The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-05-07
How It's Observance Has Changed
In Recent Years.
BETTER rH's r1cNIcs OF OLD.
Outing Days Suggested for AH schools.
Fills Place OF ArbOr Day-SchoIars
Divide for study of Natural Branches
In the Fields and Mountains, Etc.

Mr.. EDITOR Now and again
we hear school boys and girls of
fifteen, twenty or thirty years ago
speak of "the picnics we used to
have" Their eyes shine as they
recall days of rambling spent in
our rich, verdant valleys with this
or that company of school fellows,
and one or another well-beloved
teacher, as guide or associate. On
anniversary days we listen as in a
dream to accounts Of Punahou
good times long ago. Sometimes
we sigh as we think that there is
lack Of enthusiasm for the woods
and hills among our children, and
we try to content ourselves with a
popular idea that these are more
scholarly times-that modern re-
quirements are much greater and
that schoolroom work is of a highly
evolved sort. No doubt, indeed,
with the years we have grown more
studious in trying to read our way
out of the huge wall of books ever
being built up around us by the in
creasing number of thinkers and
writer's in the world. But action
and reaction are equal. The world
is growing young again. A clarion
note has sounded through the
schools and colleges Of America:
"Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife;
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more OF wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle
sings!
He, too, is 10 mean preacher.
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher"
A ready response to the call has
come. Nature, like the Bible, too
often a sealed book to the masses,
is now open. Laboratory work
largely takes the place Of text
books in science Individual exper-
iments by the students largely re-
place the experiments performed
by the instructor alone. Further
still, schoolroom doors swing to be-
hind classes who go out into Ma
ture's own pasture, lambs for their
intellectual browsing.
Punahou of today offers some
thing better than the old-time pic
MICS in the newly established out
ing days. How often these will
come, we do not know, but there
might be at least one in every
term. Surely botany without flow
ers and zoology without birds,
bees and butterflies, would be dead |
languages not living voices.
The first of these outing days at
Punahou was last Friday. The
students were divided according to |
the purpose of study and taken by |
the different instructors of the |
school to localities favorable to the |
subject and mood Of the class. |
President Hosmer led a company |
up Manoa valley for illustrations |
of physical geography lessons. DR..
Lyons challenged group of
mountaineers for a scramble to the |
summit of Konahuanui in search |
of rare ferns and geological speci- |
mems. On the summit Of Tan
talus, in the crater, is a rare nook |
for ferns, and there Mr.. Crockett |
took party of collectors for the
spring herbarium. Perhaps the |
merryist excursionist followed Mr.. |
Dodge up Punchbowl, sketch books
in hand, to bring home ambitious
representations of Lunalilo Home. |
We have not heard of any native |
poems resulting from an expedition |
of literature class, but rare op-
portunities were afforded for odes |
to Spring, May Day songs, Sum-
mer is coming" and the like.
This fashion Of Outing Days pre-
walls in the Eastern schools and |
colleges. "Arbor Day." Field |
Day" and Shore Day" are full |
of delightful suggestions to one who |
has roamed through New England |
fields, spotting at every turn some (
new treasure for herbarium, or