The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-01-29
SCHOOL WORK PROMOTES
INTEREST IN HAWAII NEI
A Birmingham, Ala, Paper Prints Some Letters
From Pupils in the Honolulu Schools
About the Land We Live In.

The Birmingham (Ala-) News has the
following article embracing some let
| ters from Honolulu:
A practical system of teaching
| physical geography and one that IS
likely to be adopted by all the gram
| mar schools of the city is being con-
| Quoted by about one hundred students
| of the Powell school on Twenty-fourth
| street and Sixth avenue. The two divi-
| sions of the sixth grade are carrying
| one an exchange of correspondence and
products with a similar number of stu
| dents of the high school of Honolulu,
| Hawaiian Islands, at present. A pic
| ture of the high school of Honolulu is
| shown herewith, being a photograph
| sent to one of the Powell pupils.
A GOOD ADVERTISEMENT.
In the past, the system has been used
with New Zealand, Canada, Northern
states of this nation and with points
in England. The unusual interest
which goes with such work is perhaps
the greatest argument for it's use in
geographical study by pupils who are
yet young and hardly evolved from the
necessity of object lessons And it
must be incidentally a great advertise
ment to Birmingham for the samples
of iron ore, coal seams, coke and Stag
are the first to go out of the local school
to the correspondents who are seeking
information mutually with Birmingham
seekers of knowledge. After the re-
souces of this district are exhausted,
the products both of nature and man
ufacture in other portions of the state
are corraled for shipment. Accompany
ing all samples are letters explaining
the existence of the resources, album
dance or scarcity, uses and. every
property of the things represented by
the exhibits.
AMUSING SUGGESTION.
An amusing illustration of the woeful |
ignorance of some correspondents was |
a letter received from a student in the I
high school of Oneida, n. Y. The letter |
was well written and gave every evil
dence that the author is possessed of
the average intelligence of that L,art of
the country. The topics of the COM
included several questions
about cotton in Dixie. One wished to
know if the weed" grows on the streets
of Southern cities. She had heard and
read so often of negroes working the
streets that she thought they were en-
ployed to pick cotton. OF course, she
that rustic negroes toiled in
The fields in the country, but concluded
hat the elite united in gangs and pick
I'd along the thoroughfares of the city.
Needless to say, her correspondent at
The Powell school had not only to go
back to primary days in the cotton
but had to distinguish cot
ton picking from working out police
sentence to the New Englander.
INTERESTING SPECIMENS.
Recently the Powell pupils, under the
direction of the principal, Miss Catalan,
nave received numerous letters from
Honolulu accompanied by samples of
growth of woods, products of various
kinds and coral reefs. Among the stu
tents are Miss Marguerite Merrill, Miss
Gamaliel Dixon, Miss Nellie Newton,
Miss Louise Thornbury and Frank
1lmstead. The handwriting is vertical
md seems to be an imitation of the
style until recently taught in the Birm-
ngham public schools. The prettiest
exhibit is a fragment of coral reef thar
las a chocolate color in contrast Win
he growth along the Florida coast,
which is beautifully white. In the list .
vas also sent a piece of stalactite
which was taken from cave in Ha-
Taii. 1t differs but little from the same
in the United States. The i
1ost interesting sample in the latest
onsignment is a string of moss taken c
rom the crater of Haleakala. Maui, i
1e largest extinct volcano in the whole /
ord. tbs volcano is situated in the S
icinity OF Honolulu and is an attrac- f