Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China/Queen's College
QUEEN'S COLLEGE.—Like the Royal College at Mauritius and the Harrison College at Barbados, Queen's College, Hongkong, is an entirely separate Government department, independent of the Inspectorate of Schools. Its history, therefore, demands individual treatment.
When Dr. Stewart in 1862 opened the Government Central School in Gough Street, that district, though in close proximity to the Queen's Road, was semi-rural, being occupied by villa residences, interspersed with trees and bamboo groves. The site was admirably adapted to the purpose, being equidistant from the two extremities, east and west, of the city of Victoria, to supply whose educational needs was its object. A building in the shape of a letter H was erected, affording accommodation for about 350 boys. The central bar was a sort of hall, in which rows of benches rose one above another, tier upon tier. Two classes were taught here, and three in each of the adjoining wings. Screens were impossible, so that instruction, under the conditions, suffered considerable disadvantage.
There was at first some difficulty in inducing Chinese to see the benefit accruing from Western studies. Fees, of course, were quite out of the question, and a few years later the charge of fifty cents a month was not made without much apprehension. However, in four years 222 boys were on the annual roll. In 1876 this number had risen to 577. It became necessary to use the four basement rooms of the headmaster's and second master's quarters as classrooms, and the need for erecting a much larger building providing a separate room for each class became apparent.
Though only reaching the borders of what is understood by Secondary Education, the Central School turned out an immense number of well-educated pupils of all nationalities, as can be testified by many Chinese, English, Indian, Parsee, and Portuguese gentlemen now in the Colony upwards of forty-five years of age. In 1877 an attack was made on the work done at the Central School in a pamphlet, popularly ascribed to the pen of the late Mr. J. J. Francis, Q.C., and entitled "Does the Central School fulfil its raison d'être?" A commission was appointed by Sir John Pope-Hennessy to inquire into the possibility of providing a better system, and to consider whether the erection of five Government schools under European headmasters, one being a collegiate establishment, would not prove more beneficial to the needs of the Colony than one new large building. The report was published in 1882, the commissioners disapproving of His Excellency's scheme, which later experience, however, would seem to have shown highly commendable. The Government thereupon resolved to build what is now known as Queen's College, the foundation of which was laid by Sir George Bowen in 1884.
In 1881 Dr. Stewart, at his own request, was transferred to the post of Police Magistrate, and in November of the same year the present headmaster, Mr. (Dr. in 1891) G. H. Bateson Wright, was appointed by Earl Kimberley. Immediately on his arrival in January, 1882, Mr. Wright held the annual examination of the Central School, and, though not in a position to write a report on a year's work with which he had no personal acquaintance, he stated in a speech to Sir John Pope-Hennessy at the prize distribution that he was much struck with the attainments in the English language of the Chinese boys, and that the results of the examination reflected great credit on the management of the school and the labours of the masters.
The following changes were immediately effected. A half-yearly examination was instituted and has been maintained ever since, to secure the efficiency of the work in the first half-year and to minimise the evils of cramming in the second half. The power to administer corporal punishment was restricted to the headmaster, and all forms of assault were strictly prohibited. The study of grammar and geography was extended to two lower classes, and algebra, geometry, and mensuration were restored to the curriculum. In the preparation of examination questions every care was taken to obviate the possibility of answers that were simply feats of memory without any evidence of the exercise of intelligent effort. The consequence was that for the next eight years, while the headmaster (in so small a school) was able to take an active part in tuition, the Inspector of Schools, who held the office of Annual Independent Examiner, in his reports published in the Government Gazette, spoke in the most complimentary terms of the work done at the Central School. In 1884 Walter Bosman was elected the First Government Scholar, and proceeded to England, where he had a brilliant career at the Crystal Palace Engineering Institute. He has since been in the Government service at Natal as Director of Public Works at Eshowe and Durban. The thanks of the Imperial Government were accorded to him for delimiting the Portuguese frontier, and a couple of years ago he was aide-de-camp to the Colonel in charge of the expedition to suppress the rising in Natal.
In July, 1889, the premier Government institution migrated from the old Central School to Queen's College, erected on an open spot, insulated by four roads, a little higher up the hill. In January, 1889, there were 438 boys on the roll at the Central School; in July and September of the same year there were at Queen's College 510 and 796 respectively. By this sudden practical doubling of the number of students, the vast majority of whom were naturally admitted to the bottom classes, one would have thought it self-evident that the work of the next three or four years would be exceptionally arduous, and that the steady progress of the previous eight years must, as a matter of course, be retarded. Sir William Robinson, however, after a residence in the Colony of six months, caused considerable astonishment, and in some quarters indignation, by the public announcement at the Queen's College Prize Distribution in January, 1892, that Queen's College was a failure. This dictum, which would have been the ruin of a private school, did not affect the popularity of Queen's College with the Chinese. It is, indeed, very instructive to note that during the very six years that the college was suffering from the gubernatorial frown, Chinese masters and pupils were urgently required at the Imperial Tientsin University, where their excellent proficiency in English secured them a hearty welcome and rapid promotion. Of these sixty young men, at least four are now Taoutais, Wen Tsung-yao is Secretary to the Viceroy at Canton, Dr. Chan Kam-to is in the Finance Bureau at Peking, and Wong Fan and Leung Lan-fan are on Railways and Telegraph Service respectively. Verily, it may be said of Queen's College, as of the prophet, that it is not without honour save in its own country.
In 1894 the constitution of the college was changed by the appointment of a governing body, whose first act in 1895 was to abolish the vernacular school, restoring it, however, nine years later. In 1896 independent examiners were nominated by the governing body to hold the winter examination and report on the college. With only two exceptions this practice was continued annually till 1903, when the governing body resolved that an annual inspection in July and report by the independent examiners would be of greater service than the examination of a thousand boys in January, the conduct of which was left in 1904 and onwards (as prior to 1896) to the control of the headmaster. A very wide gulf sunders the conditions of these two examinations. In January every boy is examined, and the whole year's work is under review; in July the boys are tested in new work upon which they have been engaged for only four months, and about 20 per cent. are taken by the sample method.
Queen's College is fortunate in the possession of an excellent staff. Of the English staff, apart from the headmaster, there are three trained certificated masters, the remainder are graduates of universities—three from Cambridge, two from Trinity College, Dublin, one from Oxford, and one from Aberdeen. The senior Chinese masters leave nothing to be desired, and most of the junior are satisfactory. The native masters are trained under the charge of a normal master. Twenty years ago, when the salary was only $4 a month, the head boys of the school were eager to be monitors, now that they receive $20 rising to $35 a month great difficulty is experienced in finding suitable boys to be articled pupil teachers, though by this course of training their market value is considerably enhanced on account of their greater proficiency in English.
The Oxford Local Examinations, which have been held at Hongkong as a centre for twenty years, during which time 1,400 candidates, boys and girls, have been examined, have proved of inestimable value. Besides providing an impartial test of the educational work done in the Colony, unmarred by local bias on either side, they have been of great service to Hongkong boys in procuring for them admission to English and American schools and universities, and in obtaining exemption from professional preliminary examinations. Queen's College has always had a difficulty to cope with in presenting candidates. The majority of these boys after promotion at the commencement of the school year have in March to begin to prepare for the examination in July. They are, therefore, practically examined upon their knowledge gained in ordinary school routine, and very little on the special requirements of the locals. In spite of this drawback, however, they have done very creditably. Third Class Junior Honours were obtained in 1907, and distinctions as follow:—1895, Senior Mathematics and Preliminary History; 1898, Junior English; 1899, Senior English.
In an ambitious upward course Queen's College is hindered by the following considerations. It is a day-school, so that all attempts to teach English conversation are necessarily confined to school hours, after which all the boys immediately revert to Chinese thought and expression, and no supervision can be given to preparation of work. Again, fully one-third of the boys change annually, and this has always been the case from time immemorial. Four hundred boys leaving and four hundred new boys being admitted annually is a very serious obstacle in the way of obtaining a large and efficient upper school. In this connection it is to be observed that there is no external system for feeding the upper classes of Queen's College such as exists in any large town in England, for the half-dozen boys from the Government district schools are lost sight of when the number of seats available (420) is borne in mind.
The following table serves to illustrate the slow but steady progress of Queen's College. "The day of small things" is past. Gradually the number of subjects in the curriculum has increased, and the increase in the number of scholars taking those subjects is enormous. Queen's College has justified the high reputation it enjoys in the neighbouring vast Empire of China, and, with due encouragement, its future prospects are practically limitless.
Total number of boys examined in each subject.
| 1882 | 1885 | 1889 | 1907 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| English to Chinese | 301 | 379 | 676 | 771 |
| Chinese to English | 301 | 379 | 676 | 771 |
| Grammar | 172 | 312 | 547 | 1,085 |
| Geography | 144 | 253 | 477 | 1,085 |
| Composition | 83 | 127 | 360 | 771 |
| History | 30 | 75 | 143 | 322 |
| Geometry | 75 | 143 | 557 | |
| Algebra | 75 | 143 | 557 | |
| Mensuration | 25 | 24 | 118 | |
| Latin | 117 | |||
| General Intelligence | 83 | 34 | ||
| Shakespeare | 24 | 34 | ||
| Trigonometry | 17 | 14 | ||
| Hygiene | 771 | |||
| Book-keeping | 118 |
