyond 1997, the motivation for producing a 'pragmatic history of local education' may well diminish to the extent that identity with China increases. The compilation of materials for a new history of education in Hong Kong could, therefore, serve to prolong the life of evidence, which might otherwise be ne-glected, about issues which continue to concern many readers.
Eitel's 'Materials' concentrated upon the years 1841*-77.12 The nature of the sources open to him encouraged an emphasis upon the activities of committees, details of the founding, staffing and closing of various institutions, public state-ments about educational policy, and estimates of expenditure upon schools, fo-cused most sharply upon the endeavours of European administrators and mis-sionaries in Hong Kong itself. The scope of Eitel's work may thus be adjudged by the standards of the later twentieth century as parochial, colonialistic and pre-dominantly institutional. He did not, however, entirely ignore the educational activities of the local and immigrant Chinese; taking pains, for example, to dispel the myth that there were no schools in Hong Kong before the arrival of the British.13 Neither did he totally neglect to point out the influence of developments elsewhere (especially in Britain) on policies and attitudes towards education in Hong Kong. Although it is clear that he never had access to official documents marked 'Confidential', he utilized those sources which were at his disposal to create a coherent and largely accurate chronicle. His lengthy quotations from and detailed references to these sources certainly added to the value of his chronicle. Moreover, by making the effort to detect and discuss trends (in the fortunes of
11.
Ibid.
12.
Some commentary is, however, provided about the situation before 1841 (Eitel, op. cit.,
p. 309) and about the years 1878-90 (pp. 367-68).
13. Eitel, op. cit., p. 309 (also see Evidence 1 in this chapter). Unfortunately, this myth (possibly as a function of the strength of colonialist attitudes) has been particularly persis-tent, one of its latest manifestations being contained in Fung Yee-Wang, The Development of Education in Hong Kong', in Joseph Cheng (ed.), Hong Kong in Transition (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 300-301. The defence that Fung referred only to formal schools on Hong Kong Island is unconvincing, especially in the light of the details provided by Eitel, as well as the more general remarks about traditional schools in Alice Ng, Tradi-tional Education in Rural Hong Kong', and Bernard Luk, Traditional Education in Urban Hong Kong', presented in the Conference on Hong Kong History and Society in Change (1981), and in Sally Borthwick, Education and Social Change in China: The Beginnings of the Modern Era (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983), pp. 14-37. First-hand evidence that a few weeks after the first official landing by British forces, there were schools on Hong Kong Island, which actually resembled the village schools of England, is provided by the naval surgeon, Edward Cree. See Chapter 3, Evidence 1(a).
nussionary as opposed to secularist education, for example) he produced a work which transcends antiquarianism and provides tools for the analysis and compari-son of Hong Kong's educational developments.
In one sense, the present publication is an updating of Eitel's work. Indeed, an alternative title (which was actually for a time its working title) is: 'Materials for a New History of Education in Hong Kong7. It aspires to emulate the strengths and fulfil at least some of the purposes of the earlier work, as well as to adopt its basic structure. A strong case can be made, however, not merely for a new collection of materials, but also for the compilation of materials which could contribute to a new approach to the history of education in the territory. This case is founded upon a number of distinct factors.
The first and most obvious factor concerns older approaches to the history of education in Hong Kong and, especially, the published manifestations of these approaches. As mentioned above, the field is not noted for its fertility or for the healthy profusion and rivalry of its products. Therefore, there have been few substantial contributions to knowledge. Conspicuous amongst these few are the works of Eitel himself, T.C. Cheng14 and Alice Ng Lun Ngai-ha.15 Even these, how-ever, either because of their declared focus of interest or because of their date of publication, do not provide a synthesis of educational developments in Hong Kong from early times to the present. This is true whether they are read separately or in conjunction with each other. Several local historians, anthropologists and so-ciologists over different generations offer fascinating clues and provocative hints in the more or less passing references which their general works make to educa-tion.16 Valuable information may also be culled from various biographies and
14.
See especially, T.C. Cheng, The Education of Overseas Chinese �X A Comparative Study of Hong Kong Singapore and the East Indies', unpublished M. A. thesis, University of London, 1949.
15.
See especially, Alice Lun Ngai-ha, 'Educational Policy and the Public Response in Hong Kong 1842-1913', unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1967; Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Development of Government Education for the Chinese in Hong Kong', unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1976; and Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1984).
16.
For example, see, J. Agassi and I.C. Jarvie, Hong Kong: A Society in Transition (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969); Hugh D.R. Baker, A Chinese Lineage Village: Sheung Shui (London: Frank Cass, 1968); G.B. Endacott, A History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1958), G.B. Endacott, Government and People in Hong Kong, 1841-1962 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1964), G.B. Endacott, Hong Kong Eclipse (edited and with additional material by Alan BirchXHong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978); D. Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986); M. Freedman, 'A Report on Social Research in the New Territories of Hong Kong 1963' (mimeo., 1963), reprinted in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 16 (1976), 191-261; M. Freedman, The Rural Communi-ties of Hong Kong: Studies and Themes (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983); M. Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (London: The Athlone Press,
INTRODUCTION
autobiographies.17 As could be expected, however, neither the general nor the personal histories produce a sufficiently specific view of education in the territory. Several other publications, which certainly do concern themselves specifically with education in Hong Kong, have relied upon too restricted a range of source material or have been hastily put together without regard for rigorous standards of scholarship. As a result, works which contain much worthwhile material are marred with anachronisms, proof-reading errors and similar (or worse) inaccura-cies. Three examples are offered to substantiate this criticism.
Thus, the delightfully illustrated if somewhat floridly written, Asile de la Sainte Enfance.. .at Hong Kong, Monography, published from Chartres in 1910, contains a clear implication about a decision said to have faced the first Sisters of the 'French Convent' to come to Hong Kong. This was whether they should, in 1848, take the shorter and faster route from Europe to Hong Kong via the Suez Canal or the more economical one around the Cape of Good Hope. It is accurately reported that the Sisters proceeded from Chartres to London and then underwent the four month voyage from London to Hong Kong via the Cape. An adjoining picture shows angels protecting them on the long journey.18 The authors of the Monography, in their enthusiasm about these pioneers, had clearly forgotten that the Suez Canal was not opened until 1869.
More importantly, Queen's College 1862-1962, a mine of information about Hong Kong's premier Government-maintained secondary school, with a rich vein of anecdotes and comments about its teachers, pupils and curriculum, contains an apparently coherent and logically consistent but actually misleading passage about early policy concerning religious education. The passage reads:
In 1847 the Governor, Sir John Davis Bart, with the approval of Lord Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, made grants of $10 monthly to each of three Confucian village schools �X those at Tai Ping Shan, Stanley
1966); J. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region 1850-1911: Institutions and Leadership in Town and Countryside (Hamden: Archon Books, 1977); H.J. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978); G.R. Sayer, Hong Kong 1841-1862: Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age (reprint of the 1937 OUP edition, with new Introduction and Additional Notes by D.M. Emrys Evans)(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1980);
G.R. Sayer, Hong Kong 1862-1919 (edited with additional notes by D.M. Emrys Evans)(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1975); C.T. Smith, Chinese Christians: Elites, Middlemen, and the Church in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1985); M. Topley (ed.), Hong Kong: The Interaction of Traditions and Life in the Towns (Hong Kong: Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, 1975).
17.
For example, Irene Cheng, Clara Ho Tung: A Hong Kong Lady, Her Family and Her Times (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1976); G.H. Choa, The Life and Times of Sir Kai Ho Kai (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1981); D.M. Paton, 'R.O.': The Life and Times of Bishop Hall of Hong Kong (Hong Kong: The Diocese of Hong Kong and Macao and the Hong Kong Diocesan Association, 1985).
18.
Asile de la Sainte Enfance, French Convent, directed by the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, at Hong Kong, Monography (Chartres, 1910), p. 9. See also Evidence 2 in this chapter.
and Aberdeen �X whose teachers had promised to give some religious instruction to their pupils. It seems clear that the real aim in making the grants was to attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity. Instructions issued to the teachers included the following: 'On opening the School in the morning, the master must repeat in the presence of their [sic] as-sembled Scholars a prayer to God for assistance in the labour of the day... On Sundays the Scholars will be instructed in the Bible and religious books only/ But the Treaty of Nanking had stipulated that the British would not interfere with local customs and beliefs. In view of this fact, the religious instruction upon which the grant depended was �X in theory �X not to be compulsory and was not to be given to a child whose parents disapproved. In fact, a parent who disapproved was to be 'admonished and exhorted'. He was to be informed that the Christian religion was of eastern origin. If disapproval persisted after admonishment and exhorta-tion, the child was to be 'turned away7 from the school.19
This account oversimplifies the 'religious question' in Hong Kong to an alarming extent. More importantly, it is based upon a significant misquotation. As might be expected at a time when the controversy about public aid to sectarian education still raged in England, there were officials in Hong Kong who disapproved of using Government grants 'to attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity7. Prominent among these was Colonel William Caine, the Colonial Secretary, who wrote on 7 November 1847 that 'care must be taken to impress upon the minds of the parents of the students that no interference is to be permitted with their religious prejudices, such being the terms on which the contribution [of $10 a month for each School] is to be made'.20 Furthermore, the text of the Instructions for the Teachers of Government Schools differs from that quoted above. The Rev.
W. Lobscheid, who described himself (accurately) as 'Missionary and Inspector of Government Schools' in his 1859 publication, A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong, with Remarks on the History and
19.
The first appearance of this claim is in G.G. Stokes, Queen's College 1862-1962 (Hong Kong: Queen's College, 1962), p. 9. It also appears, uncorrected in Gwenneth and John Stokes, Queen's College: Its History, 1862-1987 (Hong Kong: Queen's College Old Boys' Association, 1987), p. 3.
20.
Quoted in Eitel, op. cit., p. 314. The Colonial Chaplain, the Rev. V. Stanton, wrote to Caine on 9 December 1847, 'I understand the objections which lie against the grant of Government aid to be these two; the supposed pecuniary resources of the parents of the pupils, and the differences of religious belief... The Church Catechism is the only part of our course which has been objected to, and in such cases other books have been substituted which have proved satisfactory to all parties.' (CO 129/21, pp. 352 and 354). The Hong Kong Government's Blue Book for 1850 also includes, as part of the Education Committee's Report, the following comment: 'Christian books have been introduced into all the schools, but it is not compulsory on the scholars to learn them. If the parents object, the course of study is confined to native reading.' (Hong Kong Government, Blue Book 1850, p. 173).
INTRODUCTION
9
Religious Notions of the Inhabitants of the Island, displays the full text of the Instruc-tions. These include:
If the parents of any Scholar object to his reading the Bible, then the Master should explain the great benefit of acquiring the knowledge which this book teaches, and should inform them that this religion is not a foreign religion, that it did not originate in England, but in the East, and is common to all the world, having been given by our common father, God. If they still object, then the boy may be excused from reading it: he must not be turned away from the school, but his parents should be from time to time admonished, and then perhaps they will allow their children to be instructed in this book, which contains nothing but what is truly good.21
The spirit of this instruction is congruent with the official views in England at the time; interestingly enough it foreshadows the 'conscience clause' of the Bill origi-nally presented to the House of Commons which, after amendment, became the 1870 Forster Act.22
The third example of an inaccuracy occasioned by an older approach to the history of education in Hong Kong is a simple one; it probably involves little more than careless reading of sources, caused by the pressure of day-to-day work. However, it may reveal a lack of concern for the field. In his T-Iong Kong' contribu-tion to Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies and Possessions of the British Empire including Reports of the Training of Native Races, E.A. Irving, then Inspector of Schools and about to become Hong Kong's first Director of Education, made the mistake of claiming that James Legge was the founder of 'the Morrison School'.23 As might have been expected and as sources available in living's time show, this school (the first to be established by Europeans in Hong Kong) was founded by the Morrison Education Society, having been transferred from Macau to Hong Kong in November 1942. Its first principal was an American, the Rev. S.R. Brown. As will be seen in the appropriate chapters, James Legge was a very active and influential educator in Hong Kong; he was first known as the Headmaster who transferred the Anglo-Chinese College or 'Ying Wa' from Malacca, briefly via
21.
Lobscheid, A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong, with Remarks on the History and Religious Notions of the Inhabitants of the Island (Hong Kong, printed at the China Mail Office, 1859), pp. 24-25. The text of the regulations also suggests that Stokes' supercilious [sic] in reference to the schoolmaster(s) in the presence of assembled pupils is gratuitous and unjustified, based presumably either upon a proof-reading error or a clumsy transposition from her own notes.
22.
H.C. Dent, 1870-1970: Century of Growth in English Education (London: Longman, 1970), p. 10.
23.
See Great Britain Board of Education, Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies and Possessions of the British Empire including Reports on the Training of Native Races (London: H.M.S.O., 1905), p. 63. Irving's precise words are: The Morrison school was founded by the late the Rev. Dr. James Legge, subsequently famous throughout China for his edition of the classics, and late professor of Chinese at Oxford.'
Macau, to Hong Kong in May 1843. The gravity of Irving's error is not particularly great. It is rather disturbing, however, that it was repeated in later publications both by himself and by his successors. The post-Second World War Director of Education, T.R. Rowell, made publicity for himself by preparing a talk on the history of education in Hong Kong. His preparation was not rigorous enough to identify and remove this simple mistake. It appears again in the Annual Report of the Education Department for 1948-49, was repeated in the Annual Report of the Director of Education for the Financial Year 1952-53, and was reinforced in the Education Department's Triennial Survey for 1958-61. Perhaps the time is ripe for the Education Department to produce a revised version of the Tiistorical' section of its reports, more attune to what is known about the facts and opinions of the time.
Another manifestation of an older approach to past educational policies, personnel and institutions may be seen in polemical literature. At various times in the past, individuals or groups have taken the opportunity to publish strongly held views about education. The strength of their conviction and the eloquence of their advocacy may not, however, have been matched by a determination to explain the historical genesis of the controversy or problem either impartially or fully. This characteristic tends to apply even (perhaps, especially) when such a publication purports to provide an historical background. Thus, Dates and Events connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong, an anonymous pamphlet published in 187724 (though in title an innocuous and antiquarian compilation) is really a skilful piece of special pleading on behalf of the Catholic schools, in protest against the then current secularist policy and in favour of a revision to the Grant Code. Consequently, its actual dates and events are carefully selected. More recently, At What Cost?, a vigorously argued 'report for the public' on 'instruction through the English medium in Hong Kong schools', made claims to establish 'a historical perspective' on language-educational policy in Hong Kong'. Unfortunately, its heavy reliance upon secondary sources, especially for the early part of the survey, detracts from its accuracy and comprehensiveness.25
24.
Dates and Events (1857-1877) connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong (printed at the St. Lewis Reformatory, 1877). It might be noted that another anonymous pamphlet �X The Central School: Can It Justify Its Raison d'Etre? �X was published in the same year. The Special Collections Room of the Hong Kong University Library attributes this latter pam-phlet almost certainly spuriously to E.J. Eitel. Eitel himself refers to the pamphlet as 'probably by the same writer' as the 'Roman Catholic author' of Dates and Events ... (Eitel, 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong', The China Review XIX (6), 367). Eitel is probably correct about this, a prime candidate for the authorship being J.J. Francis, a leading Catholic barrister of the time and no stranger to controversy. See also Chapter 4, f .n. 49.
25.
Cheng Ngai Lung, Shek Kang Chuen, Tse Ka Kui and Wong Siu Lun, At What Cost? Instruction through the English Medium in Hong Kong Schools (June 1973), pp. 13-27. The pamphlet's use of historical sources is, to say the least, selective. It asserts quite correctly, for example, that in 1866 the study of English was made obligatory in the Central School
INTRODUCTION
11
The foregoing paragraphs indicate that the compilation and creation of mate-rials for a new history of education in Hong Kong, incorporating a new approach to the subject area, may be justified by reference to previously published work on education in Hong Kong. A radically new approach to the history of education is also suggested, in the more general academic context, by the advocacy of such committed scholars as Brian Simon, David Tyack and Harold Silver.26 They point to the inadequacies of narrowly institution-based accounts which often concen-trate myopically upon declared government policy. As an alternative perspective, Simon, Tyack and Silver emphasize the importance of the 'client' in the educa-tional enterprise and of the force of 'opinion' in the formulation and implementa-tion of policy. In this respect, they make out a cogent argument in favour of a 'social history of education'. Such a history necessarily includes consideration of the informal agencies of education in any society and of formally sanctioned schools. It incorporates a study of the 'hidden curriculum' and official syllabus statements. It entails attempts to make connections between education and other socio-economic phenomena. It explores many questions: how people in the past constructed the meaning of the terms they used (especially in discourse about education), why certain issues have become defined as problems at certain times and who is responsible for these definitions. It is particularly wary of explanatory stances which presuppose that everything of importance in educational develop-ment originated from an administrative 'centre' and a hierarchical 'top' and is then transmitted downwards more or less effectively to peripheral subordinates. More positively, it takes advantage of social science methodology, including surveys and case-studies, without sacrificing the historian's more customary recourse to imaginative reconstruction. As Silver points out:
If all history is imaginative reconstruction, then the historian must constantly re-invent the answer-back. This does not mean to ventriloquize
�X quite the opposite. It means that the historian needs to listen to the reso-nance of his own and others' attempted descriptions and explanations, and must allow historical sources to respond and disturb and upset them. It means a constant effort to lower the historian's own voice and the stridency of his own time. It means a constant diminution of his sense of knowing the outcome, of the arrogance of his own judgement after the
under Frederick Stewart, without also noting Frederick Stewart's sincere and consistently held belief in the importance of the study of Chinese. In this way, the pamphlet is able to adopt a crude anti-colonialist stance which neglects to recognize that Stewart sought equal treatment for the two languages and, as late as 1878, in the face of Governor Hennessy's clear preference for making Chinese studies optional, voted for a proposal to make Chinese compulsory at the Central School. See Chapter 4, Evidence 1(d) and 4(c).
26. For example, in Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1960); David B. Tyack, Ways of Seeing: An Essay on the History of Compulsory Schooling', Harvard Educational Review LXVI (1976); and Harold Silver, Education as History (London: Methuen, 1983).
event. However unsatisfactory the conversation, it has to take place �X in order to treat evidence as elusive and unreliable and the opposite of the inert �X within the controlling, changing and growing imagination of the historian.27
In and about Hong Kong to date, there has been little attempt to create a social history of education of this type. As yet, there has been no attempt to prepare a social history of education in Hong Kong which also offers a synopsis of develop-ments from pre-colonial to post-colonial times. The present work is, at least in intention, an effort to gather together some of the raw materials for such an endeavour so that the reader may become his own historian.
The objective that the reader become his own historian is in one sense a humble one; in another sense, it is very ambitious. It has the added attraction of being consistent with the rationale behind several quite modern curriculum devel-opments in History. The 'New History7 movement, which has been so influential over curriculum planning in the subject since the 1960s (especially in the United States and Britain) is based on the aspiration to introduce students to the skills of historians, the tools and processes of their work, through direct contact with primary sources.28 It would seem particularly appropriate that teachers, student teachers, teacher educators and interested others should gain access to evidence about the history of education in the same spirit. For this reason, the intentions of the current publication may be interpreted as the presentation of materials for a new history of education in Hong Kong.
The methodology of new history and the goals of a social history of education have certainly influenced the structure and scope of the present work. As will be seen, each chapter is divided into three segments: Commentary, Chronicle and Evidence. The Commentary aims to inform and thereby facilitate dialogue be-tween the reader and the evidence, often by suggesting questions rather than by pontificating about answers. It does not aim to interfere in such a conversation by presuming to present and insist upon a set of value-judgements, especially in the form of pre-determined and exclusive themes. Similarly, the Chronicle is designed to serve as a convenient repository of chronological data about developments in formal and informal education in Hong Kong, plus information which may en-courage comparative judgements. In this way, the Chronicle is intended to con-tribute towards the reader's own achievement of a synoptical view of these devel-opments and, within this view, towards the reader's own detection of significant trends. The Evidence has been selected to add substance and hopefully a sense of
27.
H. Silver, op. cit., pp. 298-99.
28.
For a fuller discussion of the rationale and methodology of the New History movement see, for example: Schools Council History Project, A New Look at History (London: Holmes McDougal, 1976); PJ. Rogers, The New History: Theory into Practice (London: Historical Asso-ciation (TH44), 1978); Gareth Jones and Lionel Ward (eds.), New History Old Problems: Studies in History Teaching (Swansea: University College of Swansea, Faculty of Education, 1978); D.J. Shemilt, History 13-16, Evaluation Study (London: Holmes McDougal, 1980).
INTRODUCTION
the 'spice' of educational undertakings in Hong Kong over many generations. Much of the Evidence has been extracted from primary sources. The range of primary sources is deliberately somewhat promiscuous and quite extensive, in-cluding official government archives, school and family records, more ephemeral materials such as newspaper articles and diaries, statistical surveys, copies of paintings or photographs, and, when possible, transcripts of interviews. Some of the Evidence, however, is extracted from secondary sources. These include the after-thoughts of participants, published histories and the work of sociologists and anthropologists. And a third type of Evidence has been edited or even 'concocted' especially for the book, but with reference to the most reliable source-base that could be found.29 If any of this Evidence encourages readers to seek other sources of information and ideas about education in Hong Kong, it will have achieved a most important purpose. Extracts from primary and secondary sources will prop-erly attain the status of 'evidence' only if they are recognized as providing answers to questions or clues to the solution of mysteries. Some of the questions will be indicated in the Commentary.30 Others may be provoked by the Chronicle. To-gether the three segments may suggest further enquiries for each is attempting to use a 'pointillist' technique in order to offer pointers. The cumulative impact on
29.
Thus some of the tables in this and other chapters are revised versions of material edited from official statistical digests. The charts (based on official statistics) are in the design-sense 'originals'. The same is true of the maps. And most of the cartoons were dreamt up by the present author but executed by an understanding and very patient draughtsman, Mr William Pang Ching Wah.
30.
They will usually be found at the end of each Commentary section. For this Introductory Commentary, however, they have only been implied in the text. At this stage, readers may wish to consider the three basic questions posed by historians �X What? How? Why? �X and how these may be fruitfully applied to the history of education in Hong Kong.
The explicit general questions which befit an introductory commentary include:
* What was education like in Hong Kong? �X at various different times? What was the
curriculum? What were the principal characteristics of students and teachers? What
relevant comparisons can be made with other societies?
* How did this situation come about? How did it develop? How were these develop-
ments related to 'forces' from within and from outside the local educational scene?
* Why did the situation develop in these ways? Why did aspects internal to the situation
influence it in the way which they did? Why did influences from outside the local edu-
cational scene influence developments?
The period is so long that a list of more explicit questions, which the various extracts
from sources included in this Introduction may be seen to answer, would probably appear to be too prescriptive and insufficiently informative when considered outside a more detailed context. Readers may, however, wish to consider what insight the various extracts may provide about attitudes towards schooling, conditions of learning and teaching, changes (if any) to the curriculum and to opportunities for informal education and the status and role of teachers and pupils. Alternatively, the pieces of evidence may well provoke their own more specific questions.
many readers may well be a sense of deja vu, for references to such features of the educational environment in Hong Kong as the lack of space, the excess of noise, the overriding importance of examinations and the undermining influence of uncertainty about language may be seen to be common and recurrent in all periods.
There will probably be at least as many uses of this book as there are readers. Near the outset, however, readers may wish to note the existence of several features designed to enhance the book's usefulness while not conflicting with its rationale. The index has been organized in such a way as to facilitate the recogni-tion of possible trends and themes, without forcing them on the reader. Thus the entry for 'colonialism' contains references to facts and opinions which may sup-port theories of cultural imperialism and references to facts and opinions which may suggest qualification and modification of the simple, exploitation-model explanation of educational developments in Hong Kong. Similarly, questions outlined in Commentary sections of the book are intended to provoke thought about trends and themes, not to conclude the thinking. The quite copious foot-notes may irritate some readers. They provide, however, a subsidiary level of facts and opinions and contribute to the encouragement of further searches, beyond the covers of this book as well as cross-referencing within it. They were created with the latter purposes in mind! Illustrations have been included, not primarily for their aesthetic effect (although they must have some, positive or negative), but to serve as Evidence. As will be seen, some illustrations provide evidence of fact. Tables, graphs and photographs often offer insight in this direction. Other illustra-tions provide evidence of opinion. Caricatures and other types of cartoons tend to clarify polemics. Some illustrations may be used as evidence about the combina-tion of fact and opinion. Even the cover of this book was designed to play a minor role in this capacity. If both the cover and its contents contribute towards the clarification of fact and opinion about education in Hong Kong over a quite lengthy historical period, they will have performed a very useful purpose. Espe-cially with regard to this last point, Eitel's 1891 peroration remains apposite:
In conclusion we would urge upon all local Educationists the impor-tance of a careful study of the course which education has so far run in Hong Kong. If we ignore the past, we cannot understand the present nor forecast the future.'31
Indeed, without such a study, fact and opinion about education in Hong Kong becomes absorbed by an indiscriminating miscellany of fact and fiction.
31.Eitel,op.cit.,p.368.
INTRODUCTION
CHRONICLE
7-1841/1860/1898: Education in pre-colonial Hong Kong.
1841-1865: Variations on a missionary theme.
1865-1913: Consolidation, conflict, and control.
1914-1941: Enlargement and vernacularization.
Periodization is an artificial construct, merely an historian's convenience; with regard to the history of education in Hong Kong as with other types of history about other societies, few beginning- or end-dates can be put forward with total confidence. As the more detailed chronicles below will evince, many educational developments fail to respect perceptions of periods. The chronicles may help to show why the specific dates have been chosen as significant ones, if not as 'turning points', then as possible 'sign-posts' to or 'mile-stones' of change.
EVIDENCE
1. E.J. Eitel, 'Materials for a History of Education in Hong Kong', The China Review XIX (5X1891), 309-10.
This extract has been taken from near the beginning of the first ofEiteVs two essays on education in Hong Kong. It offers evidence about his general tone, structure and approach. It also includes an unequivocal statement about the existence of schools on Hong Kong Island for 'at least a century' before its occupation by the British.
Poor and lawless as most of the Chinese inhabitants of Hongkong were at the time, they were not forgetful of the value of education. For at least a century before the British occupation of Hongkong, there were already small Chinese Schools in existence in the villages of Wongnaichung, Stanley, Little Hongkong and Aberdeen. Each of these Schools counted probably, year by year, an average attendance of some ten boys. These scholars, on an average 50 per annum, with their five teachers, repre-sented, previous to the advent of the English, the entire school-going population of Hongkong, less than one (about 0.89) per cent of the whole of the inhabitants.
Each of those 50 scholars used to pay to his teacher, apart from small presents of eggs, fruit or fowls, given at certain festivals, a monthly fee consisting of 30 cash and 4 catties of rice, representing the value of about 12 cents. In return for this fee, the young hopeful Hongkongites were taught to read and commit to memory a list of clan names (Pak-ka-sing), the Three-characters-classic (Sam-sze-king), the Four-characters-classic (Tsin-sze-man), and �X in the rare case of boys attending school for more than three years �X some of the so-called Four Books of ancient Chinese literature. In addition to reading and memoriter exercises, the scholars were taught to write Chinese characters, on wooden tablets at first, and, in the case of the few who could afford the additional expense, even on paper (by means of copy slips which had to be traced through tissue paper). During harvest time in the Hakka villages, and during the annual fishing seasons among the Punti fishermen, the schools were closed and the teachers left without fees, excepting what they earned by acting as letter-writers, accountants, fortune tellers and geomancers for the people in general.
However little positive knowledge, apart from mere reading and writing, was disseminated by these Schools, the teachers' personal influ-ence, rather than their teaching, served to keep alive among the people of Hongkong the national respect for Confucian tenets of morality and cere-monialism. Thus these little Schools did after all a small modicum of genuine educational work by partaking of the general character of Chi-nese education which leans on ethics as European education leans on religion.
Such was the state of education in Hongkong previous to, and at the time when, the British flag was for the first time hoisted at the foot of Taipingshan, on Tuesday, 26 January, 1841, and when formal possession was taken, for all time, of the whole Island of Hongkong, in the name of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
There is no record of any new School having been established in Hongkong during the first year of the Colony's existence. The attention of the Government and of the European community was much engrossed with the removal of property and personnel from Macao to Hongkong, with the selection and laying out of building lots and with the erection of residences, offices and storehouses. Everything was altogether too un-settled yet, to admit even of the thought of any measures towards improv-ing the educational condition of the inhabitants. The Chinese also, the refuse of whose lowest classes began, early in 1841, to flock to the site of the present city of Victoria, consisted during the first few years of our Colonial history, chiefly of boat-people, common labourers, stone-ma-sons, blacksmiths, and provision dealers, all of whom had come to Hongkong, in defiance of Mandarin prohibitions, for temporary employ-ment rather than as settlers and left their families on the mainland. They naturally had neither time nor inclination to think of the education of the young. Some Protestant Missionaries, however, and notably Drs. Bridgman, Ball, Hobson, and Revs. W. J. Boone, W. C. Milne and J. L. Schuck, who were settled at Macao at the time, came over to Hongkong on sundry occasions in spring and summer 1841, to prospect the future capabilities of the Island and to report to their respective Societies as to their making this new British Settlement the headquarters of their future evangelizing
INTRODUCTION 17
operations. Plans were formed and recommendations were made by the Missionaries, but none of them appears to have commenced any educa-tional work in Hongkong during this first year of the young Colony's existence.
2. Asile de la Sainte Enfance, Trench Convent, directed by the Sisters of Saint-Paul of Chartres, at Hong Kong, Monography (1910), pp. 8-9 (Illus. 1.1).
To provide something of the 'flavour' of this publication, a photocopy of two pages is presented. The incomplete sentence at the top of page 8 refers to the efforts of the 'young and intrepid missionary', Tather (later Bishop) Porcade, who had attempted to 'penetrate into the inaccessible empire of the Levant' and instead selected Hong Kong as a site worthy of special attention '... where he was about to receive the episcopal consecration'.
3. Letter from London Missionary Society32 members in Hong Kong to Sir Henry Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong, 18th August 1843, CO 129/2, pp. 258^63.
The following extracts provide evidence about the declared objectives of the London Missionary Society in Hong Kong. They also permit inferences to be drawn about the tactics adopted by the members of the Society in their campaign to secure Government support and the sympathy of merchants. The series of Colonial Office files which contains this document is the principal collection of original correspondence between Governors of Hong Kong and Secretaries of State for the Colonies?*
Sir,
By letters dated 31st Dec. 1842 the Directors of the London Missionary Society requested their agents in China, Batavia, and the Straits of Ma-lacca, to assemble at an early opportunity in Hongkong for the purpose of conferring on the measures necessary to be adopted for removing the
32. The London Missionary Society had been founded in 1792 as an non-denominational, basically non-conformist Protestant missionary organization and later served the English Congregational Churches, being particularly active in Africa as well as Asia. Nowadays, its work in Hong Kong is administered by the Church of Christ in China. The letter from which this extract is taken was signed by the most prominent non-conformist missionaries in Hong Kong and China at the time, namely, Samuel Dyer, Benjamin Hobson, James Legge,
W.H. Medhurst, W.C. Milne, Alexander Stronach and John Stronach.
33. The CO 129 series continued until the early 1950s, when it was replaced by CO 1023 and later, CO 1030. The correspondence in each of these series includes many enclosures and numerous comments, sometimes in the form of very frank minutes, by officials. 'Supple-mentary7 (a euphemism for Confidential) correspondence appears in the series CO 537 and the Minutes of the Hong Kong Executive Council in CO 131.
Hong-Kong where he was about to receive the epis-copal consecration.
Japan remaining obstinately closed, Bishop For-cade made Hong-Kong the field of his activity, and became from the outset an ardent auxiliary, and one of the first indebted to the providential work of the Sainte-Enfance.
In a letter dated the i4lh of December 1847, and addressed to the Revn<1 Mother General of the Sisters of Sl Paul of Chartres, he exposed
the project that his apostolic heart had conceived.
The plan was thus drawn out clear and precise, crib, hospital, boarding-school, novitiate, all had been foreseen.
The execution of this plan was accepted by the Community of the Sisters of Sl Paul, although at
-9 �X
this epoch; it did not possess as yet any Establish-ment in the West. Four sisters (one of whom was the sister of Bishop Forcade, Sister Alphonsine), were named for Hong-Kong, and received the mis-sion of founding the first Asile of the Sainte-Enfance.
These valiant sisters formed the vanguard of a whole army of white coifs that may be seen to-dav in Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, China, Japan, Corea, Siam, Laos, and in the Philipine Islands; an army that went out not to sow death, but to sow life for eternity. The 4th of May 1848 they bade adieu to their mother-house of Chartres, set off for Paris, and from there to London, where they em-barked on board the Sappho.
The route by the Suez Canal was shorter and more rapid, but also more expensive. The Sappho took the direction of the Cape and arrived at Hong-Kong on the 12th of September only : the voyage had lasted four long months. This was the first initiation into the fatigues and trials, which awaited the heroic little phalanx.
O
G
9
d
o
z
��X
��o a
1
Illus. 1.1 Two pages from Asile de la Sainte Enfance, French Convent, directed by the Sisters of Saint-Paul of Chartres, at Hong Kong, Monography (1910).
INTRODUCTION
Anglo-Chinese College from Malacca to that Island; and after conferring together, 'to apply to the British Government for the grant of a site of land suitable for the erection of a Building for the Anglo-Chinese College, with residences for two or more Missionaries and an Office for Printing, etc.
The original and unalterable object of the Anglo-Chinese College is two-fold: the reciprocal cultivation of Chinese and English literature, and the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ; the former being carried on with a view to the promotion of the latter.
. . . The Directors of the London Missionary Society have for some years been fully aware of the deficiencies of their operations in Malacca, and anxious to embrace the earliest opportunity of removing the College to a more favourable situation. No sooner did they learn the advantageous terms of the peace which had been concluded by Your Excellency with the Emperor of China, than they met together, and issued to their missionar-ies the instructions to which we have referred above.
In making provision for the conduct of the Institution in this Island, we have thought it advisable to make a considerable alteration and en-largement of the plan on which it has hitherto been conducted.
To secure the confidence of the British Government34 and of the For-eign Community in China, it is proposed that the management of its affairs shall be under a Committee, in which various members of the Foreign Community shall be associated with the Missionaries of the Lon-don Missionary Society and that J.R. Morrison Esq., the son of the Founder, shall in any case be a member of such Committee.35 Dr. Legge will con-tinue to sustain in it the office of Principal, and it is proposed that he be
34.
The London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) members certainly did not succeed, initially, in this respect. See Chapter 3, Evidence 5(a), for Pottinger's reaction to this application.
35.
Robert Morrison was the L.M.S. pioneer in China. He had accompanied the abortive Amherst mission to Peking in 1817, founded the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca in 1818 and had translated the Bible into Chinese while at Macau and Canton. He died in 1834 and the Morrison Education Society had been established in his memory in 1835. The L.M.S. members naturally paid homage to his memory in this letter, aware that Pottinger had already made a land grant and provided financial assistance to the Morrison Education Society. They were also clearly hoping to take advantage of J.R. Morrison's standing in the Hong Kong Government and his friendly relations with Pottinger, in a way not dissimilar perhaps, to the Chinese use of middlemen. John Robert Morrison, the second son of Robert Morrison, was not a missionary, but had risen high in official circles, thanks to his fluency in the Chinese language. He had served the British Superintendency of Trade, succeeding his father as 'Chinese Secretary and Interpreter' in 1834, and it was in this capacity that he joined the first Government of Hong Kong at the end of June 1843. By August 1843, he had been appointed Acting Colonial Secretary and, therefore, the authors of the letter to Sir Henry Pottinger probably felt they had cause to be sanguine. Within days, however, Morrison was struck down by 'Hong Kong fever' and he died in Macau on 29 August 1843, an event described by Pottinger as 'an irreparable national calamity'.
joined, as soon as possible, by a Colleague from England, who will under-take the various departments of natural science.
To ensure a permanent supply of Chinese students, it is proposed to establish a preparatory school in immediate connection with the College, the scholars of which shall be eligible as students when they have ob-tained a certain amount of proficiency in the English and Chinese lan-guages.
Wherever schools are established at the different Ports to the North-ward by the Missionaries of the London Missionary Society, these will likewise continue to serve as Preparatory Schools to the College, and converts to Christianity from among the Chinese, of talents adapted to render them useful in spreading true and divine knowledge among their countrymen, will always be transferred to it, to receive a Theological training, principally through the medium of their own language.
Boys and young men possessed of the requisite attainments will be readily admitted from other schools, or on the recommendation of private individuals.
It is not intended to confine the advantages of the Institution to the Chinese. Gentlemen from Europe, and other parts of the world, who are anxious to prosecute the study of the Chinese language will be provided with apartments in it, on their submitting to the laws of its internal regulation. The children of European and other parents who have attained a specified proficiency in the studies belonging to a liberal education, will be admissible to the College classes, and in case of numerous applications for the admission of children not so far advanced, it is proposed to estab-lish a preparatory school for their previous training.
.. . It is our hope, that the existence of such an Educational Seminary in Hongkong, will be the means of widely diffusing the principles of sound knowledge and true religion, and that ultimately through the in-strumentality of native agents educated in the College as through its direct and immediate labours, multitudes of the Chinese will be led to refer with feelings of gratitude to this free and British settlement.
'Report of the Morrison Education Society, 1844 (by the Rev. S.R. Brown, Headmaster of the Morrison Education Society School)', Chinese Repository XIII (December 1844)36,632-34.
36. The Chinese Repository was a Protestant missionary publication of the time, having produced its first issue from Canton in May 1832. Its main financial sponsors were Ameri-can. The Morrison Education Society had been founded in Canton in 1835 to commemorate the work of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to the Chinese who had died on 2 August 1834. It was the first missionary body to open a school in Hong Kong (in 1842). The headmaster of the school, the Rev. Samuel R. Brown was from Yale College. He had
INTRODUCTION
These extracts from Brown's second report to the Morrison Education Society of his school's activities in Hong Kong reveal something of his attitudes and a practitioner's analysis of problems of education in the early years of colonial Hong Kong. Brown was neither the first nor the last person to emphasize the problems created by the traditional Chinese learning methods.
.. . When a pupil is received into our school, he is young, ignorant of almost everything but the little affairs of his home, prejudiced against all that is not of Chinese origin, the dupe of superstition, trembling at the shaking of a leaf as if earth and air were peopled with malignant spirits, trained to worship all manner of senseless things, and in short having little but his mental constitution to assimilate him to the child of Christen-dom, or to form the nucleus of the development we would give him. It is quite impossible for me to describe my emotions when looking for the first time on a class of new pupils.
They differ in features as much as others, but there is usually a universal expression of passive inanity pervading them. The black but staring, glassy eye, and open mouth, bespeak little more than stupid wonder gazing out of emptiness. It matters little whether the child has been at school before or not. What he has learned there, is.. . the names of written characters, that in all probability never conveyed to him one new idea from first to last. He knows no more of the world at large, nor any more of any science than if he had never seen a book or a teacher. He may have been three or four years at school, (though such instances are com-paratively rare among our pupils,) but yet his knowledge of facts would have been quite as extensive, had he never been there a day. Whatever, therefore, his previous advantages may have been, he comes here with so much useful knowledge as has been described, and at the same time with a mind to be emptied of a vast accumulation of false and superstitious notions that can never tenant an enlightened mind, for they cannot coexist with truth. Young as he is too, he is nevertheless the victim of habits that must be replaced by those that are good, or else to increase his knowledge would only empower him to do mischief without enlarging his capacity for happiness.
arrived with his wife in Macau on 23 February 1839 and began the study of Chinese. He and his wife opened the Morrison Education Society School in Macau on 1 November 1839 and moved it to Hong Kong (into temporary quarters first) on 1 November 1842. Extracts from his first annual report to the Society about the school's activities in Hong Kong are included as Evidence 4(c) in Chapter 3. Later, he took three of his pupils from the Morrison Educa-tion Society School in Hong Kong back to America with him for further studies; these pupils included Yung Wing (Yung Hung) who was to become so important in China's Self-strengthening Movement. Further clues to Brown's educational ideas may be found in Carl
T. Smith, op. cit., pp. 13 ff.
The habits referred to are, primarily, an utter disregard of truth, obscenity, and cowardliness. I might enumerate others, but these are certainly enough to undermine every superstructure of virtue that we may attempt to build, and I have never known a Chinese boy who was not at first possessed of them all...
. . . The child partakes of the feelings of his father, and the latter is sometimes so unconscious of his own habitual contempt for those born out of China, that when he comes to seek admission for his son to school, he accosts the foreign teacher as a 'foreign devil'. Kindness however soon meets with a response.
It is not long, if the right course be pursued, before the pupil's love is sufficiently secured to afford a prop to lean upon, and now the lever must be applied. Here the question occurs, by what means shall we communi-cate instruction to these minds? We know that language and books are requisite, whatever mode of teaching we may adopt. But if we look to the Chinese language and literature, we shall, I think, find them inadequate to our purpose, for in their present state they are unfit instruments of educa-tion. The colloquial tongue is not adapted to convey to the mind, some of the simplest facts of science, much less the multitude of abstract and technical terms belonging to it. Shall we resort to books? They are equally ill-suited to our object. Suppose the child to be able to read them, still he is not thereby brought much nearer to the fountain of knowledge. The school books of China are the same throughout the land. They are what is commonly called the 'Four Books' and Tive Classics/ that is, the writings and teachings of Confucius, Mencius, and others, who lived before the Christian era. Their commentators, though men of more modern times, have confined themselves to the elucidation of the text of these books, and of course could not render them much more adapted to the use of chil-dren. Both the style and subjects of these writings are such as to forbid it. The subjects are politico-moral principles, which the sages of antiquity, made the theme of their discourse to princes, and their disciples, and the poetry of times immemorial.
The book first put into the hands of a child in this country, is a poetical work, in which each verse consists of three words or monosyllables. The very construction of it, albeit it was made for a horn-book, is quite enough to condemn it. It could not but be exceedingly concise and elliptical, though it were prose, if every sentence, or nearly so, were composed of three words. But observe the tenor of the first few lines of this book, and we shall see still more reason to refuse it a place among our means of instruction. It runs thus �X Man's nature at his birth is virtuous. All are alike in this respect, but subsequent action makes the differences that we see, for if a man be not instructed his original virtue becomes corrupted/ The author then proceeds to state that, respect for superiors is the primary thing to be inculcated in education ...
INTRODUCTION
5. Extracts from the local press.
The following short extracts may offer evidence about some of the educational con-cerns, formal and informal, of at least the English-reading public in the first years of Hong Kong's colonial existence. The Friend of China began publication on 17 March, 1842. At its second issue (24 March), it was incorporated with the Hong Kong Gazette; this was an official mouthpiece, atfirst, of the Superintendence of Trade, which had previously pub-lished two small sheets from Macau, and later of the Hong Kong Government. One of its first co-editors was the American missionary, John Lewis Shuck (1842-43). Under the editorial control of John Can (1843-49) and William Tarrant (1850-59), the paper was both lively and often controversial On the whole, it represented the views of the mercantile community and was not afraid to be critical of such Government personages as Sir John Davis and Colonel William Caine. The connection with officialdom was dissolved in 1845 amid some acrimony (although it retained its full name) and The Friend of China and Hong Kong Gazette itself ceased publication in Hong Kong largely as a result of its editor being imprisoned for criminal libel in 1859. On his release from debtors' jail, Tarrant took his press with him, at first to Canton, later to Shanghai?7
(a) An advertisement in The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette IV (8)(25 January 1845), 655 (front page).
EDUCATION �X Young ladies are received as Resident Boarders by the Misses Norgate at their residence, No. 3 Tavistock Villa, Tavistock Square, London. Board including Music, Dancing and French by a Resident Lady, Fifty Pounds per annum. Professors of eminence attend the Establishment to instruct in the various accomplishments necessary to complete the education of a young lady when she has reached the age of ten years. An extra charge of 8 guineas for remaining the vacation.
(b) A news item in The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette IV (42)(24 May 1845),
794.
A commodious school house has been erected at Hong Kong, and the missionaries and their wives have children under instruction. The food for a boy costs $18 per annum, and clothes $4; $25 a year will cover the whole
37. For further details about the publishing history of The Friend of China (and of the other local newspapers), see Frank King and Prescott Clarke, A Research Guide to China-coast Newspapers, 1822-1911 (Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965). It might also be noticed that the dates (1850-59) for Tarrant's editorship of The Friend of China and Hong Kong Gazette included in the text above, are concerned only with the newspaper as it was produced in Hong Kong. Tarrant remained proprietor and editor of the paper after he removed it to Canton and later Shanghai; but in these latter places, he reverted to its original shorter name, The Friend of China. It was at this time that he produced his 'History of Hong Kong', an extract from which appears as Evidence 2 in Chapter 3.
expenses of a boy thus placed under the instruction of the missionary: a girl requires $30.
(c) An advertisement in The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette TV (43)(28 May 1845), 797.
FOR SALE
By the undersigned a large assortment of books, consisting of standard works, all the novels of the day, also, sheet Music and books of Tuition, Comprador check books, Quills and Office paper.
P. TOWNSEND Victoria, 1st May, 1845.
(d) Notice in The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette IV (43X28 May 1845), 38 796
NOTICE
MESSRS. FIEBIG & RAVAC beg respectfully to announce to the Public that on Thursday the 29th inst. they intend giving
AN EVENING CONCERT
In which with the kind permission of Colonel Reynolds and the Officers of the 18th Royal Irish, they will be assisted by
The Military Band of that Regiment
PROGRAMME
1.
Cavatine from the Semiramis by Rossini Military Band.
2.
Souvenir de Bellini by Ariot for Violin ... Ravac.
3.
La Sarabanda, Grand divertimento for Pianofort composed for this occasion Fiebig.
4.
Da Melancholie by Paume, for Violin... Ravac.
5.
Duetts, Romeo and Julietta, by Bellini ... Military Band.
6.
Adagio elegico, by Ernst for Violin... Ravac.
7.
The Cells, composed and played by.. . Fiebig.
38. This might be juxtaposed with the considered opinion of The Friend of China and Hongkong Gazette about the lack of talent and interest in music in the small colony. See Chapter 3, Evidence 8(a).
INTRODUCTION
8.
Carnaval of Venice, Variations by Ernst & Ravac, Ravac.
9.
God save the Queen... Military Band.
Reserved seats, $5, unreserved seats, $3. Tickets may be had on appli-cation at Mr. C.W. BOWRA or at the office of the China Mail.
The Concert will commence at 8 o'clock precisely.
6. Rev. Karl Gutzlaff39 to Sir John Davis, Governor of Hong Kong, 13 December 1845, in CO 129/16, p. 29.
The letter below bore fruit. It further demonstrates the influence of missionaries and interpreters and is interesting for the type of arguments which Gutzlaff adduced in his attempt to persuade the Government to assist local educational efforts. The comparison with 'other British Colonies' may not have been particularly convincing. As may be inferred from the source. Davis referred the matter to London.*R
Sir,
Having been in the habit of visiting the native Schools on this Island, I take the liberty of submitting for Your Excellency's consideration whether our Government, as in all other British Colonies, would not render some assistance towards their support.
There were last year under the management of the Chinese altogether eight such institutions, viz: one at Victoria, one at Wongneichong, sup-ported by foreigners, one at Sookunpoo, three along Ly-yumoon passage �X one at Stanley and one at Aberdeen; but none either at Hong Kong or Shikah.41 Most were in a miserable hovel, with a few forlorn children; but generally under intelligent teachers.
If Your Excellency would be pleased to allow to each well-conducted elementary school, in which at least 15 children were taught, 10 dollars per month, the whole expenditure would not amount to more than 1,200
39.
Karl (or Charles) Gutzlaff was a Lutheran missionary and accomplished sinologue. He served as Interpreter and Assistant Secretary to the British Superintendent of Trade at Macau from 1834 to 1839, Chief Interpreter and Assistant Secretary to the Superintendent of Trade in Hong Kong from 1840 to 1842 and succeeded J.R. Morrison to the post of Chief Chinese Secretary when the latter died in August 1842. For a brief biography which may emphasize a few similarities but mainly differences between the historical Gutzlaff and the fictional Reverend Wolfgang Mauss in James Clavell's Taipan, see G.B. Endacott, A Bio-graphical Sketch-Book of Early Hong Kong (Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 1962), pp. 105 ff.
40.
See Evidence 5(b) in Chapter 3.
41.
'Hong Kong' refers to the hamlet of Heungkong Tsai (or little Hong Kong), located in what is now known as the Shouson Hill area. Shikah is now normally spelt Shek O.
dollars per annum, and a great deal of good be done to the children, which no doubt would leave a most favourable impression on the minds of the parents.
7. 'Report of the Committee superintending Chinese Schools7, Blue Book, 1850,
p. 11; also in copy of a despatch from Governor Bonham to Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 26 April 1851 (received 21 July 1851), in CO 129/36, p. 173.
Evidence 7 offers an extract from one of the early Reports of the Education Committee. As the Chronicle for 1847 affirms, this small committee (usually three men, one or more of whom was a missionary) was responsible for supervising the schools for which the Govern-ment provided.a modicum offinancial aid. According to the Reports of 1848 and 1849, no changes had been made to the secular nature of these traditional Chinese schools or to the 'textbooks' they used. By 1850, a fourth school received Government assistance.
.. . Christian books have been introduced into all the schools, but it is not compulsory on the scholars to learn them. If the parents object, the course of study is confined to native reading.
The following are the principal books now used:
Native Works
The three character Classic. The one thousand character Classic. The four books and five Classics.
Christian Works
Medhurst's three character Classic. Bishop Boone's Catechism. The Bible.
The progress of the scholars has been, on the whole, tolerably satisfac-tory; we hope, however, by a more effectual supervision, and by the introduction of a few elementary works on various branches of useful knowledge, as soon as Chinese literature shall have been enriched by these, to work some improvement. The great distance of three, or at least two, of the four schools, coupled with our imperfect knowledge of the language, renders the supervision difficult and unsatisfactory. We can, however, only suggest one remedy that lies beyond ourselves, and this is, that the Bishop of Victoria should be accorded the entire superintendence of the schools, or at least a joint superintendence.
The most serious impediment to progress is the fluctuation of the
INTRODUCTION
27
scholars in each school, owing to the caprice, but principally to the avarice or necessities of the parents, who are unwilling to allow children to remain at school who may be employed elsewhere, with a, to them, more tangible prospect of pecuniary gain, for the importance attached by Chi-nese to the acquisition of knowledge, though great, is, we fear, secondary to that attached to the acquisition of money.
We are &c,
(Signed) C.B. Hillier
E.T.R. Moncrief LL.D. Committee for superintending Chinese schools.
8. A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong, with Remarks on the History and Religious Notions of the Inhabitants of the Island , by the Rev. W. Lobscheid, Missionary and Inspector of Govern-ment Schools, 1859, pp. 2-3,19-22.
The following extracts from Lobscheid's A Few Notices offer evidence about the ob-jectives, organizational procedures, and curriculum of the early Government schools, as well as a record of the Report of the 1847 committee appointed by Sir John Davis to enquire into the state of the Chinese schools on Hong Kong Island.
RULES
The Government schools are instituted for the gratuitous instruction of Chinese children with a view to their prosperity and usefulness in future years...
4^The teachers are at once to arrange the boys in classes according to their proficiency, and every boy must study each day the same portion as the rest of the class. No boy is to be permitted to drop behind the rest. If he is not able to learn the appointed lesson, he must be put into a lower class. The Inspector of Schools will appoint the books, and the portion of them which are to be studied by each class, in the intervals of his visit...
7. When any European gentleman, especially a Government Officer, or any of those gentlemen who superintend the Schools, enter the school-room, the teacher should instruct the boys to stand up and be silent and respectful. Should he wish to examine the boys, the teacher will order them to have all their books ready on the table before them, so that without any delay he may proceed to see how they are progressing in their studies ...
REPORT
In pursuance of our instructions we have visited all the existing Chinese Schools in Victoria, Aberdeen, and Stanley, excepting such as are not included in the field of our investigation �X those supported by the charitable contribution of Europeans. At Victoria we find three Schools in active operation: �X The first situated in the East Street, Tai-ping-shan, containing 28 Scholars, and conducted by Chuy-shing-cheung; the second situated in Sheung-wan, said to contain 18 Scholars, conducted by Leung-sing-shan; and, the third, also situated in Sheung-wan, said to contain 21 Scholars, conducted by Mak-muy-chun, �X making a total of 67 Scholars under tuition at Victoria.
At Aberdeen we find two Schools: �X the first conducted by Soo-ping-foong, containing 7 Scholars, said to have contained 17 before the fishing season; and the second by Ching-yeok-teen, containing 4 pupils, said to have contained 10 before the fishing season, �X making a total of 27 Scholars.
At Stanley we find three Schools, but in one only of these are pupils; the others are said to have been closed at the commencement of the fishing season, and to be for the education of Hakka boys exclusively. The first contains 6 Scholars, and is conducted by Lo Acheong; the second is said to have contained (before the fishing season) 10 Scholars, and to be conducted by Cheng-tseen-ko; the third 13 Scholars, to be conducted by Choong-Suei-Kuei, �X making a total of 29 pupils for Stanley, and for the three places 123 pupils.
The system of instruction, hours of attendance, &c, are similar in all the Schools.
The early studies pursued are those of Reading and Writing. Arithme-tic, when taught, which is seldom done, and only at the special request of the pupil's parents, in view of his following a mercantile calling, consists merely of instruction in decimal computation on the Chinese counting board.
The books used are:�X the Three Character Classic and others of its class, rising to the Four Books and Five Classics. These having been somewhat impressed upon the memory of the learner by recitation and copying, with little regard to the sense, are recommenced, the teacher explaining them by the notes of Choo-foo-tsz, and other Chinese com-mentators. After this are added studies on the composition of prose and poetry; few, however, in these parts appear to attain to this proficiency.
The hours of instruction are said to be from sunrise to sunset, allow-ing an hour or more for breakfast at 8, and for luncheon at 12.
The daily course of study seems to be an unvaried succession of learning repeating by rote, and writing, and with the advanced pupils, explanation. Each pupil learns and recites his lesson separately in a loud voice. There are no classes. The only certain holidays are those of the new
INTRODUCTION
year, commencing some time in the 12th month (Chinese) of the old, and ending sometime in the 1st month of the new year. At other seasons of rejoicing, prescribed by the Chinese calendar, the absence of the pupils is at the option of the parents.
TKe number of years during which any one pupil remains at School, depends upon the wealth or poverty of the parents, or at least the amount of money that they choose to expend in the education of their children. In the Schools that we visited, the eldest pupil was aged 18, the youngest 6.
The greatest number of pupils that one teacher can justly teach, is estimated at from 25 to 30. The amount paid by each pupil at from $2 to $6 a-year, paid annually, seldom monthly.
The fishing season is said to commence in the 9th, and end in the 3rd month, of the Chinese year; and the children of fishermen, who form a large portion of the Scholars at the villages, accompany their parents to sea; they are therefore under tuition during only half the year. The same custom seems to be followed by children of the Hakka, a race of which the population of these village seems principally to consist. When the pupils in a school, therefore, consist only of these classes, the teacher usually returns during the fishing season to his family on the mainland, not more than one or two of the Schools being conducted by natives of Hongkong.
With regard to interference with the religious prejudices of the Chi-nese, we think that there is no need for apprehension on this score; no persons seem less bigoted than the Chinese to their system of religious belief, and they have proved in most cases willing to allow their children to receive religious instruction and to receive it themselves.
We cannot think it advisable to separate the knowledge of what we and all the Christian world confess to be the highest truths from other knowledge, having only a weaker power to develop the reasoning facul-ties, and make the instructed more orderly and useful members of society; and we observe that, in the minutes of the plan of national education lately published in England, the reading of the Holy Scriptures is made a necessary condition of the reception of Governmental aid.
We therefore advocate the ultimate introduction into these Schools of the study of the Bible and should regret any measure likely to exclude religious instruction; but at present, and until experience has been gained, and better means are at hand, we think any interference with the existing course of instruction would be injudicious. We suggest that no such interference be attempted at present, but that a committee for the purpose of supervising the Schools which accept of Government aid be appointed, and that they make from time to time, subject to the approval of Govern-ment, such alternations in the mode of tuition as may gradually lead to introduction of a better system, and of a knowledge likely to be of greater service to pupils in after life than that to be gathered from the pages of their native literature.
We believe that the desire manifested by Her Majesty's Government
to provide in some degree for the education of the poorer classes of the population will be appreciated by well disposed Chinese, and the assis-tance readily received by those for whom it is intended. All the Chinese teachers whom we addressed appeared satisfied at the arrangement, and willing to carry it into effect on the terms we proposed.
Vigilance will be required to prevent the misappropriation of the monthly grant. We first propose that it be left to the Committee to appor-tion it among the Chinese Schools at Victoria, Aberdeen, and Stanley, in such manner as may seem to them most likely to effect the desired end; secondly, that no fixed monthly salary be given to any teacher, but that he be allowed to receive as many pupils whose education will be paid for, or partly paid for, by Government (say at the rate of twenty-five cents a month each) as he shall have pupils in his school, the expense of whose education shall be defrayed wholly by their parents, limited of course by the amount of the grant; thirdly, that reading, writing, and arithmetic, after the Chinese mode be the only branches of learning, that it shall be imperative on the master to teach; fourthly, that the master shall render to the Committee a monthly record of the number and names of the Schol-ars, distinguishing those wholly or partly educated by Government; fifthly, that his School shall be subject to the visits of the Committee, in whose option it shall be to withdraw or continue the allowance, as they shall find the School to be ill or well conducted; and lastly, that there be hung up in a conspicuous part of the School room, a board inscribed with these Regulations, which the Committee or the Government may from time to time deem it expedient to make.
9. 'Education Report, 1865', Hongkong Government Gazette, 1866 (by Frederick Stewart42), p. 138.
In 1865, the Board of Education was dissolved. This brief extract is, therefore, from Stewart's first Report as unsupervised Inspector of Schools. Comparisons suggest them-selves not only with his later attitudes, but also with the attitude of the Rev. S.R. Brown towards traditional Chinese education.
. . . The Chinese have no education in the real sense of the word. No attempt is made at the simultaneous development of the mental powers.
42. Frederick Stewart (1838-89) was, in his mid-twenties, the first Headmaster of the Central School in 1862 and Inspector of Government Schools. From 1865 he was head of the embryonic Education Department. He was succeeded by Eitel as Inspector of Government Schools in 1878 and resigned as Headmaster of the Central School in 1881 to take up a series of senior posts in the Hong Kong Government �X Police Magistrate and Coroner, May 1881-March 1882; Acting Colonial Secretary, March 1882-March 1883; Registrar-General, 1883-87; Colonial Secretary, 1887-89.
INTRODUCTION
31
These are all sacrificed to the cultivation of memory. The boy who can repeat correctly the writings of Confucius and Mencius is considered a great scholar although he may be as ignorant of their meaning as if they were written in a language of which he did not know the meaning.
10, Frederick Stewart, 'Education Report, 1866', in Hong Kong Government Blue Book, 1866, p. 280.
Government Blue Books were collections of official statistics and, in the early period, included Departmental Reports. This extract from Stewart's second Report may suggest a moderation of his attitude towards Chinese education. One might also infer that Stewart personally would have preferred that the Hong Kong Government should have been more active and interventionist in thefield ofeducation, a view that was by no means common at the time.**
.. . [Village schools] continue as they were .. . simply schools where villagers can obtain for their children, free of all cost, such an education as would be given to them in any native school in China, and although this may be very barren of what we consider as the necessary elements of any education that is worth the name, it is not to be supposed that it is useless. It is founded on principles which are strictly moral, which have minute reference to all the relations of life, and which have sustained, from centuries before Europe was civilized to the present day, the whole fabric of Chinese polity and manners. It deserves, at least, to be maintained until the Colony is in a position to substitute something better in its stead. This is not intended as a defence of Chinese education but merely a statement of the grounds on which the Government bases its present relations with these schools.
11. Sir Richard MacDonnell to the Duke of Buckingham, 4 April 1868, in CO 129/ 130, p. 3.
Another pronouncement on Chinese education, this view by Governor MacDonnell^ emphasizes the problems faced by the pupils in Hong Kong.
.. . The subject of Chinese Education [in Hong Kong] is of a particu-larly interesting nature, more especially so as the means adopted, in
43.
For example, see Evidence 14 in this chapter, and Evidences 1 and 4(b) of in Chapter 4 .
44.
MacDonnell was an energetic Governor of Hong Kong from 1866 to 1872. He was an enthusiastic supporter of 'modern' educational ideas. At his behest, Electricity and Chemis-try were introduced into the curriculum of the Central School.
accordance with Western ideas, for instilling knowledge of the simplest character into the minds of the Chinese youth, are entirely contrary to the course of teaching in vogue in their native land.
12. Frederick Stewart, 'Report on Education, 1871', dated 15 February 1872, in CO 129/157, pp. 136-38.
This later Report by Frederick Stewart provides anecdotal reminiscence and some insight into his own, quite 'advanced' ideas about education.*5
... On the 10th of next month the school [the Central School] will have had a history of ten years. Although it would be wrong to measure its progress by decades and not by years, I cannot help reverting to the state of affairs on the opening day, the 10th of March, 1862.
Having arrived in the Colony but a few days previously, I had no knowledge of Chinese. I found congregated in the two Chinese class-rooms a crowd of nearly 300 boys, about one half of whom were scholars under the three Chinese masters, whose schools had previously been in various streets in the Upper and Central Bazaars. The rest were either candidates for the English classes, or stray-comers for the gratification of curiosity.
The normal state of a Chinese school is that the lessons are shouted at the pitch of the voice. My entrance was the signal for a startling display of this diligence. Unaccustomed to such a deafening din, my first feeling was surprise, and my second anger. I shouted 'Silence!' This was tacitly inter-preted to mean Head louder!' Another attempt at order meeting with a fresh accession of noise, I retreated, almost in despair, to one of the lower class-rooms, where I had interviews with my young friends in more manageable detachments...
. . . [Concerning the large number of children in Hong Kong not at school] Compulsory education would uproot the evil; but is compulsory education possible here? I confess myself unable to give an answer. One thing is certain, that if these eleven thousand children were compelled to go to school, food and clothing would have to be supplied to them. In many cases, lodging would have to be provided for them also. A large proportion of the children live in boats, which are here today and some-where else tomorrow. About one half of them, too, are girls, for whom education is considered not a superfluity merely, but a mistake.46
The first question, therefore, which calls for an answer is not �X Shall
45.
As mentioned elsewhere (e.g., in f.n. 45 of Chapter 4), there seem to be grounds for associating Stewart with quite liberal 'Utilitarian' or philosophical-radical ideas.
46.
See also Chapter 3, Evidence 14, and Chapter 4, Evidence 1(a) and 1(c).
INTRODUCTION
we have compulsory education? but �X How are these two enemies of education, poverty and prejudice, to be overcome'? .. .
13. Letter by Wang T'ao to a friend, in T'ao Yuan Ch'ih Tu (Shanghai, 1893), c. 6, f.
116, also cited in H. McAlevy, The Life and Writings of a Displaced Person, Wang
T'ao (1828-1890) (China Society Occasional Papers, edited by S. Howard Hansford, No. 7) (1953), p. 19.
Wang T'ao (1828-1897) was a distinguished scholar who played an important role in the cultural interaction between China and the West. He assisted in W.H. Medhurst's translation of the Bible and in James Legge's translations of the Chinese Classics. He became interested in Western science and introduced, for example, the ideas of Bacon to China.*7 He is writing, here, about Hong Kong in the 1860s.
Hong Kong is a small, out of the way island, where nobody goes in for anything but buying and selling. The place is full of traders out to make money. How can you expect to find men of culture in such surroundings? There is nothing to do and nobody to talk to. Apart from going to visit the singing girls, I spend most of my time in my own room.
14. From The Central School: Can it Justify its Raison d'etre?, anonymous pamphlet,
1877, pp. 15-16,30.
This argument might be compared with Gutzlaff s (1845) case in favour of Govern-ment support of education.*8 It also provides a very early example of allegations about deculturization and alienation.
.. . Is it right that the Central School should be a Government School, its Masters Government Officers, and its entire support be derived from the public treasury? Is it right that it should absorb nearly the whole of the money the colony can afford to pay towards education?
To get a satisfactory answer to these questions, it is necessary first to ascertain:
47.
In this sense, he was a very significant agent of the Self-strengthening Movement in China. He was also concerned to diffuse Chinese learning to the West and was, therefore, prepared to help Legge for little pecuniary reward. He accompanied Legge to Europe and on one occasion gave a talk on the teaching of Confucius at Oxford University, using Legge as interpreter. On his departure from Britain, he presented Oxford University with 11,000 volumes of books he had brought with him from China to help disseminate Chinese culture in the West. For further details, see Lo Hsiang-Lin, Hong Kong and Western Cultures, pp. 43^85.
48.
See Evidence 6 above.
(1)
On what principles government ought to deal with popular educa-tion?
(2)
How far the English government has adapted or departed from these principles in its dealings with the colonies?
(3)
What modification, if any, the circumstances of this colony render necessary in the application of these principles here and now?
(4)
How far does the system, at present in operation here, coincide with or depart from these approved principles? It is no part of the duty of a government, as such, to educate the
people over whom it holds sway. Its primary duty is to provide for the security of life and property, and to see that each member of the commu-nity has the freedom of action which is essential to the growth and devel-opment of every organized society.
On the parent falls the duty of educating his children as of feeding them, of clothing them and of setting them out in the world, and he alone has the right to decide, as he alone has the means of deciding, in what manner and to what degree he shall educate them to fit them for the position and duties which lie before them. The state may enforce the performance by the parent of this duty of education as it enforces the duty of maintenance and support, but, except in extreme cases, it does not interfere to dictate how and to what extent the education shall be given, no more than it attempts to regulate the quantity and quality of the food a parent shall give to his child ...
(p.30)... and what sort of education do these favoured few [the pupils at the Central School] get at the expense of the community? No moral training whatever, less than none, for they deteriorate. They lose all rever-ence for their parents, of whom they become intellectually the superiors. They learn to disregard the sages of China and the old-fashioned proprie-ties of Chinese life. They add the vices of Europeans to the follies of Chinese youth...
15. Dates and Events (1857-1877) connected with the History of Education in Hong Kong, anonymous, printed at the St. Louis Reformatory (1877), inside back cover (Illus. 1.2).
This outline from the other important anonymous pamphlet on educational matters published in 1877 offers an extract from a very selective chronicle.
INTRODUCTION
TABLE II.
Was secular education adopted in hostility to (Denominational Schools?
Tear. Page.
I860.�XTho Central School was no longer exclusively confiued to tho Chinese 14
1867.�XChristian and secular educatiou, says Mr. Stewart, most for the present be accepted as two distinct fields of operation in Hongkong, the Missionaries will have their choice, the Government its choice : 16
At the Cential School IT. E. Sir Richard MacDonnell says : he would be glad to see the Govern-ment School made sufficiently attractive to draw in the children of Portuguese and Hindoos. (Sir Richard MacDonnell in the precedent year at St. Savionr'o College, after having highly praised the Roman Catholic Schools, said that when he first arrived he learned that European children were not received at the Central School. He took immediate steps to abrogate such a rule.) 21
1872.�XSir Richard MacDonnell is glad to see at the Central School some Japanese, Portuguese and boys of other nationalities besides Chinese ., 26
A Meeting took place at the City Hall, 30 persons attended it. Sir Arthur Kennedy said that if a school should be opened, it ought to be a secnlar one. He had no earthly sympathy with sectarianism. Mr. Stewart supported secular edncation, Mr. Francis religious education. On being asked by Mr. Francis how he taught history Mr. Stewart answered he Wanted only to defeud himself. 28
The translation of English books into Chinese is to render the teaching in Chinese School sufficiently undenominational to fairly come under the term secular 31
In the grant-in-aid system are prescribed four hours of continued secular education 31
1875.�XMorrison Scholarship to the Central School. Dr. Eitel and J. Lamout, Trustees,- objected to the exclusion of Christian instruction from the course prescribed, it was finally agreed that in view of tho present purely secular character of the School, the religious part of the course should be kept in abeyance until such time as the regulations admitted of its being made a part of the system , 35
Corres{>ondence in the China Mail about Morrison Scholarships. "The money given for Protestant tcachiug has been hurriedly applied to pagan teaching to avoid the imminent risk of a legal decision in favour of S. Paul's College." 37
The fob tor of the China Mail has no hope that undenominational instruction will lead to any result such as the education of Catholic children 3(5
Correspondence in the China lfai7, "how suicidal must be the educational policy, which in the vain hope of securing the approbation of the Romanists treats Christianity as if it were of loss iiiipnrtanco than Arithmetic or Geography." 37
Mooting of the Legislative Council, a Member opposes tho grant towards rebuilding St. Joseph's Church, because ho understood that the Priests of the Catholic religion here were opposed to the unsectariau education provided for children in the Colony 3D
A correspondent in the Hongkong Times confntes the assertions made by tho Member at the Legis-lative Council. The grant proposed has nothing to do with the education ipmstion. Tho Priests here do what tho Roman Catholic Church prescribes and what every secular and com-mercial corporation claims to -1-9
1870.�XSir Arthui Kennedy at tho Central School : The only thing he should bo sorry to see there would bo that the School should be dosortod by Europeans , 42
A cor respondent in the Hongkong TLMS asks tho reason why they are so troubled for a few boys turning their back on that School, seeking elsewhere that which is denied there viz : a religions education 43
Illus. 1.2 Insideback coverofDates and Events connected with the HistoryofEducation in Hong Kong.
16. J.M. Price, Surveyor-General, to W.H. Marsh, Colonial Secretary, 14 July 1883, in CO 129/210, p. 353.
Evidence about attitudes, as well as about prevailing practices?9 for the training of teachers, presents itself in this routine-sounding correspondence.
. . . class-rooms arranged as requested by Mr. Wright [Headmaster, the Central School] in such manner that each large class-room opens into two smaller class-rooms with glass doors to enable one European teacher to supervise two Chinese assistant teachers ...
17. Extracts from examination papers at the Central School and its successor institutions.
Although flawed, both in organization and in interpretation, Stokes' work includes much interesting information about what was for many years the Hong Kong Govern-ment's showpiece school. First-hand information about examination papers may also be derived from many of the annual reports of the early Inspectors of Education. Readers may wish to use the following extracts to make comparisons and inferences about the curricu-lum and standards of this school at various points in time.
A. From G.G. Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962 (1962), pp. 27,58, and 79.
Extracts from the Class I examination papers for 1871:
Algebra 1. x2 + 2ax + 3a2 x x2 - 2ax + a2
4. A and B have $8. A and C have $10. B and C have $14. What have they each?
Arithmetic 4. Reduce 7/10^ d to the decimal of �G2.
Chemistry 6. Silver. (1) By what process can chemically pure silver be obtained? (2) How is silver extracted from Galena? (3) What are the properties of silver?
Composition The Orange.
Dictation When I was a child of seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pocket with half-pence. I went
49. See the references to the short-lived 'Normal School' in the Chronicle for 1881 and 1882, in Chapter 4.
INTRODUCTION
directly towards a shop where toys were sold for children...
Mathematical Bisect any given angle. Drawing
Geography 8. Draw as full and correct a map of Africa as you can.
Geometry 1. Define a circle, an isosceles triangle, a rhombus and a parallelogram.
Grammar 4. Write in full the past tense, indicative, potential and subjunctive, active and passive, of the verb to learn.
Extracts from the Class I examination paper for 1892:
Latin Translate 'He says that it is very easy/
Chemistry Give Avogadro's Law and a Corollary from it.
Composition Opium Smoking.
Pupil Teachers' No great organization can exist without a root idea. Theory What is the root idea of Victoria College?
Class IA and IB Composition Paper, 1905:
(a)
Write all you know about female infanticide in China. Describe any case about which you may have heard yourself.
(b)
To boycott American goods would be like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Discuss this assertion.
(c)
Should Chinese who wish to become British subjects be com-pelled to shave off their queues first?
B.
From 'Annual Report of the Central School for 1885', in CO 129/225, p. 91.
HISTORY (3 hours)
1.
What do you know of the following: Anselm, Geoffrey of Anjou, Stephen Langton, Simon de Montfort, Maud of Norway, Jack Cade, Perkin Warbeck, Roger Bacon, Sir Thomas More, Cranmer, Sir Francis Drake, and Edmund Spenser?
2.
Compare the reigns of Edward II and Richard II.
3.
Who fought the following battles and which side won? Northaler-ton, Fair of Lincoln, Bannockburn, Nevill's Cross, St. Alban's, Tewkesbury, Flodden, and Rikie.
4.
In whose reigns did England make greater conquests in France? Give the names of the battles.
5.
What happened in 1100,1172,1215,1327,1403,1492,1587,1600?
6.
Write a short account of the conquest of Wales.
18. Attitudes of two Headmasters.
In the first briefextract, Stokes adopts a vague chronology and anecdotal tone to insert an unattributed quotation from Bateson Wright's 'Report on Queen's College' of 7 May 1902. The second extract is from the source Stokes may have used and offers further evidence about Bateson-Wright's attitudes and opinions.
(a)
G.G. Stokes, Queen's College, 1862-1962 (1962), pp. 38-39.
.. . The second Headmaster [Dr. G.H. Bateson-Wright], a few years later [actually, fourteen years after the event Stokes had been discussing], wrote: 'Dr. Stewart's practice ... was to admit, first, all boys with letters from leading European and Chinese residents; second, all who knew some English; third, the most intelligent looking of the remainder. After admission these boys were examined in Chinese... to qualify for Chinese classes, not for admission to the Central School.
(b)
'Report on Queen's College', in CO 129/311, pp.^62 ff.
.. . I found on my arrival (1882) that the Chinese possessed a very limited English vocabulary. History provides terms of war and politics, as well as of usual domestic occurrences, births, deaths and marriages, etc., Shakespeare requires employment of all the commonest phrases in con-nection with matters of every day life, as well as in expression of emotion and humour; the explanation of these being given in ordinary modern conversational English appears to me to be highly instructive ...
.. . I discovered the great want in the Chinese boy is exactness of thought and expression, and I do not dread opposition to this view from any Educationalist from Plato downwards...
... On political grounds I am strongly averse to any instruction in Chi-nese history which would expose us to the charge of being the nursery for Revolutionists on the [Chinese] Continent50...
50. By 1905, Bateson-Wright certainly had grounds to be sensitive to this charge, since Sun Yat-sen and others prominent in the revolutionary movement had been pupils in his school.
INTRODUCTION
.. . I have always understood that the main object of Queen's College was not to train boys for mere copying clerks, book-keepers or even Translators or Interpreters, but to give them a generally thorough good education in which the knowledge of English was to bear a prominent part. In this view I have been supported by the public utterances of various Governors and so recently as 4th February 1893 by the Marquis of Ripon's Despatch... paragraph 2: 'Victoria [Queen's] College ought to be the model secondary school of the Colony.'
19. C.S. Addis, 'Education in China', The China Review XVIII (1889-90), 205-12 (Illus. 1.3).
Despite its title, this article is mainly about education in Hong Kong. As might be expected in a journal edited by Eitel, it offers a polemic, quite well-informed and lucidly written, compatible with the views of the Protestant missionaries. Addis, himself, arrived in Hong Kong as a clerk in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. His name appears (if misspelt) as one of a sinological study-group in the mid-'eighties.51 He was later knighted and became Manager of the Bank in London.
20. Extract from F.T. Cheng, East and West: Episodes in a Sixty Years' Journey
(London: Hutchinson, 1951), p. 42.
F.T. Cheng (or Cheng T'ien-hsi) had a long and prominent career in Republican China, being the leading Western-trained legal expert of the time. He became a fudge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague and ended his career as the last Nationalist Chinese Ambassador to Great Britain. He received part of his education at Queen's College, entering the school in 1897.52
. . . But Hong Kong in those days [the 1890s] was a place rather for trade than for learning. For instance, in the English schools the highest that one could learn in mathematics did not go beyond Book IV of Euclid; and the first book in English began with the sentence: Tom eats two eggs a day; you see how fat he is.'
The standard of the Chinese schools was certainly much higher and
See Yan Woon-yin, Hong Kong and the Modernization of China (1862-1911): The Contri-bution of the Central School Graduates' (unpublished B. A. dissertation, University of Hong Kong); and Ng Lun Ngai-ha, Interactions of East and West, pp. 147 ff. It might be noted, however, that the composition paper for Class 1 in 1905 does not indicate an aversion to the political aspects of current affairs. See Evidence 17(a) above.
51.
See Evidence 22 in this chapter.
52.
See also G.G. Stokes, Queen's College 1862-1962, pp. 241-42.
THE CHINA KEVIEWo
EDUCATION
Even to the most sanguine in discerning the signs of a renascence in China, there are mo-ments when they must view with misgiving the direction which the new growth is tak-ing. It is as true of the nation as it is of the individual that all growth must proceed from within outwards, from the centre to the circumference. The stir of present political change may cause us to forget and the dust which it raises prevent our seeing this cardinal truth, but let the clear light of history be turning upon the past and the springs of every religious reformation, of every social and political revolution, will be found, not in the despotic acts of kings and rulers, but in the hearts and minds of the people. Surely then it is one of the first lessons of history that a Government should take heed that the regenerative influences are kept pure and the young national life wisely trained.
It must be remembered that China, while one of the oldest, is still one of the youngest of the nations. Fortunate for her if she will accept the lessons of the past and ap-propriate the blessings of modern civiliza-tion untainted by the bitterness of the experience which has taught others. To have an army and a navy is well; to adopt telegraphs and railways is also well. But what, after all, are these material things but fringes on the skirts of true progress.
IN CHINA.
China imagines that this is all we have to teach her and complacently she finds the lesson easy. The deeper lesson which she has failed to learn is, that no trust can be placed on external agencies for a real national advance. The foundations must be laid more deeply in the education of the people.
In education, be it noted, and not in the
mere diffusion of knowledge, necessary
though that be.
There can be no complaint of the pro-
gress made in this direction during recent
years. A body of learned men have applitd
themselves to the task with an enthusiasm
of devotion which is beyond praise, and the
inexorable march of events has been on
their side, opening up paths for their efforts
with a rapidity which would have seemed
incredible to the most sanguine a few years
ago. And the result of it all is disappoint-
ing in the extreme. The nation, in its
relations with foreigners, and in its own
development, remains substantially the
same. If there be a change, it is the
change of veneer; the essential characteris-
tics of the people continue unaltered. It is
an old fallacy, and only the loud voice of
the socialist makes us forget how often it
has been exposed, to suppose that civiliza-
tion inevitably follows at the heels of the
spread of knowledge. It is useless to ex-
Illus. 1.3 C.S. Addis, 'Education in China', The China Review XVIII (1889-90), 205-12.
INTRODUCTION
206 THE CHIttA
pect people to do the right simply because they are told it is right to do it. Civiliza-tionMepends, not on the mere illumination of the understanding, but upon the educa-tion of heart and mind. For what is the aim of education in its broadest sense but civilization! Not the opulence and ease which too often pass by that name, but that higher civilization of which Martineau speaks, ( neither superior clothes, nor finer houses, nor richer wines, nor even more destructive gunpowder, but a noble system of ideas and aspirations possessing a com-munity.'
In education, or rather the want of it, lies the danger ahead. To her new foreign relations and responsibilities China has been rudely awakened ; to the canker at the root of her national life she slumbers uncon-scious. In no country in the world is the faculty of letters held in more esteem ; nowhere is closer and more constant atten-tion paid to intellectual cultivation. But never have such esteem and attention been worse applied or more ill directed. In truth Chinese education is�Xpace the sinologues �Xno education at all. It is no * leading out of' but a leading back to. Instead of ex-panding the intelligence, it contracts it; in-stead of broadening the sympathies, it nar-rows them ; instead of making a man honest, intelligent and brave, it has produced few who are not cunning, narrow-minded and pusillanimous. That the Government, in selecting the chief officers of State, should cull its choicest flowers from such a nursery and thus perpetuate this rotten system, is only on aggravation of the evil. .The literary graduate,' says Wells Williams,
* will be found deficient in most branches of general learning, ignorant of hundreds of common things and events in his national history, which the merest schoolboy in the Western World would be ashamed not to know in his.' And from the literary graduates is the Civil Service of China re-cruited ! It is natural that those, who have devoted much time and labour to the study
Illus-13(
REVIEW.
of a language and literature like Chinese, should be disposed to overrate the value of that which has cost them so much industry and effort to acquire, and occasional en-comiums of the Chinese methods of instruc-tion are only what we might expect. We are told, for instance, that it is eminently suited to the present system of government. Such an argument only appeals to those who believe the present system of government cannot be improved. To ourselves the state-ment bears its own condemnation. It must be a bad system which produces such a bad government. The truth is that if the com-parative test be applied, almost the only merit which can be claimed for Chinese education is that it strengthens the memory, and whether it is worth while going through so much to learn so little, as the charity-boy said when he got to the end of the alphabet, is, as Mr. Welier observed, a matter of taste. Learning by rote is not learning at all. Non
est loquendum sed(juberna?idumi and until the
navigators are taught the principles on which they may lay a true course, the ship of State is likely to be but indifferently steered.
For all purposes of comparison India naturally rises to the mind as the correlative of China. And indeed India, with her 70,000 schools and universities, with her nearly two millions of scholars and her annual ex-penditure upon education of over �G1,600,000 sterling, has many a lesson to teach China. But it is unnecessary to go so far afield for an example of what may be, and, we hope, soon will be done in China. On her shores is a model in miniature for a system of national education. The subject is so im-portant that we may be pardoned if we proceed to consider it somewhat in detail.
In the wondrous history of Hongkong there is nothing more remarkable than the record of her educational progress. Half a century ago the island was peopled by a few half savage settlers steeped in ignorance and superstition. To-day it supports a population of 160,000 and passes annually through its harbour a gross tonnage,
second only to that of London and Liverpool. Of this enormous population -�Xenormous, that is to say, considering the island's insignificant size-it is computed that about 154,000 are Chinese. A foreign Government, by the impartial ad-ministration of wise and just laws, lias made this dot ou the ocean so attractive, that, for the sake of a life which miy be lived in peaceful prosperity, tens of thousands of a race attached to their native soil and na-turally averse from emigration have voluntarily expatiiated themselves. So much has been done. It may, however, be argued that the Colony owes its prosperity to these immigrants from China, that on them depends the continuance of its pro-gress, and that as raueh to the recipient as to the giver of freedom and fair-play its success is due. The more important question
�Earises�XWhat provision is being made for the future? What has the Government, which has accomplished so much for the protected aliens, done for their children ? Has it been merely a balancing of accounts, or can we point to benefits which give a foreign Government a right to the title pater-nal to which the rulers of China can in comparison lay no claim ? The Educational Reports which the Inspector of Schools issues from year to year are the warrant to that title.
It is estimated that there are more than 17,000 children in Hongkong between 6 and 16 years of age. To provide for these there are about 200 schools open with a grand total of 8700 scholars, of which 6700 attend schools established or aided by Government in some form or other ; and even the re-maining 2000 children are on the roll of schools which are at least exempt from rates and taxes. There are thus about b\ per cent. of the population at school, as compared with 13 per cent, in England and Wales and 9 per cent, in Ireland. In India'the proportion is still, we believe, under 1 per cent. Considering that education in Hongkong is entirely vo-luntary, the comparison is not much to its
Illus. 1.3
IN CHINA. 207
disadvantage,and this will be the more readi-ly admitted by anyone who has seen for him-self the entirely inadequate nature of the ac-commodation provided. The present school buildings can with difficulty seat one-eighteenth of the population and should be trebled in number. We do not mean to say that such increased accommodation is im-mediately required, but school seats for one-sixth of the total population is the thing to be aimed at. Meanwhile a good deal is being done. New schools are erected grad-ually, and the spacious Central School for which we have waited so long must surely be approaching completion. But there is still urgent need of more and better build-ings. Over 8000 children continue un-educated. The majority of these are Chi-nese girls, and, in the opiuion of Dr. Eitel (than whom no one knows better the wants, or has more at heart the interests, of educ-ation) * one of the principal causes of their remaining uneducated year by year is the fact that the school accommodation hitherto provided is far below the requirements of the case.,
It is evident that no scheme of education can be considered complete which does not lay special stress on the importance of female education, and no system is adequate which does not provide a careful training for the future wives and mothers of the race. This is a department which the missionaries, those pioneers of all true progress in China, have made peculi-arly their own, and the success of their efforts stands in striking contrast to the abortive attempts of the Government. It is argued that a dual difficulty stands in the way; from those in the first place, whose native habits of thought have led them to consider woman an inferior animal for whom intellectual training is unnecessary and unsuitable ; and, secondly, from those who fear lest the prevailing system of concubin-age should derive an impetus from the enhanced attractiveness of girls who had acquired some of the accomplishments and
208 THE CHINA
refinements of their instructors. The first objection is, of course, sustained by native opinion only. With a few exceptions the leading Chinese are, it appears, opposed to female, education, and as ratepayers the opinion is perhaps entitled to a modicum of weight for a time. It is better that an idea so irrational should be supplanted by the slow growth of enlightenment rather than be torn up by the roots by Government action. Time is on our side and even now there are not wanting signs that the op-position is being overcome. The writer has in his mind's eye at least one large girls' school in Hongkong where the demand for wives is in excess of the supply, and anyone acquainted with educational work in China could multiply parallel cases. And it is only natural to suppose that men educated themselves will not long continue to tolerate illiterate spouses. With regard to the question of concubinage there may be room for divergence of opinion, but to our mind the reasoning must be radically unsound which makes ignorance an ally of morality and sees in culture a new foe to virtue. Still these old-world notions die hard. There are certainly as many girls as boys of school age in Hongkong, but in the Government schools the proportion of female pupils to male is only 1 to 18. The missionaries, as we have said, have been more successful. In the Grant-in-aid Schools now the propor-tion is as 1 to 2. There is little doubt that equal numbers will soon be reached.
Turning from the number of learners to the subjects taught, we find ourselves on more debatable ground. We have alluded before to the Grant-in-Aid schools. These com-prise some 60 Mission schools, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, which submit them-selves to Government inspection and to a cer-tain extent to Government control. In return they receive a capitation grant for the number of scholars in average attendance and special grants, based on definite results ascer-tained by examination, for all scholars who succeed in passing the standard
REVIEW.
set by the Inspector of Schools. The examination is practically confined to the
* three Rs,' with the addition of needlework for the girls. In the Government schools a wider field is covered. History, Geography, and Composition are taught with the addition of Mathematics, Algebra and Mensuration for the older b .ys. This is not a very high standard, but it must not be forgotten that Chinese is taught as well as English, and the mental strain involved must be considerable. It is more disappoint-ing to confess that apparently no pro-vision is made for physical training. For our own part we would rather see more play and less work.
With regard to moral teaching the Go-vernment is punctiliously impartial. Quite needlessly so, for the Christian moral teach-ing given by the Mission schools is found not to have the slightest effect upon their popularity. The Chinese appear to be quite indifferent upon the subject of religious teaching, but deeply concerned with the capabilities of the teacher. It has been proved that a Government school cteteris paribus has no chance against a neighbour-ing Mission school, if the teaching given at the latter is believed to be superior. To a Chinaman the objection to religious teaching is not to be weighed in the balance against a reduction in school fees. Our experience in India has been so different, and there is so much popular misconception on the sub-ject, that it is as well to emphasize the fact of Chinese toleration. Teach the children well intellectually, says the Chinaman, and morally you may teach them what you please. The ethics of Confucianism and Christianity are not so far asunder that any sensible man need object to his children being instructed in both, and apart from any objection on the part of parents it does not seem to us possible to teach a foreign language and literature and at the same time to eliminate the ethics in which both are steeped. Religious teaching is, of course, a different matter altogether and
Illus. 13 (Continued)
EDUCATION
clearly outside the functions of ah alien Government.
Our survey of education in Hongkong has brought before us some deficiencies and blunders for which the future has abundant prospect of reform. There is an evidence of life and health which shows no sign of con-tent with what has been done, but rather a rigorous resolve to press forward. The educational methods of only a few years ago are rapidly becoming obsolete, and new methods are taking their place. The result is a state of transition, in which the attempt to combine the old instruction with the new has a tendency to overstrain the youthful capacity, and there is a real danger of cram-ming taking the place of instruction. The science as well as the art of teaching has yet to be formulated. What to teach and how to teach it, are questions which have never been satisfactorily answered. To say that education has for its object to com-pletely develop a man physically, psychi-cally and ethically, is only to show how far short of the ideal are all our empirical efforts. If this be true of the present state of education at home, it need not surprise us if we meet with confusion worse con-founded in China, where a new disorganiz-ing factor is introduced in the necessity of teaching the Chinese their own language. The knowledge of English is spreading and will spread, but whether the Chinaman of the future is to acquire his science and philosophy through the medium of his own, or a foreign tongue, is a problem which does not affect the Chinaman of to-day. It seems inevitable, that to become a useful citizen, and to fit himself for practical life, he at any rate must submit to the drudgery of learning both languages, and, to a certain extent, of acquainting himself with their literature. There is yet much native pre-judice to be overcome before this fact is generally recognised. Out of 97 schools under Government no less than 77 schools, at-tended by 4000 scholars, give a Chinese education in the Chinese language, or,
Illus. 13 a
IN CHINA. 209
in other words, three-fifths of all the children
in Government aided schools receive a non-
English education^ Many of these are
schools conducted by missionaries Who do
not consider the teaching of English a branch
of their work, and the tuition being free a
large number of scholars are attracted to
them. It is now generally admitted that a
child should receive at least a grounding in
his own language before he proceeds to the
study of another, and Anglo-Chinese schools,
which are attended by the older boys, are
doubtless largely recruited from these
primary Chinese institutions. It is to be
feared, however, that public opinion in re-
gard to foreign education, especially of girls,
is still very apathetic. * There is,' says Dr.
Eitel, ' it seems, no appreciable demand,
among the purely Chinese girls of the
Colony for English teaching.' It will come
in time. Meanwhile we must be content to
reverse the laws of economics, and create a
demand by providing a supply. All the
experience of the past has shewn us, that,
if the schools are forthcoming, we shall not
long lack scholars to fill them.
And now we come to the important ques-
tian of expenditure. The cost of education
offers no exception to the enhanced price of
all luxuries abroad. Paterfamilias grumbles
at the extravagance of School Boards and
wonders if the Education Grant has reached
finality at last, now that the rates have
approached a shilling in the pound, and
each child costs the Government nearly
eighteen shillings per annum. What would
he say, we wonder, to the $45,518 expended
by the Hongkong Government in 1888, or to
an average cost of $7.27 per scholar. The
Central School costs the Government $19.53
per head, or, if the expense be calculated on
the average daily attendance, $26.48. The
other Government schools cost $7.01 and the
aided village schools $4.19 per scholar,
while the Missionary Grant in Aid schools
received $3.89 per head. If our memory
serves us aright, there is now no distinctively
free Government education in Hongkong,
INTRODUCTION
210 THE CHINA REVIEW.
with the exception perhaps of one or two small primary schools, which may still exist as relics of the much-abused Pope Hennessy rigime. For some unaccountable reason no mention is made in the Reports of the amount drawn from school fees. On sear-ching back, however, to 1885 we find in the case of the Central School that the sum of $5273 for school fees was deducted from the expenditure of that year. The average attendance was then 437, which gives about $12 as the average fee paid by each scholar. This is only a rough estimate, but if 1885 may be taken as an average year, we find that the pupils contribute two-fifths and the Government three-fifths of the Central School
expenditure.
Turning to the Missionary Societies, we find that out of 63 schools the grant gained in 1888 sufficed to cover the expense of two only. The total expenditure amounted to $49,209, and the Government Grant to $32,362. With 4385 scholars on the roll this would represent $7.48 per head. It would be interesting to know how much of this sum was paid by each scholar, and how much was contributed by the various Mis-sionary Societies, but on the whole subject of school fees Dr. Eitel is provokingly silent. It is, however, a matter on which it is of some importance to gain exact information. The missionary system of providing free education has been of great service in the past, and has many advantages still. But it may be questioned whether the system has not been pushed too far, and whether the pauperizing influence exerted may not outweigh its undoubted benefits. In those cases where educational zeal has induced mis-sionaries to bribe scholars into their schools, �Xand unhappily such cases do exist�X however much we may respect the motive, a practice so hurtful and demoralizing cannot be too strongly condemned. It may well be doubted also if education obtained by such means will much benefit
the learner. We would rather see China
ignorant than lost to self-respect. This
above all,�Xabove even the necessity of national education organized, fos-tered and controlled by the State�Xthis above all is the lesson which Hongkong has to teach us, that while the Chinese are ready and willing to pay for their education, it is worse than i'dle to teach them for nothing. What is required is not State pauperization but State aid.
It may be argued that at this point our analogy fails us, and that Hongkong,.from its commercial and political importance, occupies a unique position, and offers no fair parallel to any part of China. That in fact the great compradoric prizes, and the more modest interpreterships and clerkships in the Government Service, which are open to successful students, offer an incentive to education in Hongkong which is not to be found elsewhere. This is precisely the point at which we have been aiming. Under the old system the conditions were similar. Why may they not be applied to the new education ? At present the plums of the
Chinese Civil Service are theirs to a great extent who have achieved success by long and arduous study in useless and effete branches of learning. Is it to be supposed that such devotion would be found wanting, if for the old system a sound and practical course of education were substituted ? The Hongkong Anglo-Chinese schools are over-crowded with Chinese ready to pay $3 or
3.50 a month, and willing to prosecute their studies for an average period of seven years, simply because there is a reasonable cer-tainty, that, at the end of it, a successful examination will ensure employment with a salary of from $15 to 40 a month and a reasonable prospect of a future increase in pay. The love of learning for its own sake is no more to be found in China than in Europe. Education indeed requires no ad-ventitious aids, but it is idle to expect, in the first instance, either a Chinaman, or anybody else, to pay for learning which carries no material benefits in its train. Who can doubt that the modest salaries paid
Illus. 13 (Continued)
EDUCATION IN CHINA.
to native preachers and teachers form by far the most permanent attraction of Missionary schools ? The danger lies, per-haps, in that very attractiveness, and the inducement it offers to unworthy men to feign religion for the sake of gain. The class of men suited for proselytism must always be extremely limited, and a healthier stimulus will be found in the industrial schools, as yet in embryo, but destined, we believe, to play an important part in the civilization of China.
We again repeat that the Chinese need no charity, and that they are eager to learn and ready to pay for an education with a definite money value. To ignore these cardinal facts is to impair the usefulness and ultimately to sap the vitality of any Anglo-Chinese institution, however admir-able its system, or wise its administration ; to frankly recognise them is to lay a stable foundation on which the loftiest and most ambitious educational structure may safely be reared. To the cry for new schools and new learning must be joined the demand for new inducements to its acquisition. The stately edifice at Tientsin which is now ap-proaching completion is worthy of the great statesman who founded it. It remains now for him to make the Po Men Shen Yuan the new centre of educational reform. He has shown a marvellous perspicacity in dealing with new conditions, and no one knows better than he that the old order of things has passed away. The naval and military schools already established have proved that European professors of the highest ability and attainments can be easily and cheaply procured. Let him give them a free hand, and he may count with safety on an annual supply of Chinamen, well fitted to fill medical and scientific posts in the naval, military and civil services, and to remove the reproach which has long attend-ed the want of any adequate attempt to supply the deficiency. Doubtless the new college will be endowed by the Viceroy. Endowments have their use, but the fear
of their abuse makes them a doubtful blessing. He will accomplish a greater and more lasting benefit, if he will bring his influence to bear in introducing a new system of examinations, or in making the new learning a prominent branch of the old system. But it matters little what particular method he adopts. He is an opportunist and his advance will almost certainly be along the line of least resis-tance. Whatever the means, the result which must be obtained is, that the success-ful students shall count with certainty up-on obtaining at once a lucrative appoint-ment under his Government. Our own Home and Indian Civil Service competi-tions are an illustration of our meaning. Fix the standard as high as possible; multiply the subjects of study; increase the fees and extend the curriculum to seven or eight years; make the final test as you please:�Xthe students will never be daunted, if only the certainty of a well-paid appointment awaits success. Once this is assured, the difficulties will vanish. China has too long been engaged in putting the cart before the horse; too much occupied with forming paper schemes of education, with no clear idea of the prizes to be gained by those who engage in them. A bitter distrust has been begotten of such dealings, which it will take years to overcome. What are the results of the Chinese Educa-tional Commission of 1872 ? It was never denied, that of 120 lads who were educated in America, there was hardly one that did not prove himself an earnest and success-ful student. We know now the rewards which the mother country had in store for them. Treated on their return with con-tempt and neglect, they are now to be found scattered about the country, the more fortunate in foreign service, the others em-ployed as clerks in arsenals, or in the rail-way and telegraph offices. If the new colleges can promise no better results than these, they had better not be establish-ed at all. If, on the other hand, their
Illus. 13 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
47
212 THE CHINA EEVIEW.
examinations are to carry with them a founder will go down to posterity with a literary or scientific degree, and an ap- fresh title to the name of patriot, more1 pointment, to be coveted both for the posi- solid more secure, and more real than all tion and salary it confers, then indeed the the magnificent services of Li Hung Chang new education will prove the beginning of a have yet won for him. new era in China, and the name of its C. S. ADDIS.
Illus. 1.3 (Continued)
on the traditional lines; but the local atmosphere was such that the de-mand was different. For the parents of the students were mostly traders; they did not expect their sons to become scholars; all they required was that their children should acquire a good knowledge of Chinese and then learn English in order to carry on their business or start new ones. Thus the 'classical' environment was entirely absent.
21. Hongkong Daily Press, Thursday, 31 January 1901, p. 3, letter in the correspon-dence column from 'A Parent', referring to the speech of Bishop Hoare at the Diocesan Boys' School prize distribution, on 29 January 1901.53
The sentiments expressed in this letter were quite widespread among the European population, especially the 'bong-ban', or lower class Europeans who could not afford to send their children 'home' for schooling. One might notice that the writer chooses to use the technique of argument by comparison in a way somewhat similar to that of Gutzlaff in 1845 and that opinions about the 'duty' of the Government have changed since 1877.^
53.
See Chapter 4, Evidence 15(a) for a report of the Bishop's speech, Evidence 15(b) for editorial comment and Evidence 15(c) for a local Chinese reaction.
54.
See Evidence 6 in this chapter, for Gutzlaff's approach and Evidence 14 for an 1877 opinion of the duties of Government. The Chronicle sections for 1844,1855,1870-72 and 1900-1901 in the appropriate chapters below, offer information to show that the concern to establish separate schools for children of the European population in Hong Kong was a recurring one. Bishop Hoare's opinions were certainly consistent with the earliest Anglican leaders in Hong Kong. In 1847 the first Colonial Chaplain, the Rev. Vincent Stanton, wrote, 1 venture to express my very firm belief that any indiscriminate union of English and Native pupils in the same class would greatly impede the progress of both.' (CO 129/19, p. 253). George Smith, a few years later to become the first Anglican Bishop in Hong Kong, recognized the frailties of both main segments of the Hong Kong population: The lowest dregs of native society flock to the British Settlement, in the hope of gain or plunder... Two other serious disadvantages to Hong Kong [as a place for missionary endeavours], how-
One would imagine that the first duty of the Government would be to provide for the English children of the Colony an opportunity for receiv-ing an education equivalent to that imparted by a reputable school at home, in an institution from which Asiatics are excluded. Although I am prepared to admit that our local masters are competent and conscientious men, it is impossible to accept that the English boy is as well trained with the Chinese in his class as he would be without them. One is struck with the great want of interest the English lads here take in their schools �X their one desire seems to be to get away from it [sic]. This may be said to be unreasonable, but there is something in that want of interest which should receive serious consideration. Another important point that weighs with many parents is the question of contact. It is impossible to conceive that European lads can benefit morally from intimate contact with Chinese boys, and I use the term in its broadest sense.
.. . If Tientsin, Shanghai, Chefoo, and even Weihaiwei can possess such well-established and excellent schools for the education of European children alone, surely it cannot be argued that such a necessity does not exist in Hongkong. It is impossible nowadays for many residents to send their children to Europe to be educated, and in such a city as this, it should of all places in the east be unnecessary. Hongkong should not only be the centre of primary education among the scattered British communities in the Far East, but it should also furnish facilities for advanced education
22. From T. Kirkham's Treface to his Revised Edition' of Chambers' English Cantonese Dictionary (1907).
This extract offers interesting evidence about informal education in Hong Kong, indicating the existence of a group ofsinologues, similar in ways to the 'Orientalists' of the British Raj, composed of missionaries, government officials of varying rank and business-men. It may also suggest that, in Hong Kong's case, a revision needs to be made to interpretations based upon concepts of Colonialism as Cultural Imperialism.
ever, are the frequent spectacle of European irreligion, and the invidious regulations of police ... ' (G. Smith, A Narrative of an Exploratory Visit to Each of the Consular Cities of China, 1847 (reprinted by Ch'eng Wen Publishing Co., Taipei, 1972), pp. 508 and 512). Bishop Alford supported the public campaign for a separate school for European children in the early 1870s and attempted to use St. Paul's College for this purpose. Though this might seem to provide the basis for an Anglican 'tradition' in favour of separate education for the different races, offering a strong contrast with the more integrationist approach of the Roman Catholics, it should be noted that leading Anglican schools, such as the Diocesan schools, were well known for their admission policy which accepted Eurasian children as well as Chinese, European and other ethnic groups.
INTRODUCTION
49
I still vividly retain very clear recollection of a periodical after-dinner meeting which I was privileged to attend, in the middle eighties, at the former London Mission House, where, round a lamp-lighted table, under the personal presidency of the then venerable head of the London Mission (Dr. John Chalmers), sat Dr. Faber, Mr. J.H. Stewart Lockhart (now His Honour the Commissioner for Weihaiwei), Mr. (now Dr.) G.H. Bateson-Wright, Headmaster of Queen's College, Mr. Addys of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the late Mr. A. Falconer, Second Master of the old Govern-ment Central School, and others, eagerly discussing, assiduously compar-ing, commenting on, and revising, translations of portions of a minor Chinese classic made, since the previous session, by individual members of the class ...
23. 'Particulars of the Offices of three Assistant Mistresses, Education Depart-ment, now vacant in the Colony of Hong Kong'(August 1913), in CO 129/ 404, pp. 395-97.
This is a specification which E.A. Irving designed in Hong Kong to be sent to the Crown Agents in London so that a job-advertisement could appear in Britain for teaching posts in Hong Kong. As a historical source, it offers information about conditions of work for expatriate teachers, as well as evidence about the assumptions of the time. It also indicates that Hong Kong was not too much of a back-water in early childhood education, at least. Maria Montessori opened her first Casa dei Bambini (House of Childhood) in Rome on 6 January 1907. The publication date of her first important book in English?5 (upon which the 'Montessori system' was based) was 1912.
1. Duties of Office, and qualifications required for their performance.
Duties
To teach English children (girls and young boys) in combined Ele-mentary and Secondary Schools. Mistresses are liable to be trans-ferred to schools where similar instruction is given to Chinese girls, but such transfers are rare.
Qualifications
A. Essential.
(1)
Ability to teach
(a)
Arithmetic.
(b)
Religious Knowledge.
55. Anne E. George (trans.), The Montessori Method (London: Heinemann, 1912).
(c)
History.
(d)
English language and literature.
(e)
Geography. up to the standard of the Senior Oxford Local.
(2)
This ability and their general ability as teachers should be insured by the possession of the following:
A Cambridge Teacher's Certificate, or an Oxford or London University Diploma to teach in Secondary Schools.
(3)
The candidates must also be acquainted with kindergarten methods. A Froebel certificate should be considered a strong qualification. Successful candidates should (if they have hith-erto had no experience thereof) endeavour to get a practical knowledge of the Montessori system before leaving England.
B.
A thorough ability to teach as many as possible of the subjects named in the next paragraph should be had by the selected candi-dates between them. It is not at all necessary that each candidate should be able to teach them all; but it is very desirable that each should be able to teach, at least 2 in Group I, and 2 or more, in Group II. The candidates should be selected so that the subjects of each candidate will supplement those of the others.
The subjects are:
Group I French CDirect' method). Sewing. Swedish Drill.
Group II Music (Piano). Domestic Economy. Drawing (Modern Method). German. Latin (Elementary and least essential).
C. A cultured voice and manner are essential.
D. Age. Not very material. 25 to 30 years by preference.
2. Salary of Office
�G200 rising to �G230 in the event of the mistress being placed on the permanent establishment at the termination of her agreement.
INTRODUCTION
3. Allowances, quarters and other circumstances affecting the value of the Office. The agreement will be for 3 years from the date of arrival in the Colony, with half-pay on the outward voyage.
One of the vacant appointments carries with it free partly furnished quarters at the Peak, as soon as the Peak School is built, and meanwhile in lieu thereof an allowance of $600 per annum. Private tuition is allowed by permission of the Director of Education.
4. Nature, number and amount ofsecurities required, and mode of giving them.
Nil.
5. Whether free passage is provided for the person and his [sic] family.
Second class in mail steamer or via Siberia; or first class in 'outside' boat, on engagement; and return passage at the end of three years, if en-gagement is not renewed for other reasons than misconduct. A return passage will also be provided before the expiration of 3 years if she is incapacitated from further service by mental or physical disability.
24.
Steps (School Magazine of the Diocesan Boys' School) 3 (8) (January 1938) (Illus.1.4).
25.
Extract from the transcript of a tape-recorded interview with Mr Rufus Huang, 18 February 1977.
Oral history provides fascinating insights in thefield of education. The example below is taken from an interview with the first Principal of what became a leading Chinese Christian secondary school in Kowloon. The interview was conducted in the Vice-Chancel-lor's Lodge of the University of Hong Kong, which was then the home of the son of the interviewee. Confirmation of data provided by the interview may be sought through a type of triangulation with, for example, official Government archives and such school-based sources as 50: Munsang College Golden Jubilee (printed by Sun Tai Printing Co., 1976), especially ppA0-43.
... The people in Kowloon City were interested in developing lands to build up a community like Kowloon Tong. That was the original purpose of the Chinese business life there. The people complained, saying that, if you want to start a good village, like Kowloon Tong, you should have a good school. So these people began to look for a Principal to lead their school. Parents were primarily interested in English. They wanted their children to study English. At the time, I was a teacher in St. Stephen's College. I taught English and Mathematics and some Science. Kowloon City at that time �X before 1926 �X was undeveloped. They started to fill out the sea. They reclaimed land, mainly for business purposes . . .
Senior Prefect:�X Senior Boarder's School Prefects :-
Boarder's Prefects:-
lp Yee Prefect:�XKaan Wah Tuen
Chang Shou Kee Cheng Sou Chee Cheung, O. V Fisher, E. Fok, P. Hooi Cheng Weng Hui Kwok Hoi Kaan Che Kin Kaan Che Wan Leung Kiu Yue Matthews, C. N. Moo Peng Khoon Prata, A. J. M. Turner, W. H. Wong Man Hung Wong Pak Chuen Yim Tsaan Hong Chiu, C. Derkach, G. Goloobeff, G. Kaploon, P Lay, F. Ng Shiu Hee Poon Chee Pui
Au Yeung Kwong Ho
D. Crary Fisher, E. Hui Sai Fun Ko Wing Kau Leung Hing Luii Leung Ping Lun Matthews, C. N. Wong Cheong Kit Derkach, G. Tai Kok Kwat-
�X 2
Illus. 1.4 Pages from Steps 3 (8) (January 1938).
INTRODUCTION
Magasibe Committee:
Editorial:�XIp Yee, Kaan Che Wan, C. N. Matthews.
General:�XO. Cheung, E. Fisher, Hui Sai Fun, Kaan Wah Tuen, F. Lay, Ng Shiu Hee, Wong Cheong Kit.
We comgiratolaltes
Mr. and Mrs. Y. S. Chan on their marriage. Rev. and Mrs. L. L. Nash on the birth of a daughter. Mr. and Mrs. E. Shea on their marriage. Mr. and Mrs. R. Lee on their marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Huang Yen Cheng on their marriage,
We welcomes
Mr. S. K. Fung to the staff. Mr. E. C. Thomas back from leave. Mr. F. C. Whitfield, an old boy who has temporarily
been a welcome member of the staff. Mr. P. S. Cassidy, secretary of the D. B. S. Committee, back from leave. Mr. C. S. Sollis, the new Inspector of English Schools, who visited us in November. Mr. Sloss, the new Vice-Chancellor of the University.
Mrs. Hamilton, who is in Hong Kong again after leave in England.
We bid farewell tot
Mr. D. I. Luard, who went on leave in July.
Sir W. W. Hornell, who retired from the University in November. He was always interested in the D.B.S. and we lose a good friend.
We sympathise witfus
Mrs. Prew on the death of her father, in retirement in England after many years of faithful service in Hong Kong, where both he and his family have many friends and close connection with the D.B.S. and D.G.S.
�X a �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
Messrs. W. N. Thomas and Philip Tarn, on the tragic death of their sister.
Kaan Sze Chiu and his brothers on the sad death of their father, Mr. Kaan Tat Choi, one of Hong Kong's leaders in Christian and business circles.
The families of Miss Massey, a former teacher on our staff, and Mr. Moyhing, both of whom died recently.
Old Boys News.
Ko Fook Wing has written from Queen's College, Cambridge, and Chen King Sang from London, where he is studying at the London School of Economics.
They are both doing well, but are delighted to hear from old D.B.S. friends in Hong Kong and China.
C. I. Stapleton and the V. and E. Frith are other old boys now in England from whom news has been received lately.
Chui Ki Fan had the misfortune to be severely injured in the bomb outrage at Sincere's in Shanghai. We wish him speedy and complete recovery.
Ha Kit Wing writes from Lingnan University, where the following old boys are studying:�X
Tsai Hui Fa, Cheung Wai Chee, Wong Man Hoi, Ha Kit Wing, Shui Chai Hee, Leung Yuk Hon, Cheng Kwong Yue, Poon Kon Pui, A. J. Hulse, Wong Kam Ho, Tan Kung Hung> Wong Kam Pui, Wong Shui Keong, R. Mok, Der Nam Cheung.
Horace Chang, Wong King Ming and J. Dudley, all former Senior Boarders' Prefects, write, the first from Jamaica and the other two from Shanghai. Chang has started a Chinese Club in Kingston, and Dudley is working as Radio Announcer.
Eric Rapley has been in Hong Kong again recently after several months' absence from the Colony on the S. S. Rosalie Moller, of which he is wireless operator.
R. A. Gerrard is still doing well at Rugby Football in England.
�X 4 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
�EHMB
SPEECH DAY
This took place on July 9th, the last day of school, and once again the weather was very kind to us. A large number of visitors attended, and the success of the occasion was greatly helped by the presence of H.E. the Officer Administering the Government and Mrs. N. L. Smith, who kindly presented the prizes.
Music was provided by the band of the Royal Ulster Rifles and many people enjoyed watching and listening to them.
Each class had a display of hobbies and handiwork in its own room, and the Class 1 magazine, "Wings," was on sale, together with the school magazine.
Tea was provided in various parts of the building.
The Hon. Mr. M. K. Lo was a distinguished visitor whom we gladly welcomed, and he and the Bishop, as Chair-man, and H.E. the Officer Administering the Government spoke. The Headmaster presented his report and speeches of thanks were made by Kaan Che Wan and W. Lau.
The singing of the Hymn and the School Song sounded as enthusiastic as usual and were a prominent part of the programme.
�X 5 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
D. 0. B, A.
Old Boys will be interested to learn that since the last issue of "Steps" in July this year, the Old Boys Association has established a Mutual Aid Fund, administered by a Board of Trustees, to assist old boys of the School in need of help of a temporary nature. This is one of the reasons for the existence of our Association. Mr. George She is in charge of the Fund, and any member washing to contribute towards this Fund should forward donations or communicate with him. In addition there is also an Employment Bureau which seeks to place boys in suitable positions. Mr. She would be glad if those who know of any vacancies would communicate with him at 4a, Des Voeux Road, Central.
Encouraged by the success of the joint Social and Dance held at the Rose Room, Peninsula Hotel towards the end of May this year, in conjunction with the D.O.G.A. the Committee will be arranging another event along similar lines at the beginning of the year. There will be enter-tainment in the form of cards and mah jong for those who do not dance.
A. G. F. PREW
SHOE POLISHING CLUB
The idea of a shoe polishing club was suggested by a few of the School boarders. Approval of the scheme and permission to operate in the school having been granted by the headmaster, the members of the club have started to raise money by polishing shoes. All the money raised will be devoted entirely to the War Relief Fund. It is hoped that other schools will follow the example we have set and start clubs of their own with the same object in view.
The committee of the club wish to take this opportunity to thank all those who have so willingly helped to make the club a success.
WONG CHEONG KIT
�X 17 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
"N
Keep your books free from
the ravages of cockroaches and
silverfish with
n/\Gvr:Mzii:'5 BOOK VAMLSH
TO PREVENT THE ATTACKS J ~ OF ROACHES AND INSECTS J.
2 oz. 4 oz. 50 cts. 90 cts.
Allow iKc >arni4i
<*s^^f^
jACKENZlt
Obtainable at
THE COLONIAL DISPENSARY
PEDDER STREET Hong Kong.
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
THE CHINESE PLAY
A concert was held in our school hall on the eve of the Double Ten to raise money for medical supplies for the wounded in North China. Out of the whole programme that night, there was only one Chinese play which was performed by the boarders of the school. This was done because the Chinese who did not understand English could get some benefit out of the Concert. It shows also our patriotism to our own country, China. Because of our enthusiasm in having a play for the concert Mr. Y. S. Chan, a member of the staff, was kind enough to suggest a story and to direct a performance of "The Lady's Affair".
I think most of you saw this play, therefore I shall describe the story briefly. Here is an outline of the play:�X
1st Scene
Members were relaxing in a club, reading newspapers. One of them suddenly discovered an advertisement saying that a lady wished to have a boy friend. After the news became known members left the Club one after the other, each saying to the others as he left, that he had an appoint-ment.
2nd Scene
Members went to pay a visit to the lady one after the other but the lady turned them all out for she had a boy friend already.
This play was merely a comedy and the dialogue was full of jokes. We are certainly proud of our director because this play was so well done that we received a good criticism from the newspaper and the audience. We thank the audience who gave us such appreciation of our special play. The players were:�X
Kaan Wah Tuen as the luckyman.
Wong Cheong Kip as the sportsman.
Au Yeung Kwong Ho as the student.
Fung Shiu Sheung as the old man.
Poon Wing Kwong as the lady.
Koo Wing Kau as the amah.
Tai Kok Kwan as the fat man.
Hui Sai Fun as the boy.
KOO WING KAU
�X 18 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
LANE, CRAWFORD LTD. ��
EXCHANGE BUILDING
THE HOUSE FOR �EALU
5= SPORTS REQUISITES j:
TELEPHONE 28151
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
THE SCHOOL POND
The white sails of the tiny yacht lying upon the waveless lake are coloured by the golden beams of the setting sun shining through the bamboo bush. It is so calm that there is not a single ripple or wrinkle on the smooth surface of the still water. The shadow of the yacht and those of the bamboo trees are marked distinctly in the clear water. Suddenly, they swing from side to side as a drunken battalion, due to the huge waves caused by some disturbance on the distant shore, roll one after another as soldiers on parade. After the waves, then come wavelets and ripples, but soon, the lake returns to its mirror-like condition as before. The gentle wind blows and the yacht begins to sail, ploughing her way along the smooth, steep bank. Everything is so wonderful as those Alice saw in Wonder Land,�Xthe yacht sailing without any hands on board and the mountains seem-ing to be made of a single piece of granite standing at a distance from the bank. They are not wonderful at all, for it is a toy yacht sailing in the school pond of the rock garden.
The pond, in the shape of a new moon, is situated in the heart of the rock garden ; and although small, it is the pleasure play ground for the youngsters of the school. In this small pond, they become the captains or the masters of the high seas. They soon forget the tiresome day and once more they are fresh and full of life again.
�X 56 �X Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
While the gentle moonlight shines upon this beautiful scene, the toads croak, keeping the rhythm of nature's music played by the lower forms of creatures. In this charming shallow-pond, the motherly arm of moonlight and the melodious lullaby whistled by the mild breeze, there spring the flowers of water-lilies gracefully still. All this leads people's minds to dream-land and unfortunately, such pleasure only can be enjoyed by the boarders who wake up in the night.
This shows that the beauty of nature is anywhere, even in the little pond which is not noticed by boys in the school, but people, who enjoy its beauty, are few.
KAAN CHEE WAN
SCOUTS�X6TH KOWLOON D.B.S.
The 6th Kowloon, D.B.S. scouts were idle for some months but settled down once more to real scouting on the return of our S.M. and A.S.M. from leave.
As many members had left during their absence we enlisted about fifteen more scouts to fill the troop and we were well on our way to Good Scouting in the near future.
Actually no real scout work was done at first, as on the return of the scout masters we ran into one of the three annual scout rallies which kept us busy in preparation.
After the rally we received news that the S.M? owing to lack of time decided to stand out and our xAS.M. filled his place and we were once more sailing smoothly. Later with only a few weeks of rest we were asked by the Scout Association of Hong Kong to join the scouts and guides of the Colony to give a grand combined display to celebrate the Coronation of King George VI, the proceeds of which were to go to King George V's memorial fund. Our troop undertook to give an item towards the programme.
Directly after this we were asked by the Heep Yunn School to help in a concert in aid of their school funds and this was our good turn as well as pleasure for the following weeks.
�X 57 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
The troop was well represented at the Coronation display by Hong Kong Scouts.
We represented Canada in the pageant, had a physical training display of our own and took part in the Combined drill display.
As Canada we were very picturesque, with trappers, lumbermen, Red Indians, pioneers and, above all, a Mountie complete with horse.
Our own physical training display consisted of walking exercises, Swedish drill, tumbling and pyramids. Kenneth Knight and Maurice Sully ably acquitted themselves as funny men.
We did our part in the Combined drill manoeuvres, even though three of our members were so interested in other displays that they forgot to turn up.
We also proved ourselves as able as any troop in the dash for refreshments, (unrehearsed) and some of us had double shares.
C. N. MATTHEWS
THE DOUBLE TEN CONCERT >
Since the war-lords of Japan have started their dream of becoming the 'conquerors of the world', the Chinese under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek have resisted them on the world's frontest line for the existence of their families, country and liberty as well as for the peace and justice of the world. Many brave and faithful combatants and many defenceless and innocent people were killed and wounded by the cruel and barbarous acts of the Japanese. To take care of the wounded is the duty which the Chinese behind the defensive line should bear, especially the well educated people, so the students in Hong Kong formed the Hong Kong Students Relief Association of which our school is a member.
After the first general meeting of the association with the presence of the schools' representatives, several Chinese boys in the senior classes of our school wanted to give a concert in order to raise some money for the medical Relief Fund in China. With the great help of our Headmaster, the staff and our schoolmaster, the concert was held, after ten days of preparation, on 9th October, 1937.
�X 00 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
The application for the holding of the concert, free of entertainment tax, was granted by the government.
The venue for this concert was the school hall which by eight o'clock was filled with many enthusiastic guests. The concert commenced with the singing of the hymn, "I vow to thee my country", followed by a short speech both in Chinese and England delivered by the chairman of the committee of the concert. The Headmaster .then addressed the audience stressing in his speech the compassion we should have for the wounded in the present crisis.
The next item comprised two piano solos rendered by Mr. Lindsay A. Lafford, our singing instructor. The audience listened attentively to the beautiful music and was next entertained by Miss Eva Turner who sang "The Laughing song."
The programme continued with some very humorous sketches staged by the school's scouts. In one sketch a scout was awarded a medal by his scoutmaster for his many good deeds which included looking after his neighbour's baby. Later when the scout got home he, upon being asked by his mother to fetch her pair of spectacles, flatly refused, saying, "Go and get them yourself!" How charity began at home!
Mr. Raymond Liu and his Hawaiian Serenaders then entertained the audience with some Hawaiian music, which was very pleasing to hear. A violin solo was next given by Raymond Chang, a member of the school.
The Chinese boarders of the school were responsible for the next item. This was a short sketch which provoked much laughter. The dialogue was in Cantonese and every boy enacted well his part. Although the cast consisted of boys only, there were two ladies in the sketch! One was a talkative amah, and the other a charming young lady! An interval of ten minutes followed.
After the interval, members of classes 1 to 4 assembled on the stage for some choral singing, conducted by the Headmaster and accompanied on the piano by Mr. Lindsay A. LafTord. They boys first sang "Sea Fever," then The Volga Boatman Song." Following the next was "The Toreadol Song" taken from the opera "Carmen."
�X 61 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
Mysto 'the Memory Man5 interested the guests very much. Whilst he sat down blindfolded, with a boy and a lady (Miss Sawyer, the Headmistress of D.G.vS.) on either side of him, names of 24 different things were called out and written down on a blackboard. When this was done, Mysto could name the 24 things from beginning to the end, and then backwards, and then told any number, he could call out the thing corresponding to that number! How remarkable his memory was!
Miss Eva Turner again appeared on the stage and sang "Cherry Tree," and "Over the Mountains". The next item was a violin solo by Mr. O. Lyen; and then Mr. Gaston d'Aquino, Hong Kong's popular tenor, sang "Recondita Armonia" from the opera "Tosca". His other songs were "Mappari Tutanar" and "Tornna Sorrents."
Members of Class 3B then gave a short sketch entitled "The Ghost that Gibbered," which proved quite humorous and thrilling. The concert concluded with the School Song which many present sang heartily.
With the heartiness of the schoolmates in selling the tickets and the kindness of the artists, the night and the result were better than the ideal. The total profit was $1,586.05, in local currency after the expenditure of $88.70 had been taken out. About a week after the sum of money was sent to the Ministry of Health in Nanking by draft through the Bank of Canton and it was equal to $1,667.33 in Chinese national currency. The receipt was received forty days after the draft had been sent.
The committee and the boys of the school deeply thank our Headmaster, the staff, all the artists for their valuable help and the Connaught and Watson's Aerated Water Companies for the free supplies of aerated water and the Dairy Farm for the reduction in cost of ice-cream for sale at the concert.
To all the elder brothers and the committee of our school who had not been notified, the Committee of the Concert apologise, for the they were busily doing their tasks in pre-paring the concert.
�X 62 �X
Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
INTRODUCTION
DIOCESAN BOYS SCHOOL
School Fees after Chinese New Year will be as follows:�X
Dayboys Boarders Entrance Fee $10 Classes 1-4 42 per quarter 14C per quarter Class 5 36 134
30 128 24 122 8 18 . 116 Illus. 1.4 (Continued)
They approached me. I was interested in something new. It was a chal-lenge. St. Stephen's College was well established at that time. They looked for me. I don't know why they looked for me. Before I came to Hong Kong to join the staff of St. Stephen's College, I was a Headmaster of a Middle School in Swato w, and so they thought I had some experience in running a school. I think that was one of the reasons why. They wanted me to come to start the school. It was not an easy job, and so I talked to my wife. We both were Christians. We talked it over from a Christian point of view. It was a good idea to start something new on a Christian basis. We had no idea about running a missionary school or anything like that.
Among the people interested in this what you call Kaitak then were two businessmen. One was Mok Kwong-sang. The other was Au Tsak-mun. They were both prominent in business in Hong Kong. So when we were ready to start, they both gave us financial support. Each one gave $10,000. We had, then, $20,000 to start the school and so I decided to use their names �X Au Tsak-mun for the "Mun' and Mok Kwong-sang, the 'Sang7. That is why we called it Munsang College.
. . . We started the school on rented premises. We rented a house in Kowloon Bay, on Kaitak Bund, just by the sea, at $200 a month .. . Eddie Stewart, the St. Paul's College Principal was interested. He wanted to run the school as a St. Paul's branch. But I wanted something new, called Munsang... We started with 17 pupils and because the school was origi-nally very Chinese, based on Chinese money, and with a Chinese Princi-pal, we decided to make it typically Chinese. Because at the time, Chinese was the weaker academically in all schools �X particularly in Government schools where there was practically no Chinese at all, and even in private schools, Chinese was ignored �X I told my staff we must make something different. We want to make strong Chinese foundations.
.. . We started with a Middle School, not from a primary school. The pupils who wanted to come in, the Middle School students, had to have a very good foundation in Chinese .. . Not all the students who wanted to enter could get in, past the stiff entrance examination...
26. A brief description of the activities of the Tung Yi Tong from Tung Kuan district, n.d., but circa 1932; translated from a Chinese original.
The Tung Yi Tong is a typical example of a Chinese voluntary association which was
organized by people who came originally from the same district in Guangdong. Like others,
in the inter-war years, it changed the focus of its concern from ritual to social service and,
especially, to schooling for poor children.
INTRODUCTION
Background, to the running of schools by the Tung Yi Tong.
The suggestion that the Tung Yi Tong stop concentrating on the offering of sacrifices but run schools instead was put forward as early as 1916 on the initiative of Chow Cheuk Fan. Until 1919, the Chairman, Yip Leung Choi,\acting in accordance with this suggestion, began running free schools. However, at that time, the financial condition of the Tong deterio-rated. In fact, after the deduction of essential expenses, a sum of only HK$300 was left from the annual interest of the organization's funds.
The original idea was to use a hall of the Sheung Hui [Chamber of Commerce] as the school premises, but, in view of the fact that most poor children from our district were living near Sai Ying Pun, and travelling back and forward between home and school was so inconvenient, the idea was dropped. Even so, the Sheung Hui agreed to contribute $200 annually to cover part of the expenses of leasing premises. A total amount of $500 was, however, still insufficient to meet the cost of running a free school. Lau Cheuk Wah therefore suggested an unlimited expansion of the size of the Board of Directors, with each member to contribute $5 annually to-wards the running expenses of the school. At the same time, a fund-raising committee was formed, with Ho Lin Kui, Lau Sau Chin& Chan Tat Chui, Yu Wai Bun, Leung Yin Wing, Yuen Bo On, Lau Cheuk Wah, and Cho Fuk Chui as members. In this way, a sum of $2,800 was collected. Moreover, with Yip Tung Kwai carrying out further fund-raising in Macau, the total fund increased to $4,400, an amount large enough to start a free school.
Thus, Tung Yi No. 1 School was established at Second Street, in Sai Ying Pun, on 15th Ma*ch, 1921. At the outset, the registered principal was Ng Tin Bo and the honorary principals were Lo Ton Sang and Chow Siu Kei. Meanwhile, eight directors of the school were elected to become responsible for the school's administration. From then on, the Tung Yi School began to earn a high reputation among the schools of Hong Kong. Many poor children of our district have benefited from its existence. Subsequently, the Tung Yi Tong has established nine more schools.
27. Revised and augmented version of an extract from Anthony Sweeting, 'Hong Kong*, in R. Murray Thomas and T. Neville Postlethwaite (eds.), Schooling in East Asia: Forces of Change (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1983), pp. 272-75.
Readers who feel more comfortable in the deductive mode and who prefer to consider historical data in the light of general 'factors' are offered the following, very tentative analysis. Those who wish to maintain the fullest possible independence in the matter of detecting trends and themes from possibly significant recurrences may wish to leave this passage until they have finished the remainder of the book. In either case, readers can
examine the material in the remainder of the book to see whether it confirms or refutes the
analysis. The original version analyzed six 'aspects' of Hong Kong's social environment consid-ered significant in the educational enterprise. This revised edition adds a seventh factor, which, though not strictly an aspect of social environment, is regarded as of some impor-tance in the shaping of Hong Kong's education. The additional factor is 'the multiplicity of agencies and arenas for decision-making'.
Face
The most instrumental force affecting schooling in Hong Kong is the Chinese concept of 'face' �X the perception of one's own worth as rated by significant others. Face, or standing, can be gained, lost, saved, protected, or threatened. The concept is so pervasive �X perhaps because Chinese culture is so venerable and contagious �X that almost every inhabitant of Hong Kong is aware of its operation. It affects the status and efficiency of the teacher, motivates disciplinary problems among pupils, and helps or hinders decision-making on education committees. It influences chari-table donations for educational purposes, and it has been used by, for, and against the colonial administrators of Hong Kong, especially in the vari-ous efforts to extend and control schooling. Hence, it is an overarching force, enabling or direct, capable of producing change or reinforcing iner-tia, depending on the precise circumstances and on its interaction with other, often related forces. In Hong Kong, face is the founding father of a whole extended-family of concepts.
Pragmatism
Face is intimately connected with what Gunnar Myrdal termed 'higher valuations', with style, and with surface appearances. In contrast, the 'lower valuations'56, especially among the mainly Cantonese inhabitants of Hong Kong, tend to be pragmatic and to recognize the value of money57. But pragmatism and money-consciousness have not been confined to the Cantonese in Hong Kong. Complaints about the parsimoniousness of the Government and the conspicuous consumption of the most successful members of society have abounded58. For the successful and not-yet-
56.
For a discussion of this distinction between impressive-sounding goals or declarations of intent and the often co-existing earthier, more basic motives, see Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, 9th edn. (New York: Harper, 1944), pp. xlviii, 20-42, and 1027 ff.; and Brian Bullivant, Race, Ethnicity and Curriculum (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 96 ff.
57.
Readers may wish to examine the Evidence sections of this book for confirmation of this allegation, at least as a commonly-held opinion. As 'starters', see Evidence 7 and 13 in this Chapter and Evidence 1(a) and 1(b) in Chapter 4 .
58.
For example, see Evidence 8(b) in Chapter 3 .
INTRODUCTION
successful, throughout the centuries a major motivation in favour of edu-cation in Hong Kong and a large part of the reason for its importance has been pragmatic and frankly vocational considerations. For governmental intervention in education in Hong Kong, a major constraint has been cost. Thus, the pragmatism-factor has at times contributed towards change, as when it has influenced public opinion about the language of instruction, for example, and in affecting the status of technical education. At other times, it has reinforced inertia, especially in its guise of financial strin-gency.
Paternalism
An important feature of education in Hong Kong is the prevalence of paternalistic attitudes and of responses to paternalism �X via face, or pragmatically, or by means of more extreme actions. Paternalism has assumed many forms in Hong Kong. More recently, there has been a conjunction of paternalistic styles: Confucianistic Paternalism which rec-ognizes obligations to inferiors and the duties of the 'noble' or 'superior' man, Colonialist Paternalism of the 'White Man's Burden'-type, Bureau-cratic Paternalism of the 'we-know-what's-best-for-them' variety, and Evangelical Paternalism in its many zealous guises. Each of these forms has manifested itself in relation to education in Hong Kong. On occasions, several or all of them have coalesced to enable or, via patronizing atti-tudes, to disable educational change.
Language
Many of the less patronizing criticisms of the quality of learning and teaching in Hong Kong tend to share the opinion that problems of lan-guage, especially issues related to the medium of instruction, have been at the root of the imperfections59. The most obvious points relate to the use of English as medium of instruction in many prestigious schools, beginning in 1843, boosted by the establishment of the Central School in 1862, as well as by the increasing demand for interpreters and English-speaking middle-men or clerks, and officially blessed by the Education Conference of 1878. In this period and later, some of Hong Kong's students struggled educa-tionally because of the use of a second language as the medium of educa-tional communication. A significant proportion of these, however, struggled successfully. Although this �X particularly the less successful struggling
�X is the aspect of the 'language-problem' which receives most attention today, it is possible that it is only a symptom. More fundamental forces, associated especially with the nature and use of written and spoken Chi-nese and partly with the nature and use of English, could be at work. The social class structure of Hong Kong is likely to be related to the operation
59. Among the many examples which can be found in this book, readers may wish to examine, as a 'starter', Evidence 4 in this Chapter.
/
of these forces. Thus, the ideographic nature of written Chinese, its lack of an alphabet and of clear phonetic indicators has, for centuries, not only encouraged rote-memory as a respected form of learning'; it has also encouraged formality in educational discourse. Even the spoken Chinese of the classroom has tended to be highly elaborate and dignified, when the patois, especially of the lower classes, has included the liveliest of word-play and the most forceful of expletives. The difficulty of finding written equivalents for much spoken Cantonese has exacerbated the problem, and the general disjunction between written Chinese, which is codified Man-darin or Putonghua, and oral, colloquial Cantonese has added to the 'distance' between teacher and students. This provides a rather complex background to the intrusion of English, whether the intrusion was re-sented on political and ethno-sexual grounds, or welcomed, especially for commercial reasons.
Social Fragmentation
The relationship between the two 'communities' historically most important in Hong Kong, the Chinese and the British, has been one of symbiosis. The two communities, whatever their historical differences in number, culture, and formal political influence, have mutually benefited from their association. This association has sometimes been fraught with tension. On occasions, indeed, the attitude underlying the relationship might be best described as one of Tiealthy mutual contempt760. There have been other member communities of Hong Kong society. Most of these have, themselves, been fragmented. One consequence of this feature has been the recurring attempts to provide separate schools for different eth-nic groups and even for different social classes and the varying reactions to these attempts by Governments61.
Respect for Scholars
Traditionally the scholar has been venerated in Chinese culture. For centuries, scholastic success brought with it elevation to the mandarinate, the ranks of the scholar gentry. In this position, a scholar would exercise political, judicial, and social power, normally in a province of which he was not native. In the eyes of the common people as well as in his own eyes �X particularly from the perspective of the 'higher valuations' of both
�X the scholar was seen to be a man of elegance, dignity and refinement, a model worthy of emulation. Because of his elevated rank, his unfamiliar-ity with the district and people, and his considerable power, ordinary or
60.
See H.J. Lethbridge, Hong Kong: Stability and Change (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 209.
61.
See f.n. 54 and Evidence 21 in this chapter, the Chronicle for 1855 and 1859 in Chapter 3 and the Chronicle for 1870-72, 1901,1902, and 1903 in Chapter 4, as well as the various extracts used as Evidence 15,16 and 17 in Chapter 4, and Evidence 1 in Chapter 5.
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