About the Book
Published for the first time as a complete sequence the full main text of fifty Hong Kong Government Reports on Education, this title is submitted mostly annually by successive Hong Kong Governors to the Colonial Office in London as part of the official record. The Reports begin when the Government first granted public funds for Hong Kong schools, and the last in this sequence is dated April 1897, fourteen months before Britain's lease of the New Territories from Imperial China expanded and changed the responsibilities of the Education Department considerably and also laid the foundation for the return of the whole of Hong Kong to modern China at midnight, 30 June 1997. Packed with unique material about schools, scholars, teachers, parents, educational policies and politics, the Reports (discussed and contextualised by ample notes) provide data, dialogue, vivid anecdotes, drama, emotion and ideals. Recognisably the basis of Hong Kong's present experience, with the same hot topics concerning language standards and the medium of instruction, these reports could beneficially inform both our thinking about the past and decisions about the future.
Some of the writing is highly personal, and the book appropriately includes brief select biographies of four of the writers, notable members of the Hong Kong community: George Smith, first Anglican missionary Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong); James Legge, missionary, translator, and first Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Frederick Stewart - "Founder of Hong Kong Government Education" - first principal of the first Hong Kong Government Anglo-Chinese school (now Queen's College), first Head of the Government Education Department, and first Government Native English-Speaking Teacher in Hong Kong; and E. J. Eitel, German missionary, writer, lexicographer, journal editor and historian of Hong Kong.
Table of Contents:
The Hon. Edward Ho Sing-tin, S.B.S., J.P., Chairman, Lord Wilson Heritage Trust iv Foreword by Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, J.P., Director of Education vi Introduction by Professor Ruth Hayhoe, Ph.D, Director, Institute of Education, Hong Kong viii Commentary by Dr Verner Bickley, MBE, Director of the Institute of Language in Education, Assistant Director of Education (1983-1992) x Acknowledgments xiii Table of Contents xv Table of Illustrations xiv List of Tables xvi Historical and Editorial Introduction First Steps 1 Introduction to the Text 17 Notes on the Text and to Reading the Reports 20 Editorial Practices 22 The Education Reports 1848-1896 and their Writers The Right Reverend George Smith, DD, MA (Oxon) 24 Committee for Superintending Chinese Schools, 1848-1858 Reports, 1848-1858 33 Reverend Professor James Legge, LLD, MA (Aberdeen), DD (New York) Board of Education, 1859-1864 56 Reports, 1859-1864 65 The Hon. Frederick Stewart, LLD, MA (Aberdeen) Inspectorate of Schools, 1865-1877 84 Reports, 1865-1877 90 Reverend Ernst Eitel, MA, Ph.D (Tubingen) Inspectorate of Schools, 1878-1896 198 Reports 1878-1896 205 Conclusion 436 Glossary 441 Abbreviations, some Short References and Symbols 443 Notes 445 Works Cited and Further Reading 579 Index 591
About the Author :
GILLIAN BICKLEY has been studying, writing and lecturing in the area of the history of Nineteenth Century Hong Kong education for almost two decades. Her book, "The Golden Needle: The Biography of Frederick Stewart (1836-1889)", published in 1997 by the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies at the Hong Kong Baptist University, is a mini history of Nineteenth Century Government Education in Hong Kong, told through the biography of its founder. It is available from the Chinese University Press, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong.
Review :
"An essential resource for those researching colonial education policy." -- Norman Miners, University of Hong Kong, in "The Journal of Imperial and Colonial History". "One senses the excitement of the detective's work in some of the subtle and revealing details that are drawn upon from other historical sources!" -- Ruth Hayhoe, Ph.D, Director Emeritus, Institute of Education, Hong Kong.
