Annual Prize Distribution: Recitations in 22 Languages A programme of unusual] interest was presented at the prize distribution of the Thomas Hanbury School for Boys, on Thursday, a notable item being recitations in 22 different languages or dialects. The school hall was decorated with flags, poinsettias and ferns and in addition to staff and pupils, a good number of visitors were present, among them the Very Rev. Dean C. F. J. Symons, and Mrs. Symons, Mr. S. Sakuragi, of the Municipal Council, and Miss E. H. Mayhew, of the Thomas Hanbury Schoo] for Girls. All the boys who took part in the exercises acquitted themselves excellently and every number was a tribute to the teachers who give an English education to the various races represented.
Mr. OE. P. Dawson, Chairman of the Foreign Education Committee, presented numerous prizes of books for scholarship and the White Bursary of $100 for the best boy of the school, this last being awarded to Leon Popoff. Mr. Dawson, in an appropriate and practical speech to the boys said in part:—"When the school was first taken over by the Municipal Council and brought under the Foreign Education Committee, it was not only a smaller school. It was not in possession of many benefits which you have now come to regard as part of the ordinary routine. Your elder brothers in this school had no such rooms to work in as you school was much smaller—very! much smaller. There was in the old days no prize list and no prize distribution.
I do not know that for men of character such improvements are essential. Your history books and biographies will tell you that there have been men of the finest qualities to be found in all ages, whether or no the schools in existence were good schools or not, or whether the teachers were good teachers or not. So from one point of view we can truly say that everything depends upon yourselves and all the credit is due to yourselves if you. succeed at all, but it must not be forgotten that the equipment-of the average person who leaves school to enter life has steadily advanced throughout _history. What would have satisfied an employer years ago, will not satisfy your employer.to-day-
"T must congratulate you on your success in sports. This reflects very much on other things and is of material help in giving you ai fillip towards success in your studies. I am pleased to see by the newspaper reports that the Old Boys' team has again come into existence and I hope they will not again fall into apathy.
"I see that your masters have managed to coach no less than four classes for University Locals this autumn—two for Hongkong and two for Cambridge—and I am sure you are all eagerly looking forward to some very good results. In this connexion, too, I must refer to the pleasure with which the committee received the Head Master's letter last August in which he reported no less than four successes in matriculation in June and five the Senior Local. On behalf of the committee I must tell you how very highly we think of your masters and mistresses and how we realize the difficulties under which they work, on account of your different nationalities.
"Mr. Stewart has prepared 2 programme in which we hear nearly two dozen tongues spoken. That is a feature which I should imagine is quite peculiar to this school, but the very fact that he is able to do so is evidence of the very considerable labour that your teachers must cope with in order to bring you into such a position that you are able to pass successfully University Local Examinations in English. Yor will be-better able te meet the requirements of examiners next year, when the new wing is completed. There will be adequate provision for the teaching of science and boys will then be able to-say that no essential part of modern education has been neglected."
Mr. A. J. Stewart, the Head Master, in thanking Mr. Dawson for distributing the prizes, referred to his disappointment that the exercises could not be held in the new school hall, which he hoped would be completed in time for the boarders' Christmas entertainment and paid a hearty tribute to the staff for their loyal ce-operation.. He have. The staff we had in the old} then led the boys in three rousing cheers for the staff and the boys cheered him in turn,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.