Sept. 5.
There is at least one city in China resolved to enforce the resolutions adopted at the National Educational Conference, which was held in Nanking May. Canton has already put a stop to coeducation and the result, according to the "Hongkong Daily Press's" correspondent, is great hardship on girl students, The Canton Commissioner of Education, always opposed to the mixing of the sexes and foreseeing the demand there would be for a provincial middle school exclusively for girls, converted the Provincial Athletic Association buildings into such school. But this only accommodate 300 girls and there are far more than that who want schooling. There is, we read, the Tsap Sun Middle School for girls in the northeastern outskirts of Canton, which can take a few hundreds. But it is expensive and only takes in boarders. Many parents do not like their daughters going outside the city, for fear of what may: happen "to them in times of political trouble. For this and for reasons of expense day schools are generally preferred, The girls of Chungshan Middle and Normal Schools, which are affiliated with the Sun Yat-sen University, have appealed to the authorities of the latter to allow them to remain, only putting them in separate classrooms from the boys. If not, say the girls, many of them will have to give up all idea of being educated. So far, the University has made no reply, One hopes that something will be done for the girls, as it would certainly be disastrous if the first result of educational reform were to deprive hundreds of girls of schooling, In another direction also the new order has spread dismay. The standard of entrance aminations to the Sun Yat-sen and Lingnan Universities has been so tightened up that, we fare told, thousands of students have failed to pass. At Sun Yataen University only about thirty candidates got in out of 1,034; at Lingnan the average was, roughly, one in ten. The former University is about to hold another examination middle school students, when the standard will be lowered. Those who get through will be put: on, probation for one term at thei end of which, if they do not measure up to the University requirements, they will be asked to leave. But the "Hongkong Daily Press" correspondent says that thousands will have to go to private schools where the standard of new pupils is never regarded seriously. According to educational experts this is deplorable, These students need a good, sound, financially cheap education, Many cannot even enter the private schools on account of poverty. Others will drift along until it is time for them to earn their living, for which they will then be found most imperfectly equipped. Against this, the tightening up of university standards is plainly a step in-the right direction, A university degree to be worth anything must mean something, which both in China and India it too often does not, Even at Calcutta University, a sufficiently important institution, degrees are won too cheaply, An attempt was made not long ago to raise the standard so as to approxi-rather more neatly to Home Universities; with the result that every candidate was ploughed and such an uproar came from the students that the papers had to be put back again to the old level. In China, the conditions are probably worse owing to the existence of scores of yo-called universities which have no right whatever to the name. Tt will be remembered that the Nanking Conference, without actually mentioning: these associations, for they ate nothing more, by name, passed a resolution in favour of bring ing them under control and fixing the terms on which de< grees could be inferred, With all sympathy for thy reforming zeal of Canton's universities, one is inclined to thiol, that their eagerness may have Jed them to act too hastily. To 6 5 raise the standard of entrance examinations several pegs at one stroke, without reference to the sort of education that candidates have acquired by the time they, reach the age for college, is simply to demand the impossible. Reform must begin in the schools and a given number of years be allowed them in which to bring their teaching up to the required level. Meanwhile some lenience should be shown to pupils who are too old to put back to the \eginning of things or to make. up the ground lost by imperfect tuition in earlier years, but who may mone the less claim that they are entitled to complete their education to the best of their ability. In these respects, ae unhappily in. others, China suffers for the sins of the past. Too many cooks have been stirring the educational broth, and while the demand for edueation among all classes, parti-. cularly girls, has risen enormously, systems, standards and consequently results vary widely, with proportionate dissatisfaction all round. This was' clearly recognized by the Nanking Educational Conference, which Set itself to evolve a con-, tinuous scheme of education for boys and girls alike, from kindergartens, through primary and middle schools, up to univer sities. Money, of course, is always the difficulty, But as, we suppose, every province is actually spending a part of its revenues on schools and colleges, and individual parents must be spending a lot more, it ought not. to be impossible to coordinate all present outlay on education for a single system. And as regards standards, there is the great advantage that no political difficulties need be considered. Whether a given province governs itself or is sub, ject to another, there is' no' rea
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.