The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-05-31


The II a. M train from Honolulu
steams along the narrow gauge road that
runs close beside the rough coral and
lava shore, down the steep grade past
en- tiny wooden houses one church and
an equally tiny whitewashed box of a
school, and stops for to get off at
Makua. Immediately l am surrounded
by score of hilarious children, natives
and half-whites, fresh from their bath
in the ocean, their hair and bare brown
feet still wet and sticky with sand. They
wear as to the girls, the hideous holoku,
in dark calico-the boys Japanese shirts
and overalls; one girl even boasts a pair
seizes my coffee bottle, another my
lunch, and so back along the track we
go to school. 1t is a special privilege
have, this of coming on the first train,
as in previous years what teachers Ma
kua has had rode eight miles from The
nearest plantation village, over hot,
sandy road, to begin school at the con-
ventional hour of 8. / commence at
11:15. and with a half-hour at /, close on
the approach of the last train at 3:3Y
D. M
Makua is so off the map that outside
of one very much nativized white man,
there are none but natives and a few
Japs and Chinese, who live IN this cool
valley of the Waianae mountains Cor
sequently when / took the school the Of
fetal in the department of education told
me to make my aim the proper use OF
the English language. AS the children
were all said to talk some English, l
felt this an easy task when j opened
school the 10th OF September. 1t is
little whitewashed shed, just large
enough for my table and chair and the
benches for the twenty children. Close
beside it is the belfried church where
service is held once a month or SO.
What kind of a church?'' L asked. ..Oh,
just plain Christian said the native, lit
tie realizing how delightfully."- broad this
sounded to my cosmopolitan ears, tired
with the janSle of the sects. And yet
when one boy at Christmas asked me il
had ever seen Jesus Christ, ! wonder
ed what the missionaries had meant
these churches for. 1 soon found the
English these twenty juveniles knew was
the use of all the worst and lowest
words in our most expressive mother
to one school bif-fore" When 1 talked
they apparently listened attentively, but
on questioning found but few of my
words conveyed their real meaning to
these coffee-colored. big-eyed children,
ranging from 15-years-old Lupua Kama
ana to 5-years-old Mihala Kaiama.
| My work was confined to oral instruc-
Etion and blackboard work, as the au-
thorities told me to ash for as few sup
plies as possible, and they also said.
your one difficulty will be to get your
pupils to eat enough before school to
keep them awake till l." So each day
ask who has not eaten this morn
| ing?" and the culprit is then sent home
to eat This seldom have to order, as
| to go home from the wahine haole, that
| is, white woman, school means "a lick
| ing" from the mother or father, all of
whom are nobly assisting me in my task
| of teaching true discipline. Oftentimes
| to make the children talk 1 ask, What
| did you have to eat this morning %
Abraham always says, Grabs and salt
| fish,. Mikala is, / fear, inventive, as she
glibly spins out, Coffee, pancakes, poi,
| fish, rice, sugarcane and crackers as
this list includes all the usual articles of
food eaten in a day.
They are a most amusing crew, these
twenty children, but few of whom have
ever been to Honolulu, forty miles by
rail, and nearly half not even to the
nearest plantation villageS Can one
fancy trying to explain what a city is
when only six have seen city, and
this with only 50, 900 or 10000 Inhabitants
To make them think of size or depth
when their horizon is bounded on one side
by the shining ocean, that is deep 80
deep you DROWN and on the other by
the mountains. whose Stppn volcanic
sides offer no attraction to even a har-
dy mountain climber, much less to these
indolent people, whose wants are all
supplied when they have a house in
which to sleep If it rains, poi, the uni
versal uIsh made from taro, the ocean
from whence to get their fish, crabs and
limu, a species of seaweed, and a few
convenient pigs, cows and horses? Some
times it seems a hopeless task to make
them comprehend certain words, these
children of a bountiful land. 1 told them
one day of the famine in India, that be-
cause of no rain there was no food and
no cattle, and that more people died of
hunger in few months than lived in
all these islands. why don't they eat
poi, catch fish, shoot goats eat limu ?"
They hurled one question after another,
and though 1 carefully explained the
conditions 1 saw when / had done a
look of incredulity that showed they
thought famine was only another of
those startling haole tales, like the IA
| nous one of the. 2o-story building with
| elevators winch run like express trains
up to the top. This last item had been
received with laughter and cries of de-
| light at my ability as an entertainer!
! In explaining rich the other day, one
girl itemized the expenses of herself and
| father for me to show $500 was too
much: Poi $3.50 a week, crackers 81
a month, flour s12 a year, gin $50 a year.
her clothes, holoku and muumuu 80
cents month, for her father $35 a year,
condensed milk s24 a year." in all not
$500 a year Coffee they gather them
selves from the old trees in the valley,
tobacco they grow and dry at home, fish
and aqueous dainties to be had for the
| catching.
| One noon l went to a nearby house to
see that "the wriggling eel'' as l dub the
| 9-years-old son of native, had enough
to eat to keep him awake till the close
| of school l found him squatting in
| front of his stove on the sand under the
kiawe tree frying griddle cakes. This
| sounds so absurd, / hasten 10 say his
stove is a kerosene oil can, the top cut