The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1900-06-27
FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT.

Philippines is a very difficult and
very serious one. Whatever may be
said pro and con about what United
States rights are in those Islands, or
Spanish rights on those Islands or
what has been politically right or poll
tically wrong, there remains one duty
that as long as the United States hold
sway there, it must do it's duty in an
educational way.
The gentlemen who passed through
here some weeks ago as a commission
TO give civil government to the Philip
pine Islanders thoroughly realized this
and before their departure from Wash
ington gave considerable thought to
the educational side of the question.
They consulted with President Eliot of
Harvard for the proper material, and
after some interviews both with the
President and with the members of the
commission the selection fell upon F.
w. Atkinson, gentleman who is
Harvard graduate and at the time of
the appointment was in charge Of one
OF the principal schools in Springfield,
Massachusetts.
Mr.. Atkinson, the future will tell He
is a man who stands six foot four in
his stockings, has had a broad educa-
ton, a knowledge of European schools,
in fact an all round man, with immense
physical advantages. From what can
be judged the commission could not
have chosen better 1t has sent typi-
cal American, one of it's best educa-
tional product to do it's work. So much
for the man. The Philippines are go
ing to have the best America can give
them.
Now for his work. The problem of
education in the Philippines is an i'm
mense one. 1t will probably absorb
many a brave and brilliant American
before it is worked out There are
sometimes harder things than the
fighting with rifles and taking ones
life in ones hands. There is the wear
ing struggle against ignorance preju
dice, religious intolerance, which can
be waged till the very strongest feels
weary, and the most enthusiastic has
to become discouraged.
When one begins to consider the
problem of Philippine education one is
APPALLED, at the prospect, The object is
TO Americanize. That object was car
ried out here through the English
schools but then the Hawaiian wished
to have his children taught English,
and the result is that scarcely any one
under twenty-five years of age cannot
talk English of sorts. 1t may be good
or it may be bad, but it is Ineligible
English
If the United tSates is going to main
tain it's hold upon the Philippines it
must Americanize them, and to Ameri-
canize them the people must talk Eng
lish. You cannot have a Spanish Am
ericanism, any more than you can have
an Italian Americanism, or any other
sort of Americanism. pure and simple,
and that requires the vernacular to
truly assimilate. If the Filipinos are
going to be good American citizens
they will have to be English speaking
American citizens. The depths of
anarchism, or the heights of autocracy
may be talked of and preached in as
many tongues as We're found at the
base of the Tower of Babel, but the
evenness of combined effort for the
good of the greatest number is found
in the tongue and in the institutions
of that race which speaks one common
language on both sides of the Allan
tic,
The question then, which will face
Superintendent Atkinson of the Phil
ippines is how to Americanize. The
Star believes that the way to meet the
problem is to take the bull by the
horns and tackle the question Of Ian
guage. On a much smaller scale we
have had similar problem here. The
early educators on these Islands be-
lieved in translating a few books into
Hawaiian, and thus getting some no
Iion of education into dark minds. The
result was that for years the people
We're kept apart. They had their cut
and dried knowledge in a few elemen-
tary text books, and they had the New
Testament as a reader and a work to
draw ideas from. Was it any wonder
that mentally the Hawaiian remained
stationary. His mental stagnation for
years was caused by his own teachers,
who circumscribed his intellect by
sleeping it in his own language.
If a success is to be made in the
Philippines it will be by the introduc.
tion of English, not as an exotic but
as an actual teaching language. Many
people may ask, how is it, or can it be
done? The reply is that it is constant
ly done on the Islands. Chinese, JIG p"
anese and Portuguese children. who
have never used a word of English in
their their homes, come in to our
schools, are taught by people who know
not word of either Chinese, Japanese
or Portuguese, and who yet succeed
in instructing their children to speak
and to think in the language the teach
er uses. a. ,s.,,.of 81