同善堂義學早期的發展

Escola Tung Sin Tong, a long-established school, is the descendant of agratuitous school named Escola Gratuita. “Tong Sin Tong” was founded in 1924 for impoverished boys. However, the history of this gratuitous school is not clear in many aspects. This paper attempts to explore the early development of this charity school. First-hand reference materials were used as much as possible in this paper. The author first screened all news related to Tung Sin Tong released in Jornal Va Kio, then searched the Macao Official Gazette, retrieved the archives collected in Macao Archives, and also used various types of artefacts, archives, and documents collected and digitized by Tung Sin Tong Historical Archive Exhibition Hall, including three historical documentary albums published in recent years. The author probed into many details of the school, from its establishment to the opening of a new primary school building, such as fundraising, the school management, the general situation of students and teachers, and the expansion of this school in terms of its scale and general affairs, so as to understand the good deeds of the community leaders in nurturing talents for the society and the contribution of gratuitous schools to the promotion of universal education in Macao.