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taught to read their own language both in Arabic 
and in Roman characters. At first the Malays were 
apathetic, jealous of the loss of their children's 
services and distrustful of secular teaching. The 
efforts of the native teachers and the use of the 
schools as centres for the distribution of quinine 
and other simple medicines helped gradually to 
dispel prejudice. In 1878 a College for Teachers 
was started in Singapore and during the 17 years 
of its life produced the first trained Malay teachers 
in British Malaya. In 1888 Malay boys who had 
passed out of the vernacular schools were admitted 
free into any Government English School in the 
Colony, a system that with certain modifications is 
now followed throughout Malaya. 
IN 1901 a new training college for Malay vernacular 
teach.ers was opened in that old-world Malay centre, 
Malacca. And Malay education received temporarily 
a great stimulus from Mr. R. J. Wilkinson, a Malay 
scholar of high attainments, who started publishing 
Malay classics for the use of schools and created 
an interest in their own literature in the teachers. 
But this officer soon left the Department and Malay 
education progressed on unimaginative and alien 
lines. Some years later an Annual Report on the 
Department records : “ 50 years ago that most 
distinguished Inspector of Schools, Matthew Arnold 
wrote : ‘ The heart-breaking thing is, that what 
young learners can be taught and do learn is often 
so ill-chosen. An apple has a stalk, peel, pulp, core, 
pips and juice: it is odorous and opaque and it is 
used for making a pleasant drink called cider. 
There is the pedant's fashion of using the brief 
lesson time, the soon tired attention of little child- 
ren.' The horse is a stock subject for essays in 
*>' 4 */ 2 ** 
