SIR: I had the honor to receive on the 21st instant your dispatch No.
63, of the 27th February last. In response thereto I regret to say
there is not a school of any kind, native or foreign, public or
private, secular or religious, within this district in which Chinese
are educated by foreign methods or in foreign knowledge. The
missionary schools are all conducted in the native language, and their
curriculum, confined to purely religious and sectarian instruction. A
few young men among the native residents of this port take lessons in
the English language from a native interpreter educated at Hong Kong
but now employed here in the customs service. But they seek to know no
more of our language than is barely necessary to aid them in business
transactions with foreigners, and what they do thus acquire is little
else than the barbarous and childish dialect known as "Pigein
English." I know of but one exception, and that is the case of General
Wong, the military commander here, an educated Chinaman, who is
ambitious to enter the diplomatic service of his country.
I am, sir, &c.,
WILLIAM L. SCRUGGS.
* * * * *
_Mr. De Lano to Mr. Seicard._
No. 164.] FOOCHOW, _May 5, 1880._
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 30 and 50, 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 $4.
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 and
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 a month. The professor is also 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.
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