During its formative period, the colony was predominantly a society of adult males. Its merchants and workers came from China to earn a living and to send their savings back to their wives and children; when they grew too old to work, they returned to their native cities and villages. But there was always a number of families among the population, and after the refugees began pouring in, the percentage of children rose. In 1865, children numbered 22,301 in a total population of 125,504. Only 14,000 of these were of school age, and less than 2,000 of them attended school. Missionaries began to run schools for Chinese and European children almost from the time the colony was established, but the scale of their undertakings was modest. The Chinese organized native schools, and like the missionary ventures, floundered along with ill-trained teachers, inadequate buildings and loose supervision. Government schools, low in quality and enrollment, freed themselves of religious control in 1866. A private school with advanced ideas instructed Chinese girls in English, only to discover that its pupils were accepting postgraduate work as the mistresses of European colonists. Five Irish governors, starting with Sir Hercules Robinson in 1859, ruled Hong Kong in succession, and three of them ranked among the ablest executives in its history. Each one was in his separate way a strong-minded, individualistic, and occasionally rambunctious chief. After the Hibernian Era came to an end in 1885, no later governors emulated their mildly defiant gestures toward the home government. Sir Richard Graves Macdonnell, second of the Irish governors, was a tough and seasoned colonial administrator who tackled the unsolved problems of crime and piracy with perception and vigor. He saw that naval action against the pirate fleets would bring no lasting results while the sea-raiders had the assistance of suppliers, informers and receivers of stolen goods within the colony. He put all ship movements in Hong Kong waters under close supervision, and assigned police to ferret out every colonist working with the pirates. To a greater degree than any of his predecessors, he succeeded in checking piracy, but no governor has ever stamped it out. Macdonnell also intensified the campaign against robbery, burglary and assault. Commercial interests applauded his increased severity in the treatment of prisoners and his frequent reliance on flogging, branding and deportation of offenders. Macdonnell himself saw no contradiction between such rough-shod methods and, on the other hand, his generosity in donating crown land for a Chinese hospital where the destitute and dying could be cared for in a decent manner. Previously, relatives of ailing, elderly paupers had deposited them in empty buildings with a coffin and drinking water, leaving them to suffer and die alone.