The First Six Years 1963-69

Liberal education is thus considered a luxury. Following this line o f reasoning, it is further argued that the present and primary task o f a university is to tra in specialists and not to flounder in the re sidue o f Western elitism. There can be no doubt that more highly- trained professional people are needed to run Hong Kong's so phisticated economy which has reached formidable dimensions. But the community needs leaders as well as highly competent techni cians.While professional education provides technical competence ， liberal education develops leadership qualities. For the future v ita lity o f the community ， it is essential to strike a proper balance between the number o f students trained professionally and the number majoring in the liberal arts. In fact. The Chinese Un iver sity believes that the liberal arts should be part o f everyone's education and should therefore be included in the educational programmes o f all students at all levels. The concept o f liberal education is not necessarily a foreign one. I t has grown from the native soil o f Chinese culture and has always been a part o f the Chinese philosophy o f education. The name o f The Chinese University, in Chinese, may mean the use o f Chinese as the principal language o f instruction. I t may also mean a university w ith a firm background in Chinese culture. Being the only Chinese institution o f higher learning in the community and one o f the few major universities in the free world in which Chinese is a principal medium o f instruction and research ， the University has a unique mission to fu lfil. In addition to the tw in aims o f achieving excellence in teaching and research in the sciences and liberal arts and enriching the Chinese cultural trad ition in a mod ern academic setting, the University strives to become a major centre o f research and teaching for regional studies, particularly studies o f China. Both the history and the location o f the Univer sity provide unique conditions for this development, which w ill be inter-disciplinary in character and w ill bring together scholars and students o f diverse backgrounds and interests. The goal w ill be the application o f modern methods o f investigation and analysis ， particularly in the social sciences ， to the study o f the development o f China and East Asia. More specifically ， the University en courages its students and scholars to cultivate a new “ sensitivity" and “ methodology” in order to secure a fresh vision o f the funda mental values o f traditional cultural heritage as well as the prob lems that are uniquely regional in nature. Those values, further more, are to be explored and assessed in relation to the modern world and expressed clearly and forcefully as part o f the entire scene o f cultural interaction. Thus, The Chinese University should be a two-arched bridge between the past and the present, the East and the West. 6