—I am directed by His Minister to acknowledge the re your letter of 2ist'June informing him that there are persistent rumours: that the' British Government are abéat to return Weihaiwei to China,: and asking to subject.
Sir Ernest Satow directs me to inform you that such rumours should be entirely disregarded.
Lam, Sir, Your obedient servants Hersent L. Bess, Esq., Weihaiwei School.
Coruece or Precerrons' Exawisations.
Our first public examination. was held this term at the end of June.. The great majority of secondary schools in England send' candidates in for the Oxford Cambridge local examinations or for the certificate examinations of the College of Preceptors. We found it more con-Venient to ask the latter body to examine 12 boys here. The Rev. F_ Perry kisidly acted as loci Superintendent. Three, pupils took the 1st class or Senior paps five, the 2nd class or Junior; four, the Srd'class. _As the papers have beau sent to London for correction, it will be some time before the results are known. Al} the papers seemed of average standard, except the Senior Arithmetic which was unusually dificult, almost unfair, and I have written a letter of protest' to the secretary of the College concerning it, Tho.ages of our candidates for the different disses approximate to the average ages of candidates of the same standards at home. is, I fear, top much to expect that all have passed. There is a type of boy inclined to take things easily who often benefits by failure iv an examination, But we. labour under some disadvantages. Many. boys in the East, through force of circumstances, suffer from a defective early education: and where the foundations are bad; it is too much to expect a satisfactory superstructure. Wehavo hayseame to schoo! ut about thirteen with some knowledge perhaps of arithmetic und English grammar, bat little or none of Latin, French, German, Euclid, or Algebra. To bring sich backward boys up to the level of others of the same ago we are forced to hurry over work which should be gone through more gradually,—in fact, we have to " cram."
Another drawback is that the long vacation of two: months comes in winter— at a time of year more suitable for study,—nnd in duly, one of the warmest months, we have school. The reason for this is that the majority of our boys come from Shanghai and further south, and their parents prefer to hi them' home in the cooler weather.
Some even spend their summer vacation at school.
Asa schoolmaster, speaking from the purely educational standpoint, I have no hesitation in saying that this reversal of the natural order of things is—in principle—wrong: and while we can understand the desire of a parent to have his son come home at the more favourable time of year, Iam not at all sure that the privilege is not obtained at too great a cost.
A WHITE Max's couNTRY.
Our Chairman at the last Prize Distribution said he saw no reason why as good a preparatory education should not be obtained here as in - England. The climate—as His Hon. the Commissioner says in one of his official reports—is that of a "white man's country." Both as regards cli and sanitary surroundings, the situation of the school is generally admitted to be excellent, and suitable, therefore, for the education of the white man's children, claini is that the school is in territory under British rule.
We hope it will not be long before a school for the daughters of Europeuns is also established here.
But prejudice dies hard, and on the part of the European accustomed to the sweltering heat of South China or the ingtze Valley, the prejudice against jugation in the'East has been very strong. The 'Success of our' school is, perhaps, some indication that the prejudice is dying out.
Not long ago I met a gentleman who told me he had sent lis two boys—both uuider eight—to school in Eogland. A parent who deprives a mere child of home itifluence in this way may consider he is justified, tiny forced, by cireumstances, but none the less he incurs grave responsibility.
In my opinion, he has chosen the greater of two evils. (I speak fom experience for my. parents sent me home at eleven from India to a boarding-school for six years.) It is our ambition. and hope to supply an obvious deficiency in the Far East; to reuter it less-necessary to send a child to school some 10,000 miles away from his home.
In the tations of India flourishing schools Ira tablished for the benefit of Anglo-Indians. It used to be considered the correct thing to send little chiktien home, bat now prejudice is yielding to common sense, -It is all' a question of supply and demand, and with the growth of the foreign population in the East and a more general knowledge of the excellent climate of districts in North-Onina which border on the Gulf of Pechili, we may expect other schools to be established in the future, If people out here, who constantly decry: lovul education, are right, the tirese'sch sols at the various sanitariums of India are a gigantic mistake, and'doos it not become the bounden' duty of every self-respecting Britisher in the great self-governing colonies to send his little ones to the home-country 'The sta dard of education we aim at is that of the average grammar school la England, 'That is to sy, we consider a boy leaving school between the and 18 should have "thorough elementary' mathematics, lable, at leas, to rend Cacsar's Coi mentaries with'some facility and translate Jauthore without. frequent, reference. tv a easy passages from French or German
dictionary... For boys whose homes and probable future work are in the Hast, a knowledge of Chine-e—bo h written and of the highest importane: We have eight be s learning this langu object.
b'e proportion of -ur pupils finish their education in Bygland. parents wish their boys to take good places in schools at home, they should see that proper tuition is given in good One parent, whose son had good ability, and Was " pupil here for several terms, seemed disappointed that his boy idered backward by his schoolmaster in England. We do not undertake to achieve the impossible. The respoisibility of deciding the age at which a boy goes to school rests, of course, with the parent. It is neither reasonable rior fair—either to the boy or to the school—to expect us to accomplish in a year a course of study which would require two years in another school.
Ancther difficulty with us is the social question. Mrs. Smith is not' on calling terms' with Mrs. Brown, and their respective husbands are not members of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.