Cheshire to G. F. Seward, March 29, 1880

Mr. Cheshire to Mr. Seward.

Sir: I have had the honor to receive your dispatch No. 78, calling upon me to furnish you with such information as may be available to me in regard to the education of Chinese in foreign languages within this consular district, whether in schools founded and supported by the Chinese Government or by private enterprise, or by missionaries, as far as the secular branches are concerned, and also to report upon the schools established at Hong-Kong by the colonial government. I now beg to submit the following report:

The Tung wen Kwan is the only scholastic institution under government auspices for teaching foreign knowledge in Canton. It was established by order of the Tsung-li Yamên about sixteen years ago; it is under the official control of the Viceroy, the Hai Kwan (superintendent of customs), the Tartar general, and two lieutenant Tartar generals, but the practical control is left almost entirely in the hands of the Tartar general, to whom it affords opportunities of patronage, for the staff is large, and the members thereof not only benefit by the salaries they receive, but their official appointment as officers of the college (Tang wen Kwan) forms a stepping-stone to promotion in other branches of the public service. The staff consists of three superintendents, the chief of whom holds rank about equivalent to that of a major-general, three Chinese teachers, a foreign teacher, with a Chinese assistant, two Chinese clerks, doorkeepers, cooks, and other servants. The number of students is fixed at thirty, of whom twenty are classed as students proper and ten as supernumerary students, the latter being intended to fill vacancies as they occur in the former, and when, from various causes, the total number falls to twenty or twenty-live, fresh supernumeraries are added to make up the number. The students proper receive a small pay of three taels a month, but the supernumeraries receive nothing except a free breakfast every day.

It is difficult to define the raison d’être of the Tung wen Kwan College; in theory it is established to provide the Chinese Government with a staff of interpreters and persons conversant with foreign literature and foreign habits of thought; but so far as can be judged by patent facts, the patronage above referred to is the element most appreciated, and it may be well to notice the extent to which the theoretical object has been carried out, and how far the Chinese Government has availed itself of the material for the production of which something like eight hundred dollars a month has been expended for the last sixteen years in the maintenance of the college.

About ten years ago fourteen students were drafted from Canton to the Peking College; of these five have retired from various causes, six are still attached to the Peking College, and the remaining three have appointments in legations abroad; one in Washington, one in London, and one in Japan. Since 1870, not one student has been drafted to Peking; not one of the Canton students has in any way been called upon to Tender service to their government; most of them have received an honorary literary degree (Hsin Tsai) equivalent to B. A., and three or four of them are nominally interpreters, for which they receive a small additional pay.

Year after year passes, and boys of 17 grow up to be men of 27, marry and become fathers and go on with their foreign studies without so much as a word of encouragement from their own authorities. Under such discouraging circumstances, it must be that studying is often done in a perfunctory way, and yet, while some of the students have, as I understand, a very good knowledge of English, wanting only practice outside the school walls to render it equal to that of any Chinaman who has not had the advantage of living abroad, they constantly witness men of less technical knowledge than themselves, men of lower stamp altogether, men picked up here and there without any proper steps being taken to ascertain their fitness, called upon to perform the very duties for the performance of which the students of the Tung wen Kwan are in theory specially educated. The course of study, I am informed, consists chiefly of the English language, together with, but subordinate to, which there are geography, arithmetic, history, algebra, mathematics, and astronomy. A very small proportion of the students have made any progress in algebra or mathematics; few are even fair arithmeticians, and much that they are called upon to learn of geography, history, and astronomy, is soon forgotten. This arises from no want of ability, but from an utter want of encouragement on the part of the Chinese authorities, for the students to trouble themselves with such studies. Without a reasonable knowledge of the language, they are liable, on the motion of the foreign teacher, to be dismissed from the school, and in the acquisition of that they are to some extent buoyed up with hope, a hope that sometimes becomes lamentably faint, that the language will ultimately be of service to them; but with respect to the other branches, I am given to understand, no person in authority except the foreign teacher seems to know or care whether they are taught or not. The students consist almost entirely of Tartars (including banner-men); originally about one-third were Chinese, but it was found that after learning English at the expense of government, these latter generally disappeared; the Tartars are much more bound to the government, and are loyal both from training and self-interest. As young men they are far more noble and honorable in their character than the Chinese, lacking in a great measure the low cunning which often characterizes the latter, especially when they get official employment; but it is hard to say how far their natural nobility and honor would suffer if they were thrown into that vortex of corruption and dishonesty which pertains to official life.

I am informed that there has, for the past year or two, been an intention to add a German and a French department to the Canton College, and that extensive premises have been erected for this purpose; but some difficulty about funds seems to have caused further steps to be postponed.

private schools.

There are no private schools worthy of the name in Canton for teaching foreign languages. Now and then a small school is opened in which English is professed to be taught by a man whose knowledge of that language is too limited to fit him for other employment, and after a brief struggle these schools die out one after another. There is no doubt that the advantages offered by the government schools in Hong-Kong are too great to enable private schools in Canton to compete with them.

missionary schools.

None of the missionaries in Canton teach English or any other foreign language to their Chinese pupils now, nor have they done so for some years. They found by experience that it was very difficult to teach English to their pupils, because of their inaptitude to learn Western languages; that the object of the majority who came to their schools (formerly) to learn English was simply to get a sufficient knowledge of that language to enable them to get some lucrative employment with foreigners, and as soon as they had acquired a little smattering of English they disappeared and passed away beyond their Christian instruction.

I shall endeavor to furnish you with some particulars in regard to the schools established at Hong-Kong by the colonial government shortly.

I have, &c.,