The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-07-11

1t is the season for the fitting of
tired teachers and restless pupils. At
our wharves we see them starting to
wing their flight across the blue Pacific
or the troublous inter-island channels,
which they brave in search of rest.
When we have flung after them our last
leis and. waved our last farewells to the
steamers that bear our friends, we turn
our faces mauka, and let our horses
homeward plod their weary way. AS
for us we sit back and with knitted
brows wonder why the children are so
tasked, why the teachers are so worn.
Is it stern necessity or is it poor man
agement that exacts it's yearly tribute
of broken-down forces from our teach
ers and scholars? Let us consider the
case of the teachers. Perhaps the Glass
in Child Study next year will tell us
how the children can be educated with
less wear and tear on their bodies.
First of all, call in our convenient
scape- goat, the climate. Many of our
teachers are imported from the States
where the yearly tonic of frost enables
them to maintain a good average of
vigOr in spite of the excessive strain of
teaching. Here on the contrary, where
they need to live two years to become
acclimatized, and every second year
need to go and recuperate in colder
climates" they cannot indulge in the
same intensity of work without serious
consequences. Our climate is beauti-
If the earnest teacher who comes here
expects to teach with the same fine dis
regard of weather she felt at home, she
will find heaven and earth conspiring
against her The very air is freighted
with indolence.' A strange lassitude
benumbs her will. A severe routine
can only be maintained by struggling,
and it is the struggle that kills.
If in school matters the powers that
be would consider the climate, and what
it will allow in the long run, our edu
cational boards would less often ap-
pear Egyptian taskmasters. Alas
school boards also feel the pressure.
So like the pyramid-b builders, they
keep to the good old way, wearing out
each set of workers in about three
years, then securing, other. countries
for more victims.
Especially is this the case with our
boarding schools. One is aptIy term
ed the ''Lady-killer." 1t grants to it's
teacher-slaYes a daily diet of eight
hours or more of arduous RESPONSE
H. i
general superintendent. 1t adds
weekly designations of study-hour and
housekeeping oversight, and throws
in a few tidbits extra, like escorting
pupils to Church, Sunday School or
Prayer-meeting. The whole banquet
of work is crowned by one or more
weeks of vacation duty, dainty even
more indigestible than any yet offered
to palates already jaded.
One way of varying this diet might
be to relieve the teachers of their po-
liceman duty by introducing into all
work the spirit of the honor examina-
tions of Princetown and Cornell,
working towards the goal of indepen-
dence. Our teachers sometimes Won
der how much we trade on their mis-
sionary spirit, and how much over
work the aforesaid spirit implies.
Not long since, a certain school in Ho-
nolulu adopted the college system of
marks, vastly more ratic7al than the
9297 per cent. method Yet it is a
fact that this new way of marking was
holly denounced by some on the
ground that it made the teachers work
easier!
Many applicants for positions in our
Hawaiian schools do not realize the
demands that will be made upon their
strength. A months work often
proves far more severe than the i'm
agination had promised. 1t would be
we'll for those engaging teachers to
dwell insistently upon the hardship of
the work and the popularity of our
climate, in order to discourage those
in poor health. Even teachers with
good mental and physical equipment
find besides their school work other
conflicting demands. Some social re
creation is needful for their best ser
vice, and church work offers delight
full affiliations. Let such be warned:
The triple alliance of school church
and society is like it's prototype a
veXatious friend.
There are of course of some teachers
who do not have a sufficient margin
in their education. Training is cost
ly. Free opportunities do not cover
special study in the higher depart
ments of learning. The salaries paid
are too trifing to induce costly prep
aration for drawing them; and so year
after year the pressure of necessity
compels hundreds of unpTepaTed teach
ers to march in the rank and file of
young Americas instructors and ours.
It means teachers but little ahead of
their pupils. 1t means work and wor-
~. often failure in teaching.
Sometime however little Hawaii