The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-22

ECONOMIC VALUE
OF THE SCHOOLS
What Has Been Accomplished by
the industrious Teachers
in These Islands.

| Editor Advertiser: In two issues OF
the Advertiser, one on Friday last and
the other on Monday, there were some
comments and queries as to the advisa-
bility of making preparation for the edu-
cation of Porto Rican children now COM
ing here, and by inference to provide
for all children of those parents who
work as common laborers in the cane
fields.
These queries and differences seemed TO
put the question upon mere economic
grounds. l. do not regard those grounds
from the highest standpoint in regard to
the education of youth; however, 1 shall
confne my remarks to the mere ques-
ton of the education of man eco
nomie animal or, perhaps better, as an
economic machine Taking this lower
view of the matter, I think it can be
shown from different nations and peoples
that those nations who have earliest
made provision for the education of all
youth are decidedly superior in the pro-
tduction Of wealth and economic well-be-
ing TO those who have not made such
provisions.
Prussia was the first State in Europe
that made ample provision for the edu-
cation of all her youth irrespective of
condition. She was soon thereafter. the
chief State of Germany in economic
twell-beiug, in the exploitation of her re-
sources, in science and in all lines OF hui
man effort. Compare the economic con-
dition of Germany, Switzerland, Hol-
LAND the Netherlands, Norway and
tSweden, England and France. who made
provision for the education of all youth,
with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Russia,
in the production of mere wealth and
I with all those things which wealth pro-
! ducesAa mere comparison is sufficient.
These, facts, so well known to all, are
: not merely academic but are well-known
historical phenomena.
I Coming to the United States. Massa-
chusettS and her influence. with her ex-
i cellentsspublic school system, may be
ISo1trasted with Virginia-two States that
! began their career at nearly the same
time under similar political conditions.
Virginia hads+eyery natural resource;
Massachusetts a bad climate and a mig
gard soil. s~st @@-E7 go
II may be asserted with little difference
of opinion that the early provision for
1.-The educa ton of all her children has
made Massachusetts, under adverse nat
ural conditions, the leading wealth-pro-
ducings State of America. AS she pro-
duceda wealth, larger provisions were
made, for the careful training of her
youth in the highest scholarship and in
the most excellent technical training.
In all those States in which her in
fuenee has been felt merely in the pro-
duction of wealth, they have gone far
ahead of those States in which the Vir-
ginian influence has been predominant
| think there can be little doubt that
this different result has been largely if
not wholly the result of her admirable
educational system. / have neither the
time to elaborate nor would your read
ers have the inclination TO read all that
might be said in regard to educational
efficiency man as a mere productive
machine.
To come home. Our population is
composed for the most part of those peo-
pie brought here for the purpose of Ia
boring, on plantations. Their children.
born here, will become American cilzens
endowed with all the rights, immunities
and privileges of Amer lean citizenship,
among which will be the right to vote.
to hold Office and even to become MEM
bers of. the Legislature
= Can you, Mr. Editor. even contemplate
r the condition of this Territory to rear
, up a majority of its citizens not able to
l read or write the language of the Terri
: tory?
I do not believe for one moment that
you who propounded these queries,
would answer any one of them, as some
of your readers might infer, from the
tenor or spirit of the article. Indeed,
: when I first read the articles. / thought
the whole. thing a joke, or that you were
L.I. Nf 49,
that some of the unwary like myself
might knock it down and find it empty.
If you propose seriously or If any one
propose the thesis that these children
should have no provision for education,
think it,, l should almost say mon
strous. Thinking foreigners have re-
garded and do regard the excellent pub
4 lie school system of America her great
est glory. They go further than this in
thinking that her industrial, commercial
and agriculture. supremacy due in q
large measure to the energy and intel
ligence developed in all her youth by the
excellent opportunities provided for edu-
. cation and training throughout her do
] mains.
Even in the late war with Spain it was
found owing to the want of provision
made for the education of the Spanish
soldier and sailor, that her men-of-war
could not be successfully manned, be-
cause of the want of training of her en-
gineers and the want OF intelligence in
. her seamen, that nothing but education
4 can develope.
: We have a babel of tongues in Hawaii.
Nothing else can unity these various
l languages except elementary public
schools. 1t is a transitional state here
/. and the excellent provisions hitherto
: made by the public-spirited and far
, sighted men and women, who have con-
trolled affairs in the Islands have done
much to unity and consolidate hor~--
geneous people out of this heterogeneous
mass Of plantation laborers.
With all the money that has been
spent and all the effort made by an In