The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-05-23
AN Able ADDRESS
BY PRESIDENT DOLE.
The Early History of Punahou
Mission School.
ORIGINAL GIFT FROM H. BINGHAM.
acter of the PupiIS-Advancemen
OF the Studies-The Gift of Mr.. Bis
hop-Future of the Oahu College.

Following is the address delivered
by President Dole at the dedicatory
services of the Pauahi Hall Thursday
night:
| Mr.. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The progress OF any school of vigOr-
| Gus growth is to some extent marked
| by It's successive school houses. They
| are significant sometimes of Scant re-
| sources and of eras of difficulty, some
| times OF advancement in wealth or in
| crease OF patronage; occasionally one
| speaks elOquently OF devotion to nat
| ural science with its tower of stone
| lifting a telescope toward the skies, or
| III it's harmonious proportions and art
| istic detail tells of a refined and aeS-
| thetic quality of educational eminent.
OF the higher and paramount qualities
| Of school work they cannot give direct
| evidence. The teachers fidelity to his
| high ideals leaves no mark in stone,
and his success in weaving these ideals
into the characters of his pupils can
not be recorded in the architectural
lfeatures of school houses.
| / Although PunahOu School is general
lIy credited with having opened in 1912,
| l learn from it's oldest pupil, the Rev.
| Orramel II. Gulick, that the real start
was made in 1871. Ancient letters in
my possession corroborate this. In the
old Bingham residence, a small adobe
building which stood a few yards east
of the place where the present Dole
| Hall now stands, the school was begun
with a small class of children. AL
though this use was but temporary, yet
the little sitting room of the Rev. Hi
ram Binghams home, which he had
with noble self-sacrifice given, with
the wide acres about it, was in truth
the birthplace of Punahou School and
Oahu College.
While this preliminary teaching was
thus carried on, worl1men were busy on
the double quadrangle which, with
some changes in it's details, has until
recent date been so familiarly known as
Punahou School. This was at first
One-story building with ground plan
like the capital letter E. enclosing on
three sides two square courts. One
half of the middle wing between the
courts was reserved as a school room,
and for ten years it was the school
room. Here school was regularly open
ed July 18th, 1912, with about fifteen
pupils, varying in age from seven to
twelve years.
This was PunahOu's first permanent |
school house. With it's adobe walls !
made of good Punahou soil, it's timbers
and rafters out of the Manoa forests, |
it's roof of thatch from the sides of |
Round Top, and it's plastered and |
whitewashed exterior and interior |
from the coral limestone and beach |
sand of the KewalO reefs, it was in a |
sense "to the manner born" 1t told |
a story of limited resources, of plain |
living, and of the high sense Of the |
missionary fathers of the value Of ed |
ucation; it told more than this |
hitherto they had fought heathenish |
and had striven to save souls for heav |
en- with both hands, with perhaps |
scarce a thought of a new social life |
for the Hawaiian community; they |
had shipped away their children to the |
United States at a tender age to re-
move them from heathenish infiu- |
ences and to give themselves more
freedom for their work.
But now radical change was taking |
place in their attitude toward the mis-
siOnary enterprise. A part of this |
change was, undoubtedly, unconscious. |
and was Influenced by various causes
the social life already existing in HO- |
nolulu, the pain of family separations, |
the glimmering light perchance of the |
truth that their warfare was not sole |
ly a spiritual one; but be that as it |
may, this little school house with its |
wings for eating, sleeping and |
social intercourse, was evidence of a |