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7 THE GENERAL OBJECTS IN VIEW T he members of the General Committee assembled at Government House on 29 October for a second meeting. The report of Chater's sub-committee was before them and Lugard spoke at length on the mam question raised in it: if it would be practicable to embark on the enterprise within the means expected to be available for it. He found it all so absorbing. 'I have never before in my life had anything to do with education', he wrote to Edward later, 'and as a new subject it interests me immensely.' Keswick had left Hong Kong. Bateson Wright had been back from leave for some months but seems to have relinquished his seat on the committee. In their places Lugard appointed W. Jardine Gresson of Jardine's and lrving, the Director of Education. Turner and Brewin had left on prolonged periods of absence and Cecil Clementi, the scholarly assistant colonial secretary who would himself become a Governor of Hong Kong, replaced them. D.R. Law was there. With his habitual diffidence, Mody still deferred attending. May and Bowley were unavoidably otherwise occupied; the Bishop, Atkinson, and Gresson (who thereby missed his first meeting) were not in Hong Kong. The problem in brief, Lugard explained to the rest of them present, was this:1 Until the scheme takes shape and it is finally decided to commence building With the sum provided by Mr Mody, there is little hope of raising an Endowment Fund. On the other hand if we commence building at once, it is suggested that we might fmd ourselves in the position of having an inadequate Fund to carry on the work when the buildings are completed. In this dilemma the Sub-Committee were inclined to report that they saw no certain means of securing the mmimum endowment reqUIred, and that Without It the University should not be started. Dr Ho Kai endeavoured to save the situation by a clever suggestion that a large school should be affiliated to the University. He was confident that he could secure so large a number of pupils that their fees would pay for the teachmg staff and expenses of the University as well as of the school itself, and that several neighbouring Chinese clUes would contribute considerable sums for buildings and endowment If a given number of studentships were assigned to each. I considered this scheme carefully and it appeared to me to be impracticable for the following reasons. The proposal would in fact be to establish a new school, differing from Queen's College only in that the subjects of instruction would be more technical, that the students would be boarders, and that the medium of mstruction would be Chinese and not English. Queen's College does not pay its way and there IS no certamty that a school on these lines would do so, for in order to educate so large a number of students the staff proposed 66 Lugard in Hong Kong for the University would of course have to be very greatly increased and the expenses all round would be very greatly enhanced. Meanwhile the project of a Umver~ity would be no nearer attainment than it is now and the object of the donor of the Building Fund would not be realized, for it seems clear to me that the class of students attending ~uch an affiliated school would not be such as would enter the University. They would come fc)r the certificates and diplomas issued by the school and would not enter the courses for degrees which It would not be possible for them to obtain Without a thorough knowledge of English. ThiS they would not have as the medium of instruction was to be Chinese. Meanwhile these 'University College' certificates would no doubt be confused with the University degrees to the detriment of the latter, and indeed the object of students m entering the school affiliated to the University m preference to existing schools would largely be in the hope that these certificates would be regarded as something different from the certificates now issued. I feel also that the use of Chinese instead of English as the medium of instruction was a fatal objection. Nor could I see my way to recommend the grant of so valuable a site as that proposed for the purpose of a vernacular Chinese school, only remotely connected with the project of a University. I will not examme this matter in closer...

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