The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-07-25
A BENEFACTOR

Mr.. ALkinson's Work in Hawai-.
That $4,000 American soldiers found
Honolulu an American city, and that
the annexation commission found Ha-
wall ready for American self-goVern-
ment is due in no small measure to
I Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson. In the
Hawaiian Star" of May 10, 1897, APP
peared an editorial in refutation OF ar
guments then current in the United
States against the annexation OF Ha-
( Waii, then a subject OF most intense
political interest in Honolulu. This ar
ticle, which was in answer to afgu-
ments advanced by a San Francisco
paper, ended thus:
Lastly, the Argonaut does not like
the idea of annexation because a large
fleet would be required to protect the
islands. Apparently the Argonaut mas
no aloha for the American navy. me
creation of the white squadron must
have been gall and NORWOOD to it's
writer's. That the American flag should
be carried about the world on vessels
worthy of its great traditions is not
pleasing to it,
The man who wrote this is in many
ways remarkable. Alatau Tamchlbou-
lac Atkinson, a son of that English
traveller and writer who first made
known to western Europe the principal
facts regarding Russia's great domain
in central Asia, was born in central
Asia. His baptismal names are the
m q tl,n rn nc NJ
tains within the shadow of which he
was born and of the villige where he
first saw the light. Alatau means va
regated mountain" and Tamchibouac
dropping spring"
Educated at Rugby under DR.. Temple,
now archbishop of Canterbury, Atkin-
son came to Hawaii thirty years ago a
young man. A teacher, he numbers
among his former pupils many gradu-
ates of Harvard, Yale and other Amer
lean colleges and many of the men now
prominent in the islands. For many
years inspector general of schools of
the kingdom, with the inbred Anglo
Saxon contempt of Indigenous language
which is rapidly making English the
language of the world he deliberately
SET IlfilStll liit ldSh u llIdhluS IllSilrii
the language Of Hawaii. He foresaw
that great events must have a great
stage. The Mediterranean served the
ancient world; the Atlantic has served
the modern world up to our time. But
the coming events, as the world grows
larger, viii be the greatest in its drama
and must have the largest stage for
their epactment, the broad Pacific.
Atkinson saw that Hawaii from it's
geographical position had large part
to play In the future as America is be-
ginning to recognize, and to be fitted to
play it well, Hawaii he said. must have
a language, not a mere dialect without
a literature and without history He
became inspector general of schools
when instruction in most of the gov
and many of the private
schools was in Hawaiian. When he re-
tired from the office English was, the
language of instruction in all but three
of the government schools none of the
three attended by more than fifteen
pupils. Almost without exception the
private schools We're conducted in Eng |
fish, and in the very school founded as
her monument by the last of the KAN
ehamehas the Hawaiian language is |
tabooed.
There is Hawaiian legend that the |
language was given to the islanders by |
one of their ancient heroes to keep them |
separate from their kinsmen of the |
South Pacific, so that traffic and inter- |
course being stopped by the barrier of |
alien speech, none would be tempted to |
covet and seize their islands, and the |
should forever remain an |
isolated and distinct people. Alatau |
Atkinson, in order that |
Hawaii should be able to take it's part |
In the worlds work has in reality given
It a language.-C. l.. Rhodes in Chicago |
Record.