The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-06-08
THE PACIFIC
Commercial 96bertiser.
SATURDAY. JUNE s.
Written for The p. c. Advertised
Our Common schools.

Oh bhD5 . L4NG .
Written for the p. c. Advertiser1
Our Common
The annual report of the Board Of Education is a
document Of no ordinary interest to every near
friend Of the Hawaiian people. If truthful, it gives
Us the gauge Of the national progress in the path Of
a true civilization. For, as has now come to he
universally admitted, there can be no genuine civ
ilization. unless it he founded upon a system of
popular education. Neither can there be anything
like a sound and wholesome Christianity thst is
fnot accompanied by a steady intellectual uplifting
Of the race. These stand to each other in the rell-
ton Of cause and effect Given the one. the other
Is sure to follow save indeed, as it may BE repressed
for q time, by a despotic state craft Yet even his
conspiracy against humanity. diabolical as it may
be--must be, both in theory and in fact-can be sue
cessful but for a season. God is true TO himself
Religious emancipation gives Us Intellectual activity
and freedom. The two are, inevitably, the arant
eOuriers Of the largest political liberty. We accept
the pledge and take courage.
The Board Of Education has given US, in its last
report, q valuable and reliable resume of the present
educational situation. And it is a record of which
the Board may justly be proud. Its appropriations
OF funds for the Advancement of popular learning
have been liberal to a fault. Indeed il is not easy to
see how it could have done more in this line. In
school houses provided, in books prepared, in teachers
Of the best class available, fully and promptly paid,
we see n disposition to welcome unstintedly every
child and youth of the islands, to the wide open
fountain of elementary and advanced knowledge.
In the earnest efforts too Of the Inspector General to
concentrate the advantages so literally offered to all,
into a system worthy of the nation, We find cause
of honest congratulation and very much that is
worthy of general appreciation. The danger in this
direction lies in making the idea Of system q hobby,
and riding it rough-shod, not only through al pos
sibilities, but oUer all impossibilities as well.
We are thorough believers in system. There is
nothing like it for economizing the forces we have at
COMMUNICATING like it for insuring thu utmost
efieney for the agencies employed. But then a per-
feet system, in any department of human activity is
the growth of time-the child of long-toiling patience
coupled with administrative skill working on through
years-ages.
The system comes to US as a crystalline purest
result, is the most beautiful and valuable form of the
two constituent elements just named. But as there
must be a fair degree of chemical purity ere crys-
utilization becomes possible, and the mother liquor
can be rejected as useless, so in a community like
ours. there must be time for great advance in public
sentiment ere the present obnoxious crudities can be
eliminated and a thorough system in our educational
administration be rendered possible.
Till then, very much in our outlying districts,
must be done, pro re n0iG for common schools. if we
would see them at all efficient in furthering popular
education. 1t is very true that, looking across the
water, we have the best public school systems in the
world; and there are doubtless those who think it
the easiest of things to transfer those systems hither
or enough of them to ensure a very serviceable
imitation here. But while foreign systems give us
most valuable hints in this as well as in other depart
ments of enterprise, they are not transferable. The
genius and inspiration Of place and circumstance are
an essential part of every well matured system.
Leaving these behind, as you must, you get a skel-
eton in your attempts to import q school system or
any other system, without the breath of life. We
think the right foundations were securely laid years
since. In building upon them, we surely have no
cause for faint-heartedness As already said, the
danger just now is, that in the laudable effort 20
systematic, haste will ensure waste.
Comparison with the school system of Massachu-
sets, is indeed allowable-just as is that of a tallow
candle with the sun. But certainly there seems
little similarity between one of the most thoroughly
perfected educational systems in the world, and this
i~ncipient effort in Hawaii nei, to establish such a
system-nor should We, for this reason, think it
OoolOAC u dAOptg ~ ~ NHS
machinery of the New England system for Hawaii mel.
(E. g. Teachers Conventions are an essential
feature in the New England scheme-but how can
they be adopted for these islands? In certain por-
tons of the Kingdom. doubtless such conventions
may be wisely initiated-but how about other por-
tons less favored-say this largest of the islands?
Teachers Conventions - in official parlance-have
indeed been established here by authority of the
Board of Education, and a good deal of money has
been expended in carrying out the new idea. The
meetings have been quarterly, and held in three
several localities. But except the single initiatory
convention held in Hilo this last year, at which the
Inspector General was present as leader or President,
and We utter simply the general sentiment-foreIgn
and native-of these most intimately acquainted
with the workings and results of these conventions,
when we set them down as very distinctly defined
individuals of the genus hum6ug. Nor is it at all
chargeable to the laborious Inspector General that
this should be the unsatisfactory result of the at
tempt to acclimate, on uncultivated Hawaii mel, one
of the most efficient features of the New England
education system. 1t is the inevitable outcome of
the conditions Hnder which the premature attempt
was and is made. And, had we the ear of the Board
we would earnestly entreat that Honorable and en-
lightened body either to send US competent teachers
for these conventions, or failing in that, to husband
their resources till these may be more wisely ex-
pended. Just think of it-twenty average Hawaiians
-.eschers in our public schools-thrown together
for a week or twO-with no one of their number
sufficiently eminent in learning, to be worthy of
appeal, as authority-squandering the time in petty
wranglings about nothing and finally coming away
disguised
Aud this, be it remembered, whilst the better part
of our teachers are vainly stretching out their
hands for competent guides in the onward search for
knowledge, and the inferior portion are asleep in
their ignorance, and need therefore, all the more
urgently, the stimulus that well-appOinted teachers
would be able to supply.
We might regret the sore lack of material thus in
dictated, but regrets are vain as remedies. What we