Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/129



Headmaster of Queen's College, Hongkong.

ONGKONG is sui generis." Thirty years ago this was the war cry of the eloquent Hon. Mr. Phineas Ryrie, locally known as the Rupert of Debate. He never wearied of endeavouring to impress upon the Government that it was futile to attempt to apply the experiences of England and India to the conditions of Hongkong. Few people will be found ready to deny that a sound substratum of fact underlies the idea; but it is equally certain that for many decades Hongkong suffered from undue regard to the conviction that English methods could not solve Chinese problems.

Prima facie, it would appear probable that Education would naturally be one of those subjects in which great, if not insuperable, difficulties would be encountered in dealing with a large, mixed, cosmopolitan community, the bulk of which belongs to the most conservative of nations on the face of the earth—the Chinese. Despite the hindrances engendered by this conception, a cursory review of the history of Education in this Colony will show that, after all, a greater similarity obtains between the conditions existing in the mother country and this little Colony than might at the coup d'oeil be supposed possible.

In England, from 1850 to 1870, the only elementary schools were the National Schools, under the ægis of the Established Episcopal Church, the British Schools supported by the Nonconformist denominations, and the Roman Catholic Schools, all of these receiving bonuses from the Government, with special consideration to the Established Church. We need not be surprised, then, to find that for the first twenty or thirty years the Hongkong Government contented itself with aiding missionary efforts by grants and by the establishment of Grant-in-aid Schools under the control of an Educational Committee, of which Bishop Smith, and subsequently Dr. Legge, was chairman. When Board Schools were instituted in England the Forster Code was introduced into Hongkong, with the modifications required by local conditions. At intervals new editions of the local Code were published, generally increasing both the value of the grant and the severity of the standard. Last of all, Hongkong, following the lead at home, abolished the necessity of an annual examination of all the scholars in the Grant-in-aid Schools, leaving the assessment of the proficiency of each school, and the extent to which it shall be subject to examination, to the discretion of the Inspector of Schools.

So far, it will be observed, nothing has been recorded indicative of any necessity for peculiar treatment of educational matters in Hongkong. Naturally, however, linguistic and racial problems unknown in Great Britain arise in this Colony. Of a total population of 361,000, no fewer than 340,000, or 94 per cent. are Chinese. The importance to these of the study of their own language would appear to be self-evident, and was immediately recognised by the local Government without discussion. Under Sir J. Pope-Hennessy's régime (1877–82) it was first suggested that the entire time of Chinese students ought to be devoted to the acquisition of the English language. The supporters of the then existing state of affairs appealed successfully to the famous dictum of Macaulay relative to the maintenance of vernacular instruction in India. The matter dropped for the time to be revived under more propitious circumstances during the governorship of Sir William Robinson (1891–97), when notice was given that the study of Chinese was removed from the curriculum of all Government Schools, and that in future no new Grant-in-aid School teaching Chinese would be accepted. Later, the Government reverted to the former practice, and more recently advanced to the position that no grant would be given to a school attended by Chinese unless adequate provision were made for instruction in the vernacular.

Next to the consideration of whether the Chinese language should be taught, came the question of the method to be employed in teaching it. At first sight it would appear somewhat presumptuous for foreigners to undertake to devise an improvement upon the native system which had been in vogue for several centuries. But common-sense and utilitarianism prevailed. It is the custom in China for the first two or three years of a child's school-life to be spent in the acquirement by heart of several volumes of native literature, without any explanation whatever of the subject-matter, which is perfectly unintelligible to the scholar. Even when instruction comes later, its educational value, apart from moral lessons such as filial piety, &amp;c., is confined to the composition of stilted essays in stereotyped style upon topics of a very limited scope. To meet the requirements of a scheme for teaching the Chinese their own language on a rational system several series of books have been compiled and published by missionaries at Shanghai. Following the plan of English Readers, they begin with the use of the simplest characters possible, and treat of subjects within the every-day ken of the infant. Lessons are given on animals, plants, history, and geography, while not the least interesting and instructive is a work dealing with the composite parts of various characters and their meaning, hitherto a sealed subject to the average Chinaman. All this, an entirely new departure for Chinese students, is of high educational value; and at the end of three years, instead of being on the threshold of learning, as by the native system, the pupils have acquired a variety of useful information and are able to write short letters and essays, formerly an impossible feat at this stage. These useful books have been introduced into Hongkong Government Schools within the last half-dozen years, and, though some are too childish in sentiment for boys twelve years of age, are highly appreciated.

Beside British and Chinese, there are in Hongkong boys of all nationalities—American, Hindu, Japanese, Parsee, Portuguese, &amp;c. For many years there was a great agitation amongst the British ratepayers to found a separate school for the exclusive use of boys and girls of British parentage. Their prayer has now been granted. The first opportunity was afforded by a new school-building erected by the munificence of Mr. Ho Tung, with the proviso that no boy should be excluded on the ground of race or creed. As this school was conveniently situated for the children of residents in the Kowloon Peninsula opposite Victoria, Mr. Ho Tung was induced to consent to his school being converted into a school for British children only, on the understanding that the Government would erect in Yaumati, a mile distant on the same side of the water, a school for Chinese under the charge of an English headmaster. Mr. D. James, formerly assistant master at Queen's College, Hongkong, and second master of the King's School for Siamese Princes at Bangkok, was appointed headmaster, and Kowloon British School was formally opened in 1902. Soon afterwards, owing largely to the instrumentality of Mr. Irving, a similar British School was opened in the island to the east of Victoria and called the Victoria British School, under the care of Mr. W. H. Williams, headmaster. Both these are mixed schools, but a somewhat grotesque arrangement has been made by the terms of which, boys over sixteen may not attend Kowloon School, but