The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-12-08

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OF HAwAIIANs.

We agree with our morning contem-
porary in thinking that a great defect
exists in the training, or rather want of
training of young HaWaiians in habits Of
sustained industry. If they were accus-
toned to work, by long apprenticeship or
otherwise, it would be well for themselves
and the country. At present the rough
manual labor and small industries of the
Kingdom are passing into the hands of
strangers The Portuguese are taking
the lead, because they are surrounded
by families and make homes, and are
therefore to be preferred in this calcula
ton to Chinese, who are without family
ties as a rule. The Portuguese have
taken hold of the couI.sry as if they
meant 10 keep possession, and are adapt
ing themselves to surrounding ccndi
tons. This is not to be regretted by
any means. The mission of mankind is to
possess the earth and subdue its waste
places, and if the sons Of the soil will not
do this strangers must.
The example of the Portuguese should
stimulate native Hawaiians to greater
effort 1t should teach them the value
Of perse verance and economy. The
Japanese are also teaching Hawaiians a
lesson in frugality and patient industry.
The example and influence of the Chin
csc has never been beneficial to the
native people, owing to the peculiar
social and personal relations of the two
races; and unless the public policy of
the Kingdom be radically changed, every
year from now should weaken Chinese
influence. The policy of the country is
to check immigration from China, and to
replace the Chinese as an industrial
force by races which will assimilate with
the native people and become identified
with the soil.
But the great defect in native character
is their love of ease and frivolous enjoy
ments; and this defect, instead of be
ing modified by setting up new and
nobler motives of life, has been sedu-
lousy encouraged by those from whom a
different line of action might have been
expected. If the Hawaiian people are
to retain their true independence it must
be founded upon the basis of work
Labor is the source of ali wealth as it is
of all independence, whether individual
or national. This truth has not been
communicated to the natives as it should
have been. They were taught anything
and everything except the value OF hon
est toll. cit might be truly said that the
bane of education in times past in these
Islands was the vain attempt at mere
scholastic attainment" We quote from
the last report of the President of the
Board of Education. This report con,
tinues:
Long ago schools were established
throughout the group, and it has been the
boast of this little Kingdom that a larger
percentage of the native population could
read and write than that of any other
country, perhaps. Yet the ability to read
and write, to pronounce words from paper
on the one hand, or to write words on pa
per on the other, does not constitute edu-
cation, nor the lack of it necessarily mean
the want of education. We know that
comparatively few of the Greeks could
either read or write, and yet we know they
were really highly educated people.
Reading and writing are simply 4 means
OF education, and as in many other in
stances, they are often taken for the
thing itself. What is the use of the fume
unless there be water to run through il
1t is, perhaps, well enough to teach a Ha-
waiian boy and girl to read and write the
native language for itself, but very little
education can be got out of it. Such
schools as have existed for Hawaiians
other than primary, have been exclusively
of a literary character, and done little tc
prepare the rising generation for earning
an independent living. If there be an or
der in education, and no one disputes the
fact, then it would be rational to suppose
that the kind which cOnduces to the liberia
maintenance of a human being and those
dependent upon him, should be the frs
thought of. Other countries are fast re
cognizing this fact, and in connection witt
the public schools are establishing manua
training or industrial schools, in which
the hand and eye are educated as well q,
the brain.
twenty-five years ago Mr. Herber
Spencer said: The vital knowledge-tha
by which we have grown "a q natior
Great Britain to what we are, and which