A position of usefulness Essay Essays

A position of usefulness Essay Essays A position of usefulness Essay Essay A position of usefulness Essay Essay Essay Topic: Bad Boy a Memoir Girls’ instruction has been considered a site of battle where ideals of muliebrity and domesticity are translated into course of study and patterns that seek to determine and modulate. In colonial Hong Kong. British mission societies had a important portion in supplying girls’ instruction. which was preponderantly in the custodies of European missionaries in the 19th century. The double mission of evangelizing and educating colonial topics in the Victorian epoch of imperium enlargement constituted a pertinent focal point of enquiry in the authorship of history of girls’ instruction. Pulling on selected texts on missional literature and authorities studies. this article examines in what ways a domestic political orientation framed within evangelical beliefs and the imperial regard interplayed with the political relations of race and category in determining girls’ instruction. It challenges the presumed nonpartisanship in instruction policies and patterns refering both sexes. and discusses women’s bureau in redefining individualities and boundaries in a colonial society. Keywords: colonial instruction ; gender ; individuality ; missional ; race †¦the ‘discovery’ of new stuffs is really an interpretative intercession that exposes the footings of inclusion and exclusion in the cognitions of the yesteryear. ( Women’s history. from this position. is non the simple add-on of information antecedently ignored. non an empirical rectification of the record. but an analysis of the effects of dominant apprehensions of gender in the yesteryear. a critical reading that itself has the consequence of bring forthing another ‘reality. ’ ) 1 On 27 December 1857. a missive by Lydia Smith. married woman of the first Bishop of Victoria. was sent from Hong Kong to the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East ( FES ) in London. appealing for a instructor and support to get down a girls’ twenty-four hours school in the settlement. The intent stated was clear and simple: ‘We feel’ . Smith wrote. ‘the turning necessity of educating the females as Christians. that our immature work forces may non hold the drawback of pagan wives’ . 2 This first ‘experiment’ in female instruction by the Established Church bit by bit evolved into a boarding school. which. after runing on impermanent sites for over three old ages. was officially opened in July 1863 by the Bishop and the Acting Governor in a *Email: [ electronic mail protected ]/*Ac. uk 1 Joan Scott. ‘After History? ’ . in Schools of Thought: Twenty-five Old ages of Interpretive Social Science. erectile dysfunction. Joan Scott and Debra Keates ( Princeton. New jersey: Princeton University Press. 2001 ) . 100. 2 Smith to FES. Hong Kong. December 29. 1857. The Female Missionary Intelligencer. afterlife FMI. I ( 1858 ) : 173. The first issue of the Female Missionary Intelligencer. monthly publication of the FES. was published in 1853 and the last 1 in July 1899. The issues were divided into three series: 1853–1857 ; 1858–1880 ; 1881–1899. Both the 2nd and 3rd series were called New Series and both started from Vol. I. ISSN 0046-760X print/ISSN 1464-5130 online  © 2008 Taylor A ; Francis DOI: 10. 1080/00467600802368715 hypertext transfer protocol: //www. informaworld. com 790 P. Pok-kwan Chiu freshly built school house as the Diocesan Native Female Training School ( DNFTS ) . 3 The one-year study of that twelvemonth stated that: Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 †¦ the class of instruction has embraced direction in Chinese and English reading. composing. field needlecraft. geographics. and Bible history. and more particularly a preparation in the spiritual truths and moral wonts of the Christian religion. The object aimed at has been to fix the misss for taking afterlife a place of utility in native society as the hereafter married womans and female parents of the lifting coevals of Chinese dwellers in the settlement. 4 From mission society publications to the studies submitted by authorities inspectors. the proviso of girls’ instruction in the settlement was discussed throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century through a discourse that emphasised a ‘position’ or ‘sphere’ for the female sex in society. 5 The interrelation of girls’ instruction with thoughts refering gender functions. the sensed nature of adult females. and separate public and domestic domains was a familiar context for Victorian pedagogues. Questions refering what constituted ‘really utile knowledge’ for propertyless misss. particularly the proportion of ‘academic’ larning to domestic preparation ; the quest for a ‘more serious’ instruction to fix middle-class misss to be educated female parents and competent governesses ; and the arguments generated by women’s demand for entree to higher instruction – a state of affairs that confronted decision makers in both the British and National Societies. policy-makers and single practicians – were all related to the disparate perceptual experiences of gender ideals and the political relations involved in negociating women’s ‘place’ in a fast-changing society. 6 While the domestic political orientation underlying the enlargements and restriction of girls’ instruction in Britain was characterised by category difference. 3The school was described as an experiment undertaken with much anxiousness in the First Annual Report of the local ladies’ commission. dated March 15. 1860. on history of ‘the involuntariness of the Chinese to intrust the instruction of misss to foreigners’ . W. T. Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School and Orphanage. Hong Kong: the History and Records. 1869 to 1929 ( Hong Kong: Diocesan Boys’ School. 1930 ) . 14. 4FMI VII ( July 1864 ) : 143. 5Speeches emphasizing the importance of educating native misss who would in future exert moral influence as married womans and female parents can be found in assorted issues of FMI: V ( July 1862 ) : 135–7 ; X ( December 1868 ) : 181–90 ; V ( November 1885 ) : 160 ; XVIII ( August 1898 ) : 130. For treatments of female instruction in footings of ‘the female sphere’ . see the Education Reports of 1865 and 1867 by Inspector Frederick Stewart. and Inspector E. J. Eitel’s Reports for 1889 and 1890. Education Reports quoted in this article. unless stated otherwise. are taken from text reprinted in Gillian Bickley. The Development of Education in Hong Kong 1841–1897: as revealed by the Early Education Report by the Hong Kong Government 1848–1896 ( Hong Kong: Proverse Hong Kong. 2002 ) . 6See. for illustration. the treatments in Joan Burstyn. Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood ( London: Croom Helm. 1980 ) ; Carol Dyhouse. ‘Good Wifes and Small Mothers: Social Anxieties and the Schoolgirl’s Curriculum. 1890–1920’ Oxford Review of Education 3. no. 1 ( 1977 ) : 21–35 ; Meg Gomersall. ‘Religion. Reading and Really Useful Knowledge’ . in Workingclass Girls in Nineteenth-century England ( Basingstoke: Macmillan. 1997 ) ; Mary Hilton and Pam Hirsch. explosive detection systems. . Practical Visionaries: Women. Education and Social Progress. 1790–1930 ( Harlow: Longman. 2000 ) ; June Purvis. A History of Women’s Education in England ( Buckingham: Open University Press. 1991 ) ; Rebecca Rogers. ‘Learning to be Good Girls and Women’ . in The Routledge History of Women in Europe Since 1700. erectile dysfunction. Deborah Simonton ( London: Routledge. 2006 ) . 93–131. Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 History of Education 791 the export and interlingual rendition of it onto colonial dirt by missionaries was loaded with spiritual reading under an imperial regard. 7 The double mission of evangelizing and educating colonial topics carried out through native girls’ instruction in the Victorian epoch. a period of booming missional motions and imperial enlargement. constituted another facet of the historical context in which DNFTS and other British mission schools for misss operated. 8 An essay entitled ‘The importance of female bureau in evangelising heathen nations’ . included in a aggregation of memoirs by female missionaries published in 1841. ‘designed particularly to involvement Christian adult females in the most elevated section of benevolent labour’ . serves as a good illustration. The writer. perchance the FES laminitis Baptist W. Noel. claimed that: ‘Christianity is the lone redress for the agonies of adult females in pagan and Mohammedan states ; and Christian instruction can be imparted on no big or efficient program. but through the interjection of their ain sex in this state. ’9 Quoting a missional in Egypt sent out by the so freshly set up FES as function theoretical account. the writer argued that apart from the rightness of using adult females to learn adult females. it was the feminine properties. such as ‘a tenderness of feeling. a deepness of compassion. a adeptness of perceptual experience. and a forgetfulness of self’ . along with Christian women’s moral influence as ‘welleducated. pious adult females. representing the appeals of societal virtuousnesss. every bit good as the attractive forces of gracious manners and cultivated heads. and all the charities of human nature when renewed after the image of Christ’ . that rendered this great benevolent mission destined for Christian adult females. 10 This discourse of domestic political orientation clothed in spiritual linguistic communication was familiar to FES agents. who comprised the bulk of British individual adult females missional pedagogues in Hong Kong by the terminal of the 19th century. It underlay the discourses and entreaties which ran through pages of the Society’s publication. 7In this article. I have adopted Rogers’s definition of ‘domestic ideology’ as a set of thoughts underscoring women’s particular qualities. imputing their place within the place. and proclaiming the importance of the place and household in society: Rogers. ‘Good Girls and Women’ . 107. For treatment of women’s instruction and societal category. see Purvis. History of Women’s Education ; Jane Martin. Women and the Politicss of Schooling in Victorian and Edwardian England ( London: Leicester University Press. 1999 ) ; Stephanie Spencer. ‘Reflections on the â€Å"Site of Struggle† : Girls’ Experience of Secondary Education in the late 1950s’ . History of Education 33 ( 2004 ) : 437–49. On gender and colonial instruction. see Rogers. ‘Good Girls and Women’ . 112–13 ; Joyce Goodman and Jane Martin. ‘Introduction: â€Å"Gender† . â€Å"Colonialism† . â€Å"Politics† and ‘Experience† : Challenging and Troubling Histories of Education’ . in Gender. Colonialism and Education: the Politicss of Experience. erectile dysfunction. Joyce Goodman and Jane Martin ( London: Frank Cass. 2002 ) . 1–22. For missionaries and girls’ instruction. see Fiona Bowie. Deborah Kirkwood and Shirley Ardener. explosive detection systems. . Womans and Missions: Past and Present: Anthropological and Historical Perceptions ( Oxford: Berg Publishers. 1993 ) . 8FES was a non-denominational women’s mission society governed by a ladies’ commission. which sent out individual adult females and supported missional married womans to work in the field of female instruction. The two large British mission societies. the London Missionary Society ( LMS ) and the Church Missionary Society ( CMS ) . besides ran girls’ schools operated by married womans of missionaries alongside their boys’ schools until the late 19th century. when both societies began to direct individual adult females as missionaries. Including other Protestant and Roman Catholic missions. mission schools provided 90 % of girls’ instruction in Hong Kong harmonizing to the 1891 statistics recorded in the Education Report of that twelvemonth. The range of this article is limited to the scrutiny of two girls’ get oning schools supported by the FES as a instance survey. 9‘The Importance of Female Agency in Evangelizing Pagan Nations’ . in Jemima Thompson. Memoirs of British Female Missionaries ( London: William Smith. 1841 ) . See besides Midgley’s treatment: Clare Midgley. ‘Can Women be Missionaries? Envisioning Female Agency in the Early Nineteenth-century British Empire’ . Journal of British Studies 45. April ( 2006 ) : 335–58. 10Ibid. Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 792 P. Pok-kwan Chiu The Female Missionary Intelligencer ( FMI ) . functioning as the standards against which missional campaigners were screened and assessed. 11 This evangelical vision of ‘woman’s mission’ was contradictory. uniting expansive vision with compressing prescriptions for adult females. This provided infinite for adult females to traverse the boundaries of public and private domains and the possibility of uniting self-sacrifice with self-fulfilment. Yet. the boosters of women’s missional activities did non openly challenge patriarchal male authorization or the political orientation of separate domains. nor did they name for female societal equality or women’s rights. as Clare Midgley argues. 12 Jane Haggis points out that it was the creative activity of a colonized ‘other’ – the native adult females portrayed in missional literature as the â€Å"heathen† agony in degrading state of affairss expecting aid from their privileged British sisters – that ‘legitimated English women’s ain release from the bounds of domesticity. and [ edge ] them tightly to the imperialist cause with their ain civilizing mission’ . 13 She claims that. ‘rather than an emancipatory battle to interrupt through the bounds of convention. it was exactly convention which enabled the devising of the female missionary’ . 14 The founding vision of the FES demonstrated the contradictions embedded in this ‘woman’s mission’ . which was instrumental in determining girls’ instruction in assorted colonial contexts: Our august male parents and brethren may encompass in their comprehensive position the mammoth work of evangelizing the whole universe. but our more limited regard and our deepest understandings may be concentrated upon the hapless girls of the East. who. shut from a engagement in the felicity we enjoy as married womans and female parents. girls and sisters. bear the heavy load of life without a consolation on Earth. or a hope in Eden. 15 Female instruction is non a concealed topic in the authorship of history of instruction in Hong Kong. 16 Nevertheless. girls’ schooling as a gendering procedure located in a colonial context 11According to informations drawn from the FES commission proceedingss and the FMI. from 1859 to 1899. FES had sent out a sum of 11 stipendiary and honorary agents to Hong Kong. with one get oning school and eight twenty-four hours schools runing under the Mission by 1899. See. for illustration. Question 4 for referees: ‘What is your sentiment of her as to anneal. good sense. judgement and prudence? Has she a cheerful and compeling temperament? Is she mild. gracious. and low in her demeanour? Has she acquired the regard and good will of those with whom she has come in contact? And has she evidenced forbearance and doggedness in her project? ’ . in ‘Mission’s ordinance. by-laws. inquiries for agents and referees’ . FMI I ( 1853 ) : 1–2. 12Midgley. ‘Can Women be Missionaries’ . 357. Alison Twells. ‘Missionary Domesticity. Global Reform and â€Å"Woman’s Sphere† in Early Nineteenth-Century England’ . Gender and History 18. no. 2 ( 2006 ) : 266–84 discusses the bureau of adult females take parting in missional philanthropic activities ‘at home’ . 13Jane Haggis. ‘â€Å"A Heart That Has Felt the Love of God and Longs for Others to Know It† : Conventions of Gender. Tensions of Self and Constructions of Difference in Offering to be a Lady Missionary’ . Women’s History Review 7 ( 1998 ) : 171–93. For the representation of native adult females in female missional studies. see Judith Rowbotham. ‘â€Å"Hear an Indian Sister’s Plea† : describing the work of 19th century British female missionaries’ . Women’s Studies International Forum 21 ( 1998 ) : 247–61. 14Haggis. ‘A Heart That Has Felt the Love’ . 172. 15The History and Correspondence of the Society for Promoting Female. Education in the East Founded in 1834 ( London: Edward Sueter. 1850 ) . 5. 16Individual research-based histories of girls’ mission schools founded in Hong Kong published in the past decennary have contributed to the recording of girls’ schooling experience. These include Kathleen Barker. Change and Continuity ( Hong Kong: St Stephen’s Girls’ College. 1996 ) ; Ying Wa Girls’ School. Ying Wa Girls’ School: the Blessed Old ages 1900–2000 ( Hong Kong: Ying Wa Girls’ School. 2001 ) ; Cindy Chu. The Maryknoll Sisters in Hong Kong. 1921–1969: In Love with the Chinese ( New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004 ) . Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 History of Education 793 where disparate cultural ideals and societal patterns were encountered in webs of power dealingss has non been explored. Major published plants have contributed to a rich apprehension of the political and societal dimensions of Hong Kong’s educational history. locating schooling in the settlement in the multiple dealingss between Church and State. East and West. swayers and the ruled. British and Chinese. classs which permeated the cloth of a altering society. 17 Statistical demographic informations from the Education Reports have been analysed. course of study and timetables studied. linguistic communication policy scrutinised. Chinese imposts and beliefs impacting the development of girls’ instruction identified. but ‘gender’ as a class of analysis has hitherto been absent from treatment. Missionary attempts have been recognised as the drive force behind the publicity of girls’ instruction but the multinational facets of colonial women’s instruction with respect to the political. societal and spiritual contexts of nineteenth-century Europe have been neglected. Pulling on written histories of the life narrative of four pupils from two girls’ mission schools supported by FES and attach toing ocular representations published in FMI as a instance survey. 18 and cross-referencing with modern-day treatments in the Education Reports. the undermentioned treatment examines the discourses that shaped the development of girls’ instruction in the early phase of colonial disposal from the 1850s to 1890s. I shall discourse ways in which a domestic political orientation framed by evangelical beliefs and colonial regard was reproduced through the course of study and domestic theoretical account of schooling. and research how it was transposed. represented. negotiated and contested in the preponderantly Chinese society under colonial regulation. which was marked by category and cultural differences. I shall reason that girls’ instruction was both a conservative force and a force for alteration. with respect to missional pedagogues and pupils likewise. It non merely strengthened stereotyped gender functions but besides created infinite for adult females and misss to offend the boundaries between the populace and the domestic life marked out for them and to seek for new individualities traversing traditional divides in the patriarchal societies of the Victorian and late Qing period. 19 Lydia Leung: future married woman and female parent of ‘our immature men’ Lydia Leung. the 18-year-old miss in the center of the engraving ( Figure 1 ) . was the eldest pupil and a proctor at DNFTS. With two younger pupils at her side. both elderly nine or 10. and a smaller 1 on her articulatio genuss. Leung was portrayed as a composed. caring female parent. in a manner that resonated with the narrations of her life in DNFTS that frequented the pages of FMI from the May issue of 1861. which recounted her baptism. Hailed as the first fruit of the School’s religious labor. small-footed Leung. girl of a authorities twenty-four hours school maestro. and one of the first two DNFTS pupils baptized. embodied the ideals of the 17G. B. Endacott. A History of Hong Kong ( Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong. 1973 ) ; Anthony Sweeting. Education in Hong Kong Pre-1841 to 1941: Fact and Opinion ( Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 1990 ) ; Gillian Bickley. The Development of Education in Hong Kong 1841–1897: as revealed by the Early Education Report by the Hong Kong Government 1848–1896 ( Hong Kong: Proverse Hong Kong. 2002 ) ; Ng Lun Ngai-ha. Interactions of East and West: Development of Public Education in Early Hong Kong ( Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1984 ) . 18Pictures of ‘native’ misss and adult females from FES mission Stationss across continents were often published on the screen page of the monthly FMI. sometimes with their narratives told in the same issue. In the instance of Hong Kong. these four misss were the lone 1s who had both their portrayals on the screen and their life narratives recounted in the FMI. though in different ways and manners. 19Rogers. ‘Good Girls and Women’ . 93. Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 794 P. Pok-kwan Chiu Figure 1. Lydia Leung. Beginning: FMI VII ( January. 1864 ) . screen. Original rubric: ‘Girls in the Diocesan Native Female Training School. Hong Kong’ . DNFTS laminitiss. 20 Converted. taught and groomed by the missional instructors of DNFTS. Leung was represented as holding been transformed from the victim of a ‘barbarian’ patriarchal civilization to a topic of Divine Grace through Christian instruction. Smith described Lydia’s verification: ‘it was impacting to see them kneeling at the Communion rails with their hapless crippled pess. I have every ground to trust that these beloved misss are topics of Divine grace. ’ 21 The schooling that Leung received was non much different from her opposite numbers in England. besides the fact that she was taught in a foreign linguistic communication for most of the twenty-four hours. A typical school twenty-four hours for Leung ran as follows: Beginning: FMI VII Leung. Figure 1. Lydia ( January. 1864 ) . screen. Original rubric: ‘Girls in the Diocesan Native Female Training School. Hong Kong’ . †¦ rise early in the forenoon. arrange sleeping room. fix Chinese lessons before breakfast. first hr after breakfast devoted to household supplication. Scripture lesson ( Mimpriss ) . and repeat of anthem. Followed by English reading with oppugning both on significance of the words and on the topic of the lesson. composing. simple arithmetic or object lesson. concluded with vocalizing. geographics or the elements of grammar ; an hr in center of twenty-four hours tiffin. each miss have ten 20‘Small-footed’ was a term used for misss and adult females whose pess were bound from a immature age harmonizing to a Chinese usage largely adopted by households of the center and upper categories in the 19th century. It was a symbol of a respectable household background as hapless households needed the labor of girls in the field and the family and could non afford to hold retainers to wait on misss with limited mobility. The pattern of foot-binding and its harm to Chinese misss was systematically referred to and condemned as a barbarian civilization in different issues of the FMI. An article lucubrating the method. procedure and agony of this pattern was published in FMI XIII ( March 1871 ) : 51–3. 21FMI V ( July 1862 ) : 21–2. Leung’s earnestness and devotedness to the Christian religion was mentioned once more in a ulterior issue. FMI VI ( January 1863 ) : 2–4. History of Education 795 Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 hard currency. half a penny given her. Assu ( translator ) teaches Chinese and at the same clip explains the lesson from Mimpriss read in the forenoon. and the kids are examined and instructed upon it. Needlework occupies the balance of the afternoon. Four 30 dinner ; eight o’clock to bed. 22 During the hebdomad. the eldest miss would see to it that every miss swept and dusted in rotary motion and that two of the misss waited on the schoolmarm. Occasionally. surveies would be set aside so that a twenty-four hours or part of a twenty-four hours might be devoted to cooking. rinsing. ironing and coating needlecraft. A member of the school commission commented that the misss were really hardworking with their acerate leafs and that they were gaining some dollars by the sale of their work. On Sunday mornings the misss attended Sunday school in the Cathedral. They remained for forenoon service and in the afternoon American ginseng. read or looked at images. 23 The inquiry of how relevant and practical this ‘young ladies’ get oning school’ course of study was. as Bishop Alford subsequently remarked. for ‘the native females’ in fixing them for their future place as married womans and female parents in a Chinese society was shortly raised by Mary Ann Winifred Eaton. the first FES missionary instructor sent to the school in 1862. who peculiarly doubted the public-service corporation of learning the misss English. 24 Yet the ladies’ commission was determined. A commission member. Mrs Irwin. wrote that ‘the survey of English must exert and open the head to an extent which larning Chinese. in the mode in which it is universally taught. neer could make. and that misss therefore instructed are more likely to turn out intelligent and helpful married womans to educated boys’ . 25 Of class. the concern was merely raised at the local degree. as reflected in commission proceedingss. and went unknown to FMI endorsers. The ‘fairytale’ histories of Leung reached their extremum in the elaborate description of her nuptials in February 1864 when she eventually took up the long-anticipated ‘position of usefulness’ . The bridegroom was a Chinese helper to the Church Missionary Society ( CMS ) missional Revd Wolfe of Foochow. who personally asked the DNFTS for a suited married woman on behalf of his catechist. Soon after the twosome returned to Foochow. 500 stat mis from Hong Kong. Leung started to learn in the CMS girls’ school while endeavoring to larn the local idiom. 26 The editor of FMI commented in a ulterior issue that. ‘It may be that in the deficiency of European instruments to travel away into the small towns of China. the Lord has Himself chosen this method of distributing a cognition of the gospel†¦ . The school at Foochow is the first fruit of the Diocesan Native Female Training Schools. ’27 Praises for Leung’s model work among the misss from missionaries in Foochow appeared on occasion in the FMI until 1878. 28 Unfortunately. Leung’s instance appears more an exclusion than the norm. St Paul’s College. the boys’ school under the supervising of the Bishop of Victoria. did non bring forth as many ‘educated boys’ suited for matrimony to DNFTS misss as expected. 29 In 1865. it was reported that several DNFTS pupils were sold by their households at a higher monetary value for being 22FMI IV ( November. 1861 ) : 200–3. 23FMI IV ( May. November 1861 ) . 24‘Extracts from proceedingss of July 1st. 1863’ . Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School. 25Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School. 94. 26FMI VII ( August. 1864 ) : 158–61. 27FMI VII ( November. 1864 ) : 218–9. 28FMI Fourteen ( July 1871 ) : 84 ; XIX ( 1876 ) : 15 ; XXI ( 1878 ) : 85–9. 29The school founded to educate Chinese immature work forces as revivalists and instructors was 92. in bad form after Bishop Smith’s going for England in January 1864. Upon his reaching in Hong Kong in October 1867. Smith’s replacement. Bishop Alford. lamented that the school’s troubles. ‘both fiscal and educational have been really great and the chance was discouraging’ . Charles Alford. China and Japan: a Charge. delivered in the Cathedral Church of St John. Victoria. Hong Kong. February 2nd. 1869 ( London: Seeleys ; Hong Kong: Noronha A ; Sons. 1869 ) . 54. Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 796 P. Pok-kwan Chiu able to talk English ; so about all older misss came to be kept as kept womans by Europeans. 30 Demand in the ‘marriage market’ for ‘intelligent and helpful wives’ with ‘the really polish in their countenances’ produced unexpected consequences. 31 Not merely did the dirt work stoppage a lifelessly blow to a school already in problem but it later resulted in the closing of the Chinese section and its transition into an orphanhood. the Diocesan Home and Orphanage ( DHO ) . chiefly for European and Eurasiatic kids. in 1869. 32 That Chinese girls’ instruction must merely be conducted in common schools became a discourse determining the development of girls’ instruction in the undermentioned decennaries. In his studies of 1865 and 1867. the Inspector of Education in Hong Kong. Frederick Stewart. strongly criticised the instruction of English or any other alleged achievements for dividing misss from their hereafter low life-sphere. What they were taught. he commented. would ‘totally disqualify them for the domain of life in which they would otherwise of course remain. and out of which it is impossible for them to rise’ . 33 Stewart supported his thought refering the appropriate ‘sphere of life’ for Chinese misss with a study from the maestro of a authorities girls’ twenty-four hours school. where English was non taught. which confirmed that the school’s alumnuss had been creditably married in their ain native territories in mainland China. 34 Bishop Alford. the replacement of Smith. addressed the issue explicitly in his charge delivered at the Cathedral in 1869. stating. ‘English-speaking Chinese misss are placed under fortunes of curious enticement. from which it is impossible to screen them in a Colony like Hong Kong’ . 35 It took over 20 old ages before an Anglo-Chinese instruction for Chinese misss was introduced in authorities schools. Underliing the inquiry was the sensitive issue of racial boundaries and divides in a colonial society. reinforced through ordinance of native women’s gender. 36 In 1867. Stewart besides criticised the dissatisfactory moral criterions displayed by Chinese male childs having an English instruction in the authorities Central School. Yet. remedial steps were suggested alternatively of straight-out limitations as in the instance of misss. Students’ moral behavior was a changeless focal point of attending in Stewart’s studies but was defined otherwise for the two sexes. Indeed. while linguistic communication policy has been examined by historiographers of instruction in Hong Kong. gender differences have non been discussed. 37 Chinese male childs could take advantage of their English instruction and ‘some grade of Anglicisation’ to go ‘elites and middlemen’ in the 30The sale of misss was recorded in the local commission proceedingss of July 19. 1865. Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School. 95. In a missive to the Colonial Secretary on July 5. 1889. E. J. Eitel stated that about every one of the misss became the kept kept woman of a European upon go forthing school. Letter no. 41. CO 129/342. 80 ff. quoted in Sweeting. Education in Hong Kong. 1990. 247–50. 31At an FES meeting in London. Bishop Smith commended the preparation of DNFTS pupils. stating that ‘the really polish in their visages told the work begun in their hearts’ . FMI VII ( August 1864 ) : 173–5. 32It was recorded in the commission proceedingss that FES missional Eaton was taken badly after an attempted onslaught by a group of stealers in December 1864 and had been in struggle with the regulating ladies’ commission. Cf FES/AM3/4250. 4251. 4263 ; Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School. 94–5. Restructuring of the school was recorded in Alford. China and Japan: A Charge. 56–7 and Featherstone. The Diocesan Boys’ School. 98–9. 33Education Report 1865. paragraph 43 ; 1867. paragraph 14. 34Education Report 1867. paragraph 15. 35Alford. China and Japan: A Charge. 56. 36For a general background to racial divides and category dealingss in colonial Hong Kong. see H. J. Lethbridge. Hong Kong: Stability and Change ( Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. 1978 ) . 167–77 ; for farther treatment of the tensenesss. schemes and kineticss at drama between different racial groups to protect their rights and involvements. see John Carroll. Edges of Empire ( Cambridge. Ma: Harvard University Press. 2005 ) . 84–107. 37See. for illustration. Ng. Interactions of East and West. 65–77. History of Education 797 Downloaded By: [ HEAL-Link Consortium ] At: 12:38 12 February 2010 settlement ; their female opposite numbers. by contrast. were excluded from following a similar way. 38 Revisiting the DNFTS matrimony dirt through the gendered discourse of girls’ instruction resonates with Jane Martin’s comments on the ‘job-’ and ‘marriage-market’ divide that historically distinguished course of study in boys’ and girls’ schools. 39 It besides reveals the tenseness between ideal and world in the proviso of girls’ instruction wherever the ‘civilising mission’ met with other powerful regulative discourses in the society. 40 The local reverse was neer publicised to the endorsers of FES in Britain. and the following clip readers were introduced to pupils in Hong Kong. the focal point rested upon another group of misss at DNFTS. Their experiences are symbolised by Louisa and Bessie Rickomartz. whose life histories besides expressed the anticipated transmutation that instruction could carry through in girls’ lives. Louisa and Bessie Rickomartz: the Eurasiatic orphans made instructor and missional candidate41 In 1865. the twelvemonth the marriage-sale dirt hit DNFTS. another reverse to British missionaries’ attempts in girl’s instruction in Hong Kong shocked FES protagonists at place. Harriet Baxter. an honorary FES missionary. died out of the blue after a short unwellness in June 1865 at the age of 36. 42 Just as Lydia Smith had pioneered English instruction for middle-class misss. Baxter trail-blazed common instruction for the hapless and destitute. set uping a figure of schools within the five old ages of her short life in Hong Kong. After her decease. DNFTS took in a figure of orphaned Eurasiatic and Chinese misss. with Baxter’s merely co-worker. Mary Jane Oxlad. besides an agent of FES. transporting on the attention of Baxter’s pupils while at the same time learning at DNFTS.