The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1897-12-01
PRACTICAL EDUCATION.

thy of consideration here. There are
in all eighty-two such schools in Bel
GUM, and thirty-two apprentice
shops. The cost of them is Sl5O,000
per annum, and about 1000 pupils at
tend. This is a very little over $40 a
head. According to United States
Consul Morris report, each school af-
fords the instruction appropriate TO
its locality. Thus at Soigneis, stone
cutting; at Ostend, fishing; at Client,
weaving, and at Busage, straw plat
ting is taught. There is an element
of practicability in this style OF edu
cation which must commend it to the
educator who has views somewhat
broader than the experimenting with
educational fads.
A correspondent of The Star the
other day suggested that the children
should plant trees, and in this way
improve their lots and add to the
beauty of the country. In Kona, he
suggested coffee might be planted
and return made to the school COM
munity. But the matter should real
ly be considered more deeply The
question before all educators is wheth-
er the whole plan of education which
we now have is not all wrong-or in
very great part wrong.
The world has such very great
reverence for book learning that it
has come to consider hand learning as
of veFy little account, and yet the
training and practice of the
hand is far more important to the
body polite than the mere book
knowledge. Why should the child's
whole energy be turned in purely one
direction, as it is now. No one knows
better than the writer how hard it is
to meet the difficulty, but because the
matter is difficult there is no reason
why some effort should not be made
to meet it.
Take the case of the college bred
man. In how many cases do we find
that the university education proves a
rank failure. If misfortune comes up
on him, what can he do? In ninety
nine cases out of a hundred he can DO
nothing, and he goes to swell the ar
my of incompetents who teach others
to be as incompetent as themselves.
There are lines where the university
education is indispensable and IN any
line it may prove an advantage, and
properly used is an immense advant-
age, but it is after all only good tool
and requires good man to use it.
Looking at the population of our
country it has always seemed to the
writer that too much was attempted.
There was one great aim that the
common school educators should have
kept before them; that was to teach
the medium of speech, and this had
to be English. This was end is nee
essary to give the rising generation a
chance. Beyond that, and the work
was difficult enough, there were the
powers of writing and simple arithme-
tic. Equipped with these, if there is
anything in boy or girl, the super
structure can be. built long after the
school is left
In villages such as Milolii, or Wal
mea or Papa, and dozens of others, it
would be very much better to cut the
pure school book hours short, and put
the pupils to work upon practical
things that might be of use to them
to earn their living when they grew
up. Miloli is essentially a fishing
community. There is no reason why
some of the educational funds should
not be spent in instructing the chill
dren in their life work, and at least
giving them some means by which
they can earn their livelihood. At
Papa the people are cultivators and
some of the school time might be en-
ployed in agricultural work When
we want to train a soldier, a lawyer,
or doctor, we give the lad special
training. Should we not devote some
of our school time to the training of
our children to the ordinary avoca-
tions of life?
There is no doubt that the question
is "A difficult one, but however difficult
it should be met and solved. The fact
is that education, as we have it now,
is too one sided, too bool<ish, and one
is apt to think that those old educa-
tors who set girl to working on her
sampler, and did not give her a smat-
tering of the ''ologies" were not so
far wrong as the modern pedants