De Lano to G. F. Seward, May 5, 1880

Mr. De Lano to Mr. Seward.

Sir: I have had the honor to receive your dispatch No. 109, asking me for such information as may be available to me in regard to the education of Chinese in foreign knowledge in this consular district.

There are at the Foochow Arsenal two schools, one under English and the other under French management. In the former the number of students varies between thirty and fifty, and the studies pursued are English, arithmetic, geometry, geography, grammar, trigonometry, algebra, and navigation. In a four-and-a-half years’ course the students receive from the government a monthly stipend of four dollars.

There is a naval and a mechanical branch of the same school, each having an average of 25 students receiving the same monthly allowance from the government, which also pays a very liberal salary to the professors in charge.

The school under French management has about 40 pupils, in four divisions, studying French, arithmetic, elements of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, analytic geometry and calculus, mechanical engineering, transmission of power and friction. The branches of this school are a school of design and school of apprentices, the pupils pursuing many of the studies enumerated above, and receiving the same stipend of $4 per month. The professor is very liberally paid.

I know of no schools founded by private enterprise in which foreign studies are pursued. There are several schools for both males and females conducted by foreign missionaries in which other than secular branches of study are pursued; say, the elementary branches, such as geography, mathematics, astronomy, &c., but all in the Chinese language.

I am unable at present to state the number of pupils usually in attendance in these latter schools.

I have, &c.,