No. 21.] CHINKIANG, March 24, 1880.
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.
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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.