The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-05-18
HAWAIIAN FEMALE EDUCATION.

HAWAIIAN FEMALE EDUCATION.
The subject of education for Hawaiian girl:
has long been prominent before the Christian
public. 1t has SO persistently drawn on our
pockets that many are probably tired of it. Ger
tainly the work has had large extension and sue
cess, and has received large sums from Christian
beneyolence, both for the support of scholars,
and for the maintenance Of the Boarding Schools.
Yet in one important particular, this work would
seem far from having taken the place which be-
longs to it. Why should girls schools be for
ever a-begging? Why do not the boys boarding
schools come soliciting funds to make repairs and
to support teachers? Simply because the Gov
eminent assumes the entire support of most of
the latter, while their scanty grants leave the
former to indigence.
What are the facts-the figures? Listen to a
very few statistics on this point, carefully collated
from the biennial Reports of the Board of Edu-
cation.
During the biennial period of 1924, we find
that five boys boarding schools containing 3O5
pupils received Government support to the
amount of $3l ,066 -, or $50 90 per boy an
nually, During the same period six girls board
ing schools containing 1875 girls received Govern
ment aid to the amount of So, 0 &c, or $23 90
per scholar annually, being nearly At per cent. of
the per capita of the boys. Then during the
next period of 1916, six boys schools with 248
pupils are getting $26,072 "a, or $50 sc an
nually per capita, while five girls schools with
178 pupils receive $7,397 20, or $50 IS per
head, or nearly 40 per cent. of the boys per
capita. During this closing biennial period of
1868, the girls have a still poorer show for help,
although the expense OF support has greatly in
creased. While six boys schools with 235 pu-
pills have $27,8 9 SO, or 1898 per capita, five
girls schools with 176 pupils got only $6,432 so,
or SIS p per capita. The two large girls
boarding schools of the Roman and Reformed
Catholic Sisters in Honolulu, received nothing
during the last two periods, and are not reckoned
in the above estimates.
Trustees of these girls schools, and other per-
sons intimate with them know how severe has
been the economy practiced, and how detri-
mental to the ladies in charge; and how nearly
impossible it has often been to obtain suitable
assistant teachers for such meagre salaries as the
funds of the schools would justify, with the con-
tinualIy diminishing Government aid granted.
We all know how these schools are compelled to
solicit aid right and left. Lately the native
churches on Oahu agreed to divert a part of their
monthly missionary collections, to the help of
these schools.
Is the education of these native girls in these
domestic training schools really a work of so
much less Importance than the education of ma
tive boys in LahainaIuua and Hilo, Haleakala
and the Reform School, that the Government
should expend four times as much on the one
class as on the other? Are boys schools so much
more essential than girls, that while the former
are amply supported, the latter are properly left
to struggle with poverty?
We do not mean to disparage the management
of the Board of Education. Ii has long executed
its important trusts ably and conscientiously,
and has thoroughly earned the confidence of the
nation. But In respect to this matter in hand,
the fact is that the Board have not wholly got
out OF the old but now forsaken rut of the Ameri-
can Mission of twenty years ago, when in ODE
dienee to DR.. Anderson now exploded views.
boarding schools were at a discount, except for
the purpose of training teachers and preachers.
Open your eyes, gentlemen, and put your money
where it will do the most good.
What Is the relative Importance of the two
classes of schools to the moral and social eieva-
ton of the Hawaiian people? This is a yery
different question from that of higher education
for the two sexes in civilized races. Among the
duHdHCCu udIlOuS, II ndS Oh late come to be held
and practiced, that a large amount of higher Gull
ture needs to be enjoyed by the sex whose pecu-
liar sphere is the home and the nurture of child
hood, as we'll as by the other sex to whom mostly
fall the outside battles of life.
But high culture is not the question before us
for Hawaiian girls. 1t is the question of the
need OF domestic and moral training. The moral
of the sex in Hawaii is radically and
sadly different from what it is among advanced
races. 1t is SO different, that unless amended. it
Will ensure the early extinction of their own race.
and the deep corruption of the European races
which are in contact with them. Education for
Hawaiian girls is not a mere question of higher
culture to make them ornaments in society.
which some OF them have indeed become it
means such a domestic and moral training in the
very elements of virtue as shall lift some infuen-
tai fraction OF them out Of utter pollution and
moral leprosy.
Special institutions for moral training are
needed by Hawaiian girls for a reason that does
not exist IN our own race. In the advanced
aces, the female child ordinarily inherits pure
Instincts, and at her own nome is unconsciously
Ind undeViatingly educated to those instructive
labits OF delicacy, which make chastity reHqion
or her mature life. No school training is wanted
o secure this for her. 1t is the traditional in-
tinct of the race. 1t pervades society and the
lome. How deep an insult to a daughter of our
ace to suggest that school training was needed
Undue her with principles of purity Not so
'lth the Hawaiian girls. lnheriting from I'M
generations of disordered habit. an
xcessive animalism, their infancy and girlbood ,
re passed in daily familiarity with constant i'm :
urity of act and speech among their own kim
red. Our inherited ideas of woman's sacred F
ess are remote from their homes. NJ
Hence it must be, that if for the salvation of
society, any considerable number of 5,
iris are to be elevated to what we consider ordi- n
airy matter-Of-course virtne, it can be done only
y gathering them in early childhood into asv- q"
inns, where they shall be quite separated from
ne debasing influences of their home-life. and G
lall be moulded by the long and constant per- by
'nal contact of devoted women of high and Gull
waited character. They must be trained to habits or
obedience, order, laborious industry, neatness Y
nd skin, the common domestic virtues of civil '
rtues.
1t Is essential that the religious life of such a =
.hool should be of the strongest. The higher
I"aru lie OF the spirit must be awakened in it's r
over to rule the flesh and govern the life. The !
'irit must be enlisted in loyalty to its Lord. in 4