Mar. 16.
Honcxone papers of the 9th instant contain full reports of an exceptionally interesting meeting held in the City Hall the day before, to discuss the necessity of providing better education for the British children of the colony. This subject has apparently been one of considerable debate, with many expressions of discontent. A sub-committee of the Board of Education has issued a report and a scheme has been propounded, for a new central school, or a new site for the Victoria British School. The order of events ig not quite clear in this respect. What is clear is that the meeting "of March 8 points to a laudable determination on the part of British parents to get something better in the way of education for their children than they are getting at present. Broadly speaking, the position of British parents in Hongkong and in Shanghai in this matter is much the same. There is the same phenomenon of an_ increasing population that never expects to be able to retire to England and cannot afford to send its children thither for their schooling. We do not wish to appear to speak adversely of the curriculum of local schools, with which we are not sufficiently acquainted to venture on criticism. But we doubt if parents are altogether satisfied that their children are getting all that they, the parents, would wish for them; and possibly employers would share the parents' feeling.
The most important speech at the Hongkong meeting was made by the Rev. Teesdale Mackintosh who is well known in Shanghai. He boldly accepted the difficulty of parents unable to send their children Home, saying that he firmly believed it was in the interests of the Empire, of Hongkong and of themselves that Britons should become home makers and home builders in the colony; and he joined issue with those who old that for a boy or girl to remain in Hongkong over the age of ten or twelve is a misfortune."' Of the kind of training required he "knew of nothing so dangerous, he was inclined to say so criminal, as a good all round education": for this was the age of specialists and from the beginning we must begin to educate our
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.