As the Report of the Committee appointed to enquire into the Educational condition of the settlement will soon be Inid before the public, we take the opportunity of referring to a letter which appears in the Hongkong Daily Press of the 9th inst, signed An Anxious Father." The writer takes for his text the regulations in force at the St, Josoph's (Roman Catholic) College in Hongkong, and the remarks ho offers are, we think, as sensible as the disclosures he makes are strange, It has been said that the Jesuit Fathers are loss successful in their training of boys than the Sisters are in dealing with girls, and it is possible that the system on which the 'Anxious Father' animadverts may be to some extent ao-countable for the difference. It appears from the letter before us that secular education, in the hands of the Christian Brothers, is entirely subordinated to the religions element. The school in question opens at nine in the morning, and breaks up ata quarter to twelve, not re-nssombling till Lalf-past one, and winding up for the day at four. Those hours would probably be considered short in any onso; for of course, nuy one would imagine that the time thus set apart for studies was devoted to studies and nothing else. But it appears not to be ea at all, In addition to the regular morning prayers, "the boys are taxed with a short prayer every half hour, irrespective of the grave studies over which they muy be poring"—besides another half hour, from half. past three to four o'clock, which is devoted to "religious meditation It seems scarcely credible that any class of mon, assuming the duties and ro. sponsibilities of educating the young, should venture so to trifle with their time, They may reply that religious meditation is a more important thing than arithmetioand grammar. That is not to the point. Boys present to the school to be educated in secular matters and not to have their studies broken into by being called upon to pray at odd times, and being set to meditate religiously at a certain hour in the afternoon, 'I'he more one thinks of this strange system the stranger and more grotesque it seems, A boy is in the middle of a long and intricate sum, or bending his whole mind to some lesson in geography or Latin grammar, which requires deep and anintermitting atleutiou, Suddeuly he is interrupted by the schoolmaster himself,—or the rules of the school, which amounts to the same thing—to join in "a short prayer." Again ho resumes his task, only to be interrupted once more, as soon as another half-hour has elapsed, to say another short prayer, At half-past three study is given over altogether, and he is then supposed to meditate religiously for thirty minutes. How far edifying the religious meditation may be of boys whose natural meditations are probably divided between their books on the one hand and pegtops and mar.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.