The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-12-01
Kindergartens Are Doing Much
Valuable Work.
JAPANESE TEACHERS IN SOME
Military Drill Plays Prominent
Part in All Govern
ment Schools.
Especial Correspondence

EDIT OR P. G. A.-Here We are IN the
house built by Rev. o. H. Gulick, the
last home of Father and Mother Gulick,
after closing up their missionary life
and labors in Hawaii. 1t is now the
home of Miss Dudley and Miss Bar
rows, who have long been engaged in
educational and evangelistic work
among the Japanese. Miss Dudley
started % years ago Girls School
now grown into Kobe College, an in
stitution with dormitories, music hall,
gymnasium, recitation hall, science
hall and a sewing hall recently built
in Japanese style, in the lower rooms
of which the girls are taught cere-
monial tea making and arrangements
of flowers. Without these last two &C
complishments no Japanese girls edu-
cation is considered complete. The
cost of the building was betrayed by
gifts from the Japanese. The site is a
commanding one, high up on the hill
side; and the grounds ample, yet none
too large for so large an institution.
The government has large schools OF
various kinds in the neighborhood, and
the foundations are being laid for one
that in point of size will eclipse all the
others. Much time is devoted to mill
tary drill in these government schools.
1t is a comical sight to see the small
boys in long toggery marching and
countermarching, the captain seeming
to be boy not much older than the
young soldiery.
Miss Howe has large kindergarten
in many large rooms. The original
cost of the building, $1,000, was defray
ed by money contributed by the Japan
ese before Miss HOwe's arrival. Her
enthusiasm and tact in the manage
ment of this school have made kinder
garten work very popular all over
Japan. While we were visiting the
school a young Japanese woman came
in to get an insight into the manage
ment. She was from town in the
vicinity where she has a government
kindergarten of 60 pupils. She herself
had had only three months training
as kindergartener.
Kobe is a pleasant place for home
or for business, the large foreign popu-
lation having some part in the man
agement Of the municipality. But
judging from appearances on the street
there is large consumption of whis-
key and soda. 1t is the same sad story
all through these Eastern parts. In
the foreign cemeteries are the graves
of many young men of dissipated lives
that might have been honored and
e,,1 80 g.. I, sz-lI
alcohol, more to be dreaded than the
bubonic plague or the cholera in such
instances. The city streets are wide
and the buildings substantial in the
foreign settlement. There are more
and finer new Japanese buildings than
l have seen elsewhere and of two
stories. So with the stores, several of
them are of brick and two stories in
height Hut in this country of fires
and Of earthquakes, one hardly knows
which to fear the more, the topping
bricks or the tender box of wood I
have never noticed till / arrived in
Kobe that what I supposed was
smearing of the house with lampblack
instead of oil paint is really charring
of the outside of the wood for preser-
walton against the weather!
We see here, too, among the people
different type of face and features.
l am impressed with the fact that the
Japanese are mixture of races. Some
faces are very much like the type of
the Irish, and others have the feat
ures of the American Indians. Here I
see among the women more of the oval
face and straight nose more of the Gre
clan type, instead of the common broad
ened and f1attened physiognomy of the
ordinary Japanese. So too, have seen
here more of the type made familiar
by the pictures of the Samurai, with
the cigar shaped cue on the top of the
head. They are large, finely formed
men with round full heads of what
suppose to be the Monaghan type, but
off little distance I find myself I'M
able to tell whether the features are
those of man or woman. They may
be the wrestlers, the strong men, of
old times.
We have found the band of mission
airy workers here largely composed Of
women. We have met them socially
and seen their work and it's results as
we'll as methods. / must say, that as
the Doshisha was fortunate in having
such a corps of able and energetic men,
of high intellectual and spiritual quail
f1cations. so has Kobe and its schools
and churches been fortunate in the
schools and teachers. In this quiet
home where all the appointments and
appurtenances are in good taste. it is
not what the eyes see, but what is be-
hind and above the things visible, the
mind and heart that have planned and
furnished it all without look or thought
of costliness. In striking contrast with
the Imperial Palace is the Home
Beautiful of Sancta Simplicitas. No
wonder that when it was intimated
that the home might be broken up, the
Japanese minister. to whom this was
said, demonstrated, for there was no
place he liked to visit so much" 1t is
the work Of Christianity to elevate and
purify the ideals of men, and their
homes should be antechambers to the
mansions of blessedness above, rather