PART X - Education

• Author: Chamberlam, Austen
• Pages: 131

PART X - EDUCATION

(i) GENERAL If the recommendations of the delegation with regard to the allocation of Indemnity funds are accepted, 80 per cent of the available income of the fund, after endowment has been provided for, will be devoted to general educational purposes In realhtv it will have been obsen ed, the share of education will be much greater [15829] t 2

than this percentage would indicate, for it does not include the money which will be spent on education m unproved agricultural methods, education m scientific research, and education m subjects connected with medicine and public health Under all these headE there will be separate grants or subsidies It is true that money spent on famnme relief can hardly be classed under educational expenditure, but that branch of philanthropy does at least supply the educators with material to work upon, for they cannot expect to do much for the intellectual elevation of a peasantry that is dying of starvation or has been rendered homeless by floods There is httle use m finding mental nourishment for a child so long as his cravings for material nutriment are left unsatisfied It will hardly be contended that the claims of education have been treated by the delegation m a niggardly way Some people, indeed may be of opinion that it has been awarded a good deal more than it deserves especially in view of the torrent of partisan and anti-foreign propaganda that has been poured forth from the schools and colleges of China during the past few years, the turbulent intervention of students m domestic and foreign politics, and the quarrels between students and their teachers which have aroused the amazement of many of China's best friends and sympathisers The members of the delegation do not seek to defend the undisclplned outbreaks of Chinese schoolboys, and if they beheved that such manifestations wore destined to be a permanent feature of China's educational hfe it is hardly likely that they would propose a contribution to the maintenance of that life from funds which could be far better employed m other directions But the members of the delegation do not take a despairing view of Chinese schools and colleges-even those which they have heard denounced as the ' hotbeds of Bolshevism '-and still less do they despair of Chinese students They have seen too much of the excellent work done in Chinese schools by both teachers and pupils to be pessimistic about China's educational future The 'Times,' m a leading article published a few months ago on the subject of the mission of this delegation, declared that ' the cry that education is the bane of modern China has little meaning It is true that students and schoolboys engage m all sorts of wild poltics and are in the forefront of that Nationalist movement which has taken anti-British and revolutionary forms But the clock cannot be turned back The most extraordinary fact in the chaos and confusion that prevail in China now is the thirst for knowledge m all classes of the community That Western ideas and theories are often ill-digested, that m polhtcs they are often carried to niiculous extremes, is almost inevitable when such a vast population is awakening to a new natronal effort The generals may fight and intrigue, the politicians may rise and fall, foreigners may sigh for the age of Ignorance, but nothing now is going to stop China from acquiring Western knowledge for her own purposes Much depends on the way in which she acquires t, much depends on the spirit m which it is imparted by those foreign nations who have to do with her If at this moment of extreme national sensitiveness rt is made

plain through a lise disposal (f the Boxer Indemnimt that Great Britain has a sympathetic and practical interest in that Chinese search for knowledge which is in fact, a painful seaich for national equlibrium in the conditions of the modern world then the present mission will not be altogether irrelevant to the largei problemi'of China ' In these views the members of the delegation wholly concur, and they find themselves in no less hearty agreement with Sir Frederick Lugard (formerly Governor of Hong Kong and largely responsible for the foundation of the Hong Kong UniNersity) when he referred not long ago in terms of high admiration to the systematic and effective was in which the leaders of the new national movement in China in the face of tremendous drfficulties and obstructions arising fior civil war an unstable Government and other causes have gone about the ieolganisation of the edu(ational system of their countr) As alreadN stated in connection with the subject of hospitals and medical colleges the delegates at an early stage in their delberations unanimously decided against allocating any part of the Indemnity fund to individual institutions They felt that this was a matter which must be left entirely to the judgment and discretion of the future Board of Trustees The claims of various colleges and schools were brought to their notice, and they personally visited a considerable numbei of them Notes on some of these institutions will be found in the Appendix But their inclusion in a special appendix does not imply that the delegates consider their claims superior to those of other institutions which they had no opportunity of visiting or which did not submit formal applications for grants The delegates' task as they conceived it, was simply to decide upon the general principles of distribution and to leave to the Board of Trustees full power to determine individual allocations On two matters connected with the question of allocation, however, they consider it their duty to place their opinions on record In the first place, as already explained in Part VI, they believe that in the distribution of educational and medical grants the Board of Trustees should be guided by its own judgment regarding the value and importance of the work that is being done in the minstitutions that need or ask for assistance irrespective of whether they have or have not missionary affiliations They are of opinion that m spite of the ' Self-Denying Ordinance,' passed by the nussionarv societies missionary institutions as such should not be debarred from participation in grants or subsidies, if their educational work be deemed worth of recognition and support In the second place, they wish to call attention to the following extract from the minutes of a meeting held on the 20th May, with reference to the University of Hong Kong ' The University of Hong Kong should be regarded by the future Board of Trustees as fully entitled to ask for grants from the fund, and its claims should receive the same consideration as would be accorded to those of educational institutions in [15829] F 8

China The chairman and the two other British delegates stated that they had inspected the umversity and studied its needs, and were satisfed that its clanms to liberal treatment at the hands of the Board of Trustees were fully justified, as the university was doig excellent work for the education of Chinese from many provinces of China and from other countries They strongly supported the proposal to develop the department of Chinese studies, which had hitherto been somewhat neglected, but were of opinion that the expansion of the university would sooner or later necessitate its transfer to the mainland, and that it would therefore be a mistake to spend large sums of money on new buildings on the present site Dr Hu Shih expressed his approval of the proposal to develop the department of Chinese studies, and added that m his opinion it might be advisable to increase the number of Chinese members of the governing body of the university ' In the notes contained m the following sections it is not intended to dehver pronouncements regarding the relative merits of different educational institutions They consist of some general observations on various educational questions and sundry branches of educational work, which may possibly be of some use or interest to those with whom the control of the Indemnity fund will rest, but give only a general indication of some aspects of those educational problems that seem to be of importance from the point of view of Chna's special needs (u ) THE PROBLEMS OF PBInABY AND SECONDABR EDUCATION It was fully recognised by the delegation that primary education m China is m a very backward state, and that m spite of the untring efforts of many public-spirited educational leaders during the past few years, the standard of education among the people, and the proportion of literates to illiterates, are still deplorably low.

From many quarters suggestions have come that provision should be made out of the Indemnity fund for the improvement of the primary schools Nevertheless, the delegation has had to bear m mind the fact that the financing of a good system of elementary education would be far beyond the means at its disposal This has been recognised by many of those who have given evidence before the delegation, or sent m written statements of views Mr Wu Kuo-pmg, for example, writing on the 5th May, said that if the whole Indemnity were to be devoted to this purpose it would be lke emptying a cup of salt into a great lake-the salmity of the lake would not be perceptibly increased, while the salt would be wasted Moreover, elementary education m any country is pre-emnently a duty of the Government of that country To reheve the Chinese Government of its responsibility for the moral and intellectual nurture of its young citizens would be unjutifiable and impolsible, and, indeed, there is a strong and very natural feelng China

that the elementary education of the people must on no account be allowed to fall under foreign control Dr Tong Shao-yi made a strong appeal for the subsidising of elementary education, as did certain other Chinese, but m the circumstances it is not surprising that the strongest appeals for the endowment or subsidising of...