Page:Europe in China.djvu/366

348 and Geo. Lyall). But though this School was well started and continued under the fostering care of Mr. Shortrede, the conviction soon forced itself upon public recognition that the Committee's original idea of confining the School to the tuition of the children of British residents was impracticable. Weighed in the popular scales, this School was also found wanting, though it lingered on for a few years longer. But while the principal voluntary schools thus declined during this period, and the smaller day schools established by the Protestant and Catholic missions for the benefit of the Chinese also continued in a languishing condition, the 13 Government Schools, giving a purely Chinese education, flourished and developed both in attendance and in organisation, through the appointment (May 12, 1857) of an Inspector, the Rev. W. Lobscheid. The Acting Colonial Secretary (Dr. W. T. Bridges), while stating (March, 1857) that nothing could well be at a lower ebb than the local educational movement, recognized distinct signs of healthy vitality in the Government Schools (small as they were) which he personally visited.

There is but little to record concerning the religious affairs of this period. Great indignation was aroused when Sir J. Bowring declined (May 25, 1855) the request of Bishop Smith that the Governor should appoint the 6th June, 1855, as a day of fast and humiliation, with reference to the Crimean War and in imitation of the popular action taken in England. Sir John incurred the unjust condemnation of most religiously inclined people in the Colony, but his action was strongly approved by the Colonial Office because the proclamation of a public fast day is a prerogative which even the Sovereign, as the head of the Church of England, may exercise only in the form of an Order in Council. A few years later, Bishop Smith came (October 18, 1858) again to the front by the publication of a stirring letter addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury in review of the Tientsin Treaty as favourably affecting the prospects of Christianity in the East. This letter, in which the zealous Bishop appealed to the Church for renewed missionary efforts in China,