Higher learning
“Great possibilities of new Chinese university,” ran a South China Morning Post headline on July 10, 1962.
“It can do great things for China and
for the world. Chinese culture is the
world’s oldest and largest […] Within
this area Hongkong is one place – some
would say, the one place – where true
academic freedom is possible,” Holmes H.
Welch, an American scholar of Buddhism,
told students at a Chung Chi College
graduation ceremony, the Post reported.
The institution was to join New Asia
College and United College, all Chineselanguage
tertiary colleges, to form Hong
Kong’s second university.
On July 6, 1960, the newspaper had
quoted Hong Kong’s governor, Robert
Black, as saying that the Chinese university
would extend tertiary education
“in the traditions and standards of the
Commonwealth to many young men and
women at our middle schools who are, at
the moment, unable to enjoy such benefits”.
There was a need for a university for local
Chinese middle school students who
lacked the English skills required to enter
the University of Hong Kong, the
reported on September 5, 1962.
Post
Debate ensued over the institution’s
name, the government having rejected
“Chung Hua (China) University”, saying
the name should “imply that the university
is a union of the three colleges and that it
is located in Hongkong”, the Post reported on December 4. A campus at Ma Liu
Shui was chosen and the name “Chinese
University of Hongkong” was decided
upon, the Post reported on July 4, 1963.
On October 18, the newspaper
described the university’s inauguration a
day earlier as an “impressive ceremony”
at City Hall. “I confess that I feel very
moved,” Black told the assembled crowd.
“I am seeing now the consummation of
hopes and dreams and plans, and the
outcome of visitations, conferences and
commissions, all in pursuit of the idea to
which I myself have long been wedded.”