LA I. 50336 C0 .1 ~llilllll mlHill |iM HHIIII I I i ll l 1 i i ~i i i i i i i i fll l~tI l l RECEIVED IN EXCwAN E - FROM I ib. rl of nftwuwai -g IT mrmlr'ilmTi'iT1T'lTimitIITIIITT1 - I I I L A ZZ5-/ 7.? TI ~ -,2. H <~ i FILE No.., *, z r - -^ ' * * O -s M Eucati on, Hawaiian slands A brief statement of the Present Condition of the Public and Pri^..!vate Schools of the Republic,. BY CT. RODGERS, SConretury oDeartnment of Public Instriu-tin..* 4 i r~i ~'d r,~,.'-i.:~~.l-~o;~. *s-~.ii ~i.i 1 " j-: ~i ~"~ r-i t ~ ~ ~ 1.i., ?; P ~+I Cu f '-, ~~.".' ~ i ('d(.~r~ j "~i~ - ~ i '~ '' ~:~,-~ ~, I, 1 r '~ * h ~:' t ' a^~ ~ ~~ tJ"~i ~~ ~~ ' r i ~.., z -.i ~i J ~,~ i i. a.,. A e. - I. N >. K. 1;, II ri ~, c~ ,~. `i i 't.:r ~ -"~~c01 9 -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -.. -~!~ 0*0 a. 0S t 0 4 I* *~~ Il. 0 "r-U _. Ul w.0 VI / I- "EDUCATION IN THE HAWAIIAN ISLAND5. It was a fortunate thing for the cause of education in these Islands that so large a proportion of the earlier white settlers came from the most intelligent and substantial class of English speaking people. Many of these men identified themselves thoroughly with their adopted country and took active and leading parts in guiding the infant state on its course from barbarism to civilization, and in devising a civil policy and social order to replace the aboriginal feudal despotism. In nothing is the wise foresight and breadth of view of these men more manifest than in their having made early, and, in proportion to the limited resources of the country at the time, liberal provision for education; the education, not of a small class or a favored few, but of the whole people. Although the purpose of this paper is statistical rather than historical; intended to give results and present conditions rather than to trace in detail the steps by which these have been reached, attention may be called briefly to a few landmarks in the educational history of the country. In 1822, about two years after the arrival of the first Christian teachers, the first spelling book was published. This may be regarded as the beginning of systematic popular education. In 1841 a school was established by the American Missionaries at Punahou, in the vicinity of Honolulu. This school originally intended by the missionaries for their own children has developed into what is now known as Oahu College. As early as 1843 the school work of the Islands was considered of sufficient importance to be organized as a department of the government and put in charge of a cabinet minister. Within ten or twelve years from the advent of the first missionaries, schools had become general throughout the country. The seminary at Lahainaluna on Maui was started in 1831, and still exists as a government school combining academic instruction with industrial and manual training. A government reformatory school was founded in 1865, and in 2.the same year an Act passed the Legislative Assembly con-;stituting a Board of Education and organizing the public,school system of the country on lines so well chosen as to have served their purpose fairly well without any radical changes almost to. the present time. A little over a year ago the Legislature again raised what had been for some thirty years a bureau of the government, to the rank of an Executive Department, making the Minister of Foreign Affairs ex-officio Minister of Public Instruction, and associating with him six Commissioners, the Minister and Commissioners together constituting a Board having full control of all public educational interests. It will be seen from the above that the interest of the leading men of Hawaii and of the Government as such in the cause of popular education has not been at all of a spasmodic or fitful kind, but has represented a settled policy, pursued systematically and persistently for over half a century. As a result of this policy, we find education in the Hawaiian Islands today to be universal, compulsory and free. The law makes it obligatory upon all children between the ages of six and fifteen years to attend school regularly unless excused for sickness or some other equally valid cause, and makes no distinction as to race, color or class. It is entirely optional with parents and guardians whether children be sent to public or independent schools, but to school they must go, and that with at least a reasonable degree of regularity. The theory being that the Government is responsible for seeing that all children within its jurisdiction receive a certain amount of education, it follows logically that the Government should see to it that all schools in the country are in proper hands and capable of imparting the instruction required. The Government does not undertake to exercise direct control over private or independent schools, but no such school can be established without complying with certain statutory requirements and obtaining a formal authorization from the Department of Public Instruction. A person wishing to open a school must make application in writing, furnishing satisfactory evidence as to moral character and scholarship, and have the same accompanied by a petition for such a school in the locality named, signed by a reasonable number of those whose children are expected to attend. The compulsory attendance is enforced by means of truant officers, or school police, of whom there are one or more in each district, or between forty and fifty in all. These officers 3 are mostly native Hawaiians, with an occasional Portuguese or Chinese in localities where children of those nationalities are most numerous. These officers visit the schools regularly, get the names of absentees and look them up, and see that children not in the government schools are attending elsewhere. The compulsory system is found to work well in practice and is enforced with very little friction. The people have been accustomed to it for more than a generation past, and accept it as a matter of course. Formerly, and until within comparatively recent times, the government schools were of two kinds; the so-called "common schools" which were all taught by native Hawaiians in the Hawaiian language, and the "select schools" which were taught in English, though many of the teachers were Hawaiians of either pure or mixed blood. Tuition in the common schools was entirely free; in the select schools a small fee was charged. The results of this policy were not altogether satisfactory. The natives being in the habit of sending their children to the native schools for perhaps half their school age, and then, if possessed of the necessary means, transferring them to the schools taught in English, it was found that the instruction received in the former afforded a very inadequate preparation for the requirements of the latter,. so that a considerable fraction of the prescribed school age was practically wasted. The pupils had learned to read and write Hawaiian and acquired some knowledge of arithmetic, geography, etc., but they had also acquired a habit of not only reading and writing, but of thinking in their native language, so that it was quite a common remark of teachers in the select schools that they preferred to take a pupil who had never been to school at all, to one who had passed four or five years in a native common school. From; time to time the Hawaiian schools were replaced by English at the request of the native people themselves in the respective districts, and about ten years ago it was definitely decided to close out all that remained of the former, as fast as it could be done without crippling the service, and to have the whole school population taught in English. This policy has been pursued so steadily and successfully that two small schools in out of the way country districts are all that now remain of the "common schools" of former days, and the residents of the neighborhood are now asking for an English school in place of one of these. 4 At the same time, and as a necessary result of raising the public schools generally to the grade of what had been formerly known as "select schools," tuition in all the government schools was made free, with the one exception that the Government might establish a select, that is to say a pay school, if thought best, in any district where there was a free school affording the same grade of instruction. At the present time there are three pay schools in all under the Department; the High School and one other in Honolulu, and one in Hilo, the largest town on the Island of Hawaii. Including the High School, the Normal School, the Reformatory School mentioned above and one night school, there are one hundred and twenty-five government schools of all kinds, requiring at the present time the services of two hundred and eighty-nine teachers whose monthly salaries aggregate something over fifteen thousand dollars. The nationalities of these teachers, according to the last printed report, were, in round numbers as follows: Hawaiian (including those of pure and mixed blood), forty per cent.; Americans, thirty-seven per cent.; British, seventeen per cent.; and the remainder of various foreign nationalities. It is however to be noted that a considerable percentage of those put down as Americans, British, etc., are Hawaiian born but, being of unmixed foreign blood, are classed according to the nationality of their parents. According to the same report, about forty-three per cent, of the teachers were males and fifty-seven per cent. females. In the appointment of teachers, race lines receive very little consideration. There are teachers from all the principal nationalities represented here with the exception of the Japanese, who are comparatively new comers, as well as from the various crosses and combinations of the same. There are white principals, with native assistants, native principals with white assistants, and all working together, so far as the race question is concerned, without friction. In addition to its other functions, the Department of Public Instruction is charged with the duty of taking the census, this being done every six years. According to the last census, taken a little over a year ago, the population within the legal compulsory school age was 14,286, being an increase of 2,277, or about nineteen per cent. in six years; while, according to the school statistics compiled as of December 31st, 1896, the total number of children attending all schools, government and independent, was 14,023, of whom 10,189 were in government schools, and 3,834 in independent schools. It will be I 5 noticed that the population within school age and the number actually attending school approximate very closely. At the time of the last biennial report, made as of December 31st, 1895, the total school attendance was 12,616. The increase for the year 1896 was therefore 1,407, which is greater than for any previous two years, with one exception. The following table gives the school attendance at various times during the last 42 years: Year. Total School Attendance. 1854....................................12,432 1856................................... 10,076 1866.................................... 8,553 1876.................................... 6,252 1886.................................... 9,61.6 1896................................ 12,616 It will be noticed that the lowest point in school attendance was reached in 1876, the falling off during the preceding twenty or thirty years being due entirely to the decrease in the native population. This falling off in native Hawaiians still continues, though not perhaps at the same rate, the doubling of the school attendance in the last twenty years being due to the large increase in the foreign population, many of whose children, born in these islands, are now attending our schools. Classified by race and nationality, the 14,286 children returned in the last census as within the legal school age are found to be divided as follows: Hawaiians (full)........................... 5467 Hawaiians (part........................,437 Hawaiian born, both parents being foreigners. 4,505 Chinese and Japanese....................... 812 South Sea Islanders....... 6 White foreigners of all kinds........... 1,059 Total. 1........................... 14,286 It will be seen that more than one-third of this whole number consists of Hawaiian born children of unmixed foreign blood. This shows where the increased school attendance of the last twenty years has come from, and points most unmistakably to what may be expected in the future. The Legislature meets every two years and appropriations. u$;0 -:j i.. 6 are made for biennial periods. The appropriations made by the last Legislature for school purposes for the two years ending December 31st, 1897, aggregated $455,331.55, or at the rate of $227,665.77 per annum, which, for a country having not much over one hundred thousand inhabitants in all, may be regarded as liberal. This provision, large as it may seem in proportion to the population and resources of the country, is, owing to the rapid increase in school attendance and the constant effort to raise the standard of qualifications in the teaching force, thus causing the pay roll to increase more rapidly in proportion than the number of teachers, proving inadequate for the purpose intended. In addition to the appropriations mentioned above, which are all for current expenses, including repairs on school buildings, about thirty thousand dollars has been expended within the last year and a half in the erection of new school houses and trechers' cottages. This last item may need a word of explanation. Owing to the local conditions existing in many of the out of town districts, it is a matter of absolute necessity, if the Department expects to secure and retain the services of competent, well educated ladies and gentlemen, to provide them with houses to live in. In most of the country districts there are no hotels or boarding houses, and in many instances no white families within any practicable distance of the school. The teacher or teachers must therefore keep house as best they may, the Government building a cottage and giving them the use of it rent free. This adds of course very materially to the cost of carrying on the schools of the country, but it is an expenditure that cannot be avoided without seriously impairing the efficiency of the service. As the country is settled up, this difficulty will disappear. Of the sum of $455,331.55, mentioned above as the aggregate of the appropriations for the current expenses of the Department for tie biennial period, $404,000.00 is required for salaries and pay rolls, mostly for teachers. W;ithin the last few years there has been instituted and is now regularly carried on, a system of teachers' examinations. These are generally held annually, but not always simultaneously, throughout the Islands, and are of two grades; primary and grammar, the former being the only one made compulsory up to the present time. Candidates for primary certificates are examined in mental and written arithmetic, English grammar, reading, spelling, dictation, geography, penmanship and methods of teaching. Candidates for the 7 grammar grade are, in addition to the foregoing, examined in algebra, geometry, physiology, physical geography, general, American and Hawaiian history, and theory and practice of teaching. Certificates of several classes, based on the averages obtained are granted to successful candidates, the time for which they are good depending on the class of the certificate. Persons earning first class grammar grade certificates, which requires an average of ninety per cent. or over, and who have a record of five years or more of successful school room work, are entitled to life diplomas. New teachers commencing without previous experience receive salaries graded according to the class of their certificates. Those having no certificates commence at a still lower rate, and these latter appointments are understood to be temporary, the appointee being expected to take the examination at the next opportunity, and being liable to be dropped at any time for failing to do so, or for failing to pass. The salaries of the regular teaching force are annual salaries, payable monthly, on the last day of each month, vacations included. A separate draft on the public treasury is drawn for each salary, and the money never fails to be ready on the appointed day. Each employee of the Department knows just what he or she can depend upon, and does not have, as in many places, to accept a warrant for the amount due, to be collected at some indefinite time in the future when the public treasury may be in a condition to pay. The number of pupils to each teacher averagles thirty, in all the government schools throughout the Islands; in all the independent schools the average is nineteen. In considering this discrepancy it should be remembered that the independent schools are largely boarding schools, where the many things to be attended to outside the routine of an ordinary day school, necessitate a proportionately larger force. The Honolulu High School was organized in 1895, the higher grades of an existing school being taken as a nucleus and transferred to new quarters, which may, with very little exaggeration be styled "palatial," the Government having purchased for the purpose what was one of the largest, and probably considerably the most costly private residence in the country, it having been built and finished in lavish style by the late Princess Ruth, a sister of Kamehameha IV. and V. This property, which includes ample grounds in handsome condition and two buildings suitable for teachers' residences, was bought on terms that make it an excellent investment. 8 The school is well conducted under an able principal, and is doing good work. The Normal School, which is accommodated in the High School building, is also a new departure in Hawaiian educational policy, having been established a few months after the High School. It has at present an attendance of between forty-five and fifty, and is in charge of two teachers. The present attendance is considerably in excess of that of last year, and an addition to the teaching force will have to be made at an early day. In connection with the Normal there is a "practice school" under the general control of the same principal. It is one of the Honolulu primary schools, where the normal students are sent in turn to teach under the supervision, and subject to the criticism of the regular teachers of the school, who are selected with special reference to their fitness for this work. According to the last printed report, the independent schools numbered 62 in all, with a total enrollment of 3,426. This is an average of about fifty-five pupils to a school, while the average in the government schools is something over eighty. More than half the independent schools, and about twothirds of the pupils attending schools of that class are to be found in Honolulu. Several of these are doing valuable work in lines that the Government is not prepared to enter upon. Among these are the boarding schools for Hawaiian girls, of which there are six in all, four of these being in Honolulu. In these schools an aggregate of nearly three hundred and fifty Hawaiian girls are receiving, in addition to the ordinary school course, training in household arts and civilized modes of living generally. One of these schools is in charge of a sisterhood of the Anglican Church Mission, another in charge of a sisterhood of the Roman Catholic Church, and a third is part of the Kamehameha school work. The Kamehameha schools were established under the will of the late Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, wife of C. R. Bishop of the Honolulu banking house of Bishop & Co., she having left the bulk of a large property in the hands of trustees for the establishment and support of these schools. Mrs. Bishop was a native Hawaiian of high rank, who having no children, and her husband being possessed of ample means, decided to dedicate her wealth to the benefit of the young people of her own race. There have been established and are now in successful operation, in addition to the girls' boarding school 9 just mentioned, a boys' school combining manual and technical instruction with the ordinary school branches, and a preparatory department. Mr. Bishop has supplemented his wife's bequest with large and repeated gifts from his own fortune, and the ample means at their command have enabled the trustees to organize and equip the school on very liberal lines. Commodious and well equipped work shops with steam power and the best mechanical appliances obtainable, enable this school to give thorough training in various departments of wood and metal working, and the boys show a very satisfactory degree both of interest in their work and of capacity for acquiring proficiency and skill therein. The last report of the Department of Public Instruction says, "The boys who have passed the full course at Kamehameha are beginning to fill various worthy positions in life and are proving themselves able men for the work they undertale." There are at present about two hundred inmates of this school and about fifty in the preparatory department. There is also, in connection with this school, a normal and training department. Oahu College, mentioned above as having been founded in 1841 as the Punahou School, has developed into a well-equipped and flourishing institution, having boarding and day departments, and also a preparatory department, which latter is centrally located in the town, the main establishment being in the suburbs, some two miles or more away. At the latter place there are very spacious grounds, with substantial and handsome buildings, a laboratory and scientific department, and all the machinery requisite to make the institution a college in fact as well as in name. The main academic building, completed within the last year, is built of stone at a cost of $76,000 00. A handsome endowment has been gradually built up, amounting at the present time to some $285,000.00. The institution also owns considerable land outside of that used for its own purposes, and this is increasing rapidly in value. The president and other members of the college staff are able and cultivated ladies and gentlemen and the institution is in every way an honor to this country. In addition to the institutions mentioned above, there is a large boarding and day school for boys, known as St. Louis College, which is in charge of a lay teaching brotherhood of the Catholic Church, and a number of small schools supported by private enterprise, including several well conducted kindergartens. On the subject of the secularization of the public schools and the entire separation of church and state, the Republic ' D e~ 9, 10 of Hawaii has taken advanced ground. The Constitution forbids any gifts or subsidies of money, lands, or public credit to any denominational or sectarian school, or in fact, to any schools not under the direct control of the Government. By the new school law, passed in 1896, no priest or minister of religion can be a member of the Board of Education. Clergymen, may be, and in several instances are teachers and principals in government schools, but strict care is taken that no denominational tenets of any kind are taught in the schools under their care. The Chinese residents maintain a number of small schools devoted to the teaching of their own language, but these are only allowed on condition that the pupils therein, if within the legal school age, shall also attend regularly at some school taught in English, and take the instruction in Chinese outside of government school hours. One result of the efforts that have been made in educational matters is that, so far as the younger portion of the white population and the native Hawaiians are concerned, the percentage of illiteracy is less than in any of the great European nations, Prussia perhaps excepted, and less than in many States of the American Union. It is very rare to find a native Hawaiian under forty years of age who cannot at least read and write his own language, and those of the population signing their names with a cross must be looked for among those whose earlier years were passed elsewhere than in the Hawaiian Islands. i 'R~;i.- ii. *,~ ~ i~!R;r ~~, 1 -- r '~ '' i '`i ir* ' ~ i -'I L i ~ r ~. ~.L i ` r rr, r: ~~. ~r ~I 'r ~* `~ t ~'i a ~~~.r ~ r ~~ i. ~r. ~.,~ t Y, rY-~ 1., 1.i -- ~ i ''<1 \i. ~': '' i " -~. ~ ~ ' I ~-~:. " " fI. I i _,. 11 "1 I. '.. -. ".* I *;j l.. - ", * -- I. i-.. I '. T A-4* I s ~ . 6 ~ '' ri ~ *'' ~' r h I iL~, " i,,y' ~r r-. r ir lr9-21' d ii~' C L~r~~.i~ .,r t7 -j, P A, I#I. -,,. xJ-, \: A.~ i ' " i I I. s, k I:t ": ~,Id,, p ~?~' -- ~ r: "- "k: t!'t, J~ a-~t3~i*,Xdr..-r i r. t, ~; J,~.~. '; 5.-:~ 1 rn,'ra 4 t;, ~P i I L ~i i '~:-t~y'f". '"E;.. ~r r 1; xee r ~'iu~ ~ ~ — '- -- ' - ' - ' 7 ". DATE DUE ~i _i9 ~~~~~~~~~fi t I II f?. 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