The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1889-12-03
HAwAIrS PROGRESS.
Cultured Boston Approves Our Onward
March,

March.
By the favor of well-known friend oil
Hawaii, G. D. Gilman, OF the well-known
firm of Gilman Bros. of Boston, the fol-
lowing extract from the Boston Tran
script of October 29th, anent the new
Hawaiian School Geography, is obtained,
and will be undoubtedly interesting to
readers of the ADVERTISER as an opinion
from the &c Hub of the Universe on the
advance in the enlightenment of this far
away mid-ocean kingdom. The paper
| quoted from states:
4 striking illustration of the fact of
this age of progress, and the part that the
English language is taking in the adj
vance that is being accomplished, is
made manifest in the Hawaiian Geog-
raphy" that lies before US, printed
under orders of the Hawaiian Board of
Education, by Messrs. A. S. Barnes &
Co., New York, in the English Ian
guage.
Our readers who are only advanced to
middle life can easily recall the fact that
in the not distant past the Sandwich
Islands-as they have been Familiarity
known-were considered as OF the utter
most parts of the earth.
There was a sort of dreary tropic mys-
terry whether the missionary or the
missing link would be cannibalized or
converted; whether Captain Cook and
his descendants were still being cooked
-, 81 ~ la 81. IS l,o
sun; or whether the efforts of the self
DENYING men and women who had, as it
was said, taking their lives in their
hands, gone forth to preach new and
better civiliziug gospel that would change
the cannibal to Christian.
Progress, the march of light and truth
westward, have given us one of the most
signal illustrations of a new life, the
vivifying effect of knowledge and the
birth of nation from the savage to civil
ization. The rapid advance of general !
intelligence and the controlling influence |
of the English tongue is shown IN this |
new Hawaiian Geography, published in |
our language. Within the easy memory |
of the writer all the efforts of the mis- |
sionary teachers of the islands were di- |
rected to the instruction of the native |
race in their own language, and ali books,
from the A B G Primer, Colburn's |
Arithmetic and the geography to the
Bible were all in native.
Here We have a beautiful quarto form
OF twenty-six pages, with characteristic
of the greatest volcanic
crater in the world; of the busy, growing
capital city of Honolulu, with its Kings
palace; the picturesque bay of Hilo-the
pilgrimage spot of Captain Cooks land
ing, death and monument; the leaping
of which there is one that has
a precipitous fall of twenty hundred feet
into one of the loveliest valleys of this
earth of ours; and the greatest of con-
.rasts Of life and death in the terrible de-
lava flow, in its track of many
niles. and beside it the tropical vegeta-
ion, bearing the banana plant, the
,ocoanut, the bread-fruit, embellished
With maiden-hair ferns and flowing
,reepers.
Finely-engraved colored maps of the
whole group and of the different islands
1--WE the eye some idea of the lay of the
and" with its many little streams run
ling through the fertile valleys.
The English language is now taught in
he Government schools, as it is found
necessary that the children should be r
quipped with this important addition in
heir education to enable them to COM s
'ete with the rapid increase of foreign
influence on the islands, and to provide
hem with knowledge indispensable to G
heir best development.
The present Administration is doing
II that it is possible to develop the ma '
on in its best aspects. The Board of
EDUCATION is composed of some of the
est men in the kingdom, who bring to
heir work an enthusiasm born of deep B
we for the country and the rising gem
ration. Hon. Alatau T. Atkinson, the
lspector-general of schools at Honolulu, s.
ltrusted the supervision OF his work on
he book, in its passage through the
ress, to Hon. ]. Mott Smith, formerly a ~
,sident at Honolulu and a commits d
oner of the Government to several
ational exhibitions, at present resi-
ent of Boston.