Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China/Education
EDUCATION.
By G. H. Bateson Wright, D.D. (Oxon.), 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, &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, &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 must cross over to Victoria, and girls over sixteen must leave Victoria School and cross to Kowloon, which seems to suggest that the Inspector of Schools has not the full courage of his convictions.
In this connection, while admitting that for other reasons the establishment in a British colony of schools for British boys and girls is highly desirable, it is only just to the denizens of the ancient and enormous Empire of China to put on record that one of the reasons urged by the parents for this segregation, viz., the fear of moral contamination of their children from association with Chinese schoolmates, is based on popular prejudice, which is not supported by the evidence of those competent to form an opinion founded upon experience. On the occasion of a visit to the Central School in 1885, General Cameron, then administering the government, asked the headmaster his opinion of the morals of his Chinese pupils, and received the answer: "About the same as those of schoolboys of other nations, certainly not worse." Dr. Stewart, the previous headmaster, on being appealed to, corroborated the statement. Dr. Eitel, the Inspector of Schools, whose experience was still more varied, as he had been for many years a missionary among the Hakka population on the mainland, then made the following important pronouncement: "Taking them class by class, Your Excellency, the Chinese compare very favourably with Western nations in the matter of morality." The General laughed, and said "That is your opinion, gentlemen. Well, nobody will believe you." Here we have the whole affair in a nutshell. Popular prejudice is tenacious of life. Nobody will accept an actual fact opposed to the belief of the man in the street.
When Inspector of Schools, Dr. Stewart endeavoured to induce the Government to favour a policy of compulsory education, then exploited in England. All succeeding inspectors of schools have concluded, and justly so, that it is absolutely impracticable to dream of introducing compulsory education into Hongkong. The enormous army of school attendance officers necessary to render the scheme in the least degree efficient, is in itself sufficiently appalling; to say nothing of the time that would be wasted at the magisterial court in warning and fining offenders. The discrepancy between the estimated number of children of school age in the Colony, and those attending school is largely accounted for by the boating population; though even these are not indifferent to the advantages of Western education, as Queen's College and Yaumati Government School can testify. From whatever cause, however, there has been in the last few years a very perceptible decrease in the number of children seen toiling up the hillside with loads of brick and earth.
Chinese boys are for the most part docile, well-behaved, and, to some extent, eager to learn. They have, however, a disposition to be eclectic. If, for instance, they do not see the present advantage of the study of geography or geometry, they neglect these subjects as far as the rules of the school may permit. They do not recognise that in a commercial career, a correct knowledge of cities and countries, of their manufactures and products, may be of real service in after life; nor do they appreciate the fact that the average Chinaman is incapable of sustaining an argument, starting with false or indeterminate premisses and cheerfully pursuing a circuitous course to the point from which he started, the only cure for which is a rigid course of geometrical study. There is, perhaps, no characteristic of the Chinese nation more universally admitted than their possession of a marvellous memory. But the questions arise: Is it a serviceable memory? Is it not rather an agent for cramming? Are there not, as a matter of fact, nearly 99 per cent. of them incapable of remembering, after the lapse of a year, the salient points of any subject (say history) in which they have passed an examination successfully? Again, though like most Eastern nations, the Chinese show a greater aptitude for the acquisition of knowledge in arithmetic, algebra, and trigonometry, than is possessed by the average Western schoolboy, they can hardly be credited with the mathematical genius accorded to them by popular opinion. Their memory is not accretive; too often will they be found to have forgotten elementary principles, with which they were acquainted two or three years previously. As a rule they are lacking in initiative; they can repeat the same mathematical exercise provided the conditions are the same, but will be at a loss if a slight change is introduced requiring the exercise of independent thought. In spite, however, of these points of adverse criticism, Chinese, taking them all round, are more apt and willing pupils than European boys.