The Portland daily press., 1867-05-17
Education of Girls.

1 We have before us a recent number of a
Honolulu paper in which is given an account
of the course OF instruction pursued at a girls
scnooi III tis~- s-ndu duieh Islands If the pic
ture be not overdrawn, the general plan OF cur
ucation in that country is, so far as relates to
physical health, actually in advance of what
is followed in our own. With such care of the
body as is here shown, feeble girls would i'm
prove instead of deteriorating in physical
stamina. We quote from the visitors account:
An hour in the morning is spent in garden
ing, the girls having under cultivation about
two acres OF land. Besides this, the girls do
all their own work, such as washing, ironing,
and other house work. Some OF them are quite
skilled in crocheting and other fancy work
Every afternoon, with their teachers, they eth
er go to walk or indulge III the aquatic sport of
bathing or swimming, for which the river af-
fOrds u fine place. Many of them are said to
rival the mermaids in the celerity and grace
with which they glide through, over and up-
der the water. Most OF them acquired the art
of swimming before they entered school This
Is q branch OF education too often neglected
Every girl and boy ought to be taught to swim.
Special pains have been taken to provide the
scholars with all the modern appliances for
gyninastic exercise, such as swinging, jumping
&c. The girls are all taught to sing, and es-
pecial attention is given TO this branch of ed
ucation, which requires early training to de.
velop it properly. Most of them sing any of
the tunes iu the two native tune books ana al
so many Of the more modern hymns and songs
composed by the poets OF Hawaii.
There is something positively humliating in
learning that part of the world SO lately re-
claimed from the night of heather barbarism
should have reached point of intelligent nro.
gress SO far in advance of that which we, with
oil ON ro1ry mo Iox,a
institutions of education there is great lack
of appliances and regulations for the promo
ton of physical health The minds Of pupils
are ever-worked, while their bodies are stinted
and defrauded of all fair and free development
The consequence is that pupils--we speak now
more particularly of girls, though the boys
schools are not what they should be in this re-
spect-the pupils are sent home to their pa
rents at the end Of a few years, with fair
share of the solid and ornamental accom-
plishments which they ought to possess,
but with feeble frames, pale cheeks, narrow
chests and bad digestion. The graduates
of a first class ladies' seminary will demon
strate a problem of Euclid or construe a
page of Horace with readiness and grace,
they will play the piano brilliantly, and con-
verse fuently in French OF German; but they
cannot walk half mile without being out of
breath, cannot weed garden-bed without get
ting sick headache, or knead u loaf of bread
without laming their wrists. If they marry,
five years of housekeeping and maternity Is
sufficient to break down what strength they
have and with their beauty faded, and their
pleasure in life all gone, they sink into a con
dition of permanent invalidism, or drop into
untimely graves
The fault of this unhappy condition ofthings
is primarily not with the managers of schools,
but with the parents who send their
children to them. Parents should de-
mand that their children come home from
school sound in limb and vital organs, as well
as accomplishediu in French drawing and music.
Whatever the people demand will be supplied
and the true reason why physical culture has
not been put upon the same basis as mathe-
matics in all our schools is because parents
have not insisted upon its being done. And it
ought not to be considered enough that pupils
do not deteriorate in health, or actually break
down. school in which the pupils do not
improve in physical health and culture as wen
as in mental and moral growth, ought not to
he considered worthy of support, and were our
naonle awake to their own interests in this
matter would receive none. Let parents think
of these things, and demand what they have a
to answer that demand