Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/135

 When these boys leave school they will have the advantage of knowing both English and Chinese. To facilitate the imparting of instruction, and to enable the pupils to derive full benefit from it, the Chinese boys of the lower standards are separated from the others, and receive instruction suited to their capacity. In the higher standards, the boys are prepared for the Oxford Local Examination, in addition to receiving a sound commercial training.

Shorthand and typewriting are taught with great success, and several of the students have already obtained first-class certificates in these subjects. Book-keeping, commercial geography, commercial arithmetic, and correspondence also occupy a prominent place in the school syllabus. In all the classes great importance is attached to the teaching of English. It is the only language tolerated both on the playground and in the classroom, except in the lower standards of the Chinese department. High marks are generally obtained by the boys of the college at the Oxford Examination for this most important subject. The school curriculum also includes religious instruction, French, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, history, and hygiene. In addition the boys receive a special course in freehand, model, geometrical, and architectural drawing, from a thoroughly competent master, and the school has always enjoyed a high reputation for the success it has achieved in the teaching of this branch of education.

The physical training of the pupils receives due attention. A regular course of physical drill is given by a sergeant specially appointed by the Government for that purpose. On certain occasions during the year the boys are called upon to perform some of these exercises on the stage, and the skill and exactitude with which they go through them elicits the hearty applause of the onlookers. A keen interest is taken in out-door games, and in the shield competition every year the school holds a high place. A football and cricket club has been established in the college with a view to encouraging these games, the teachers recognising that "all work and no play maketh a dull boy." When unable to pursue their accustomed out-door amusements, owing to bad weather, the pupils retire to the club-room, where the time may be passed pleasantly at a game of billiards or chess, or in the perusal of interesting literature.

Hundreds of young men educated in the college have attained honourable and lucrative positions in different parts of the world by the application of that knowledge and of those principles of right and honesty which were instilled into them during their early days. ST. PAUL'S COLLEGE.—This institution, situated in the Lower Albert Road, Hongkong, was founded in 1843 by the first Colonial Chaplain of the Colony, with the object of providing men as native teachers and preachers. It is now the Training College of the Church Missionary Society's South China Mission, and comprises two departments—one for boys and the other for men. In that for boys the sons of Christian parents are received at the age of sixteen, and, after three years training, if they are found suitable, they pass into the day or boarding schools of the mission as schoolmasters, under the supervision of English or Chinese clergy. In the student class, under a separate organisation, men not under the age of twenty are trained as native preachers and catechists. This department was commenced in 1899 by the Rev. C. Bennett, at Shiu-Hing, and later in the same year the students were moved to Canton. In 1900 it was found that Hongkong would be a more suitable centre, and the college was ultimately transferred to its present premises, placed at its disposal by the late Bishop Hoare. Recently there has been established in connection with the college a preparatory school at Kowloon, where an old official yamen is held under the Colonial Government on a repairing lease.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is hon. visitor to the college, and the Bishop of Victoria is the warden. The Sub-warden and Principal is the Rev. G. A. Bunbury, M.A., who is loyally assisted in the work by a Chinese graduate. There are four men in the student class, twenty boys in the training college, and about fifty boarders and day-boys in the Kowloon preparatory school. The curriculum embraces the essential subjects, the aim of the college being directed rather towards thoroughness of teaching than towards variety. The Chinese language is, at present, the medium of instruction.

THE ELLIS KADOORIE CHINESE SCHOOLS SOCIETY.—This society, whose work extends through Hongkong, Canton, and Shanghai, was formed at the suggestion of the well-known merchant whose name it bears. Its chief object is to overcome the difficulty felt by the Chinese poor of obtaining a sound