The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-06-27

Continued from Page IL

in vain. What / have seen T kno1, ,,7
Misunderstanding have been many of NV
discoveries. Similar facts many OF Won
can recall. Touching the mischief done
by unWlse education, / will read short
selection. 1t appeared in the Literary 81
gest of June 1899:
we near good deal from time to
time of the benefits of education bur !,
is not often that We find any one who has
the tefneflty to lace the American people
and tell them that its pet idol. its mi
versal solvent for all ills, is in most in
stances no better than curse. Miss Re
becca Harding Davis in The North Amar-
lcah REVIEW (May), states with charac-
terlsuc energy and positiveness her con-
Viction that the popular attitude upon the
subject of education is an illusion. Ev
cry nation has its rules for national
health, and the American nation has a
number which it particularly prizes She
says:
The most urgent of these rules-the
one IN winch the American puts absolute
falth-ls, Educate; send every boy and
girl to school, 1t never occurs to the
American that there can be a mistake or
room for hesitancy there
Inc writer tells of a village community
IN remote corner of New England
where fifty years ago the men and WON
en- had the elements of q usefui knowl-
edge-could read and write-but had not
gone through the course now prescrib-
ed for their posterity in the same place
Life in this whaling village was full of
hard work, but not destitute of fun and
healthy human activity. This is the pic
ture she draws of their present estate:
The young girls of " go through
the course, nibL--ng at dozen sciences
and PHILOSOPHERS, and two or three Ian
guages, long enough to learn the flavor
] n q ri hut NOT 1I,r
actual food for them brains; not long
enough even to teach them the first les
son OF education-hoW little they know
They find no place as teachers, for New
England is filed with women competent
to teach, standing in rows waiting for a
vacancy. These X young ladies'-for
they are careful to give themselves that
degree-settle~'down at home. They will
not cook nor wash, their mothers do;
! they are no longer of the class of trades
people; they. tare untitled to marry the
| honest laborers on the farms; they NOPE
and look at the world ins false lights
through their tears; and join the great
/ army of half-starved, hysteric morbio
women in New England-the most useless
figures, perhaps, in the worlds swarming
nyriads. The ma jority of the young men
return and wait in vain for work in
which their book learning will prove eff
fective. They.-haye no capital to go into
business; the profess ns are enormously
overcrowded:> they look down with con-
| tempt on tne.strades or any manual la
Dor, in which was tier chance for useful,
earnest lives.' p
What is the source from which. these
lewis of education, which we though,
bNssings, flow? Miss Davis probes the
proSAm and sums up the conclusion of
the wNse matter as follows:
What. 5,en, is wrong? Too much ed
ucation? M No sane man can doubt
that to educaresa human being, so as to
develop his indivfe capacity and to Il
him for his especial place in life, is the
best thing we can do for him. 1t is
gift to him from his fellow men second
only TO that of life. But it must be given
with wisdom and discrimination
Manual training is a support to good
morals and religion. BY assisting to form
habits of industry, it guards against idle
ness and the perils of Iuieness. 1t devel-
ops respect for labor and protects from
the invasion of that pernicious error that
manual labor is degrading or in any way
less honorable than intellectual work
By affording means of self-support in the
emergencies which arise, it saves from
the helplesSness which tempts men to
gambling, forgery and fraud, ana tempts
women to lives of shame. 1t enables
earnest husbands and wives to provide
homes and enlarge, improve and beautify
houses by their own skill. 1t is indisput-
ably true that morality and civilization
are almost vitality affected by the kind of
houses in which people live" Let this
fact be borne in mind, that every reform
school in the country, in the lana, is an
industrial school, and the most success
full combination is that which divides the
school-day's work equally between the
classroom and the workshop garden,
orchard, farm, printing office, kitchen,
sewing room. tailor shop or other places
of hand training. Since formation is bet
ter than reformation, should not all youth
have its advantages?
1t is matter of rejoicing that the new
education has so many friends in this lat
est-born Territory Of the United States;
that Kamehameha College for youth of
the native stock has been started Alright
and possesses so rich an endowment;
that Royal School is to have manual
training added.
Let it never be forgotten that at Hilo,
on the Island of Hawaii, was founded
sixty years ago - school by the Rev. Mr..
Lyman, planned according to the princi-
Piles herein advocated. From that school
and it's demonstrated effectiveness Gener-
al S. c. Armstrong received the sugges-
ton of the superb educational institution
known as Hampton Institute, at Hamp-
ton, Virginia.
Respecting the product OF the combined
mind and handwriting, General Arm
strong sums it up in these words: AN
equilibrium of mental, moral and indus
trial force" In his Judgment, "A rou-
tine of industrious habit is to character
what the foundation is to the pyramid"
What think you of this statement from
a man of high rank-Albert Shaw, editor
of the Review of Reviews:
Better than at almost any other place
in this country, they have at Hampton
grasped the conception of what we may
call integral education. Some day the
people of this country-including the wise
ones and the prudent and some of the
educational leaders-will more or less
suddenly wake up TO the realization of a
very curious fact. This fact is that by
all odds the finest, soundest, and most
effective educational methods in use in
/ the United States are to be found in GER
/ tain schools for negroes and Indians, and
/ in others for young criminals in REFORM
| atory prisons If ] paid $4,000 year for
| it I could not possibly give my own small
+ bov anywhere in or about New L ork City
( the advantages Of as good school as the
/ IA ggedest little negro child of Phoebus.
/ va. freely enjoys, whose education is
under the care Of the Hampton Institute