The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-12-21

| President Griffiths of Oahu College
delivered the following excellent adj
dress at Kamehameha Schools the 9TH
| er evening:
| My subject tonight is, 'Kamehameha:
A School and Something More 1 am
| going to speak TO the students and
| from their point of view. I know of
| only one body of young people in whom
l am more interested. For that rea-
| son 1 am going to disregard the older
| persons, and talk straight to the boys
| and girls. 1 have no need to make
| mention of the solemnity and signifi-
| canoe of this occasion. 1t is a fitting
| recognition of great and generous
| deed. You are glad to meet here to-
night to do honor to your noble
Founder. 1t will be a pleasant duty
TO march tomorrow TO the sepulcher of
her whose memory will live as long as
Hawaii itself, and there to bow your
heads over the dust of her whose name
stands highest among Hawaiian women
and whose body lies moulder-
ing in the lap of cath, but whose
hopes and plans and spirit live on in
the Kamehameha Schools.
But this is not all. I do not con-
ceive that Founders Day means that
alone. That would be a poor tribute
indeed to pay to one who has done
so much for you and for her race.
Founders Day is not the meeting here
of students and friends or the per-
functory memorial of a great woman
whom we remember today and hasten
to forget tomorrow-Whose memory
takes a visible form on this day only.
1t is not like a cloak which we put
on for this occasion and then lay care
fully away for the rest of the year.
A cloak used like that would grow
rustier and seedier at every appearance
until at last we would be ashamed to
bring it forth. Founders Day should
be the elimination of a years graft
tude;-it should be gathering force
and power with every days work. L
do not hesitate to say that the pigs
and vegetables which enter into to-
morrow's feast, which you have your
selves grown, have received a little
more anxious care because of the fact
that they were to be used tomorrow.
Every day they have doubtless been
a suggestion of what you We're re-
ceiving at her hands and a reminder
to her. In just the same way, the
daily lesson, the drill, the work in the
shop or in the laundry should have
been reminder that these privileges
do not belong to you by any merit of
yours but that they were given to you
as a sort of sacred trust Mrs. Bishop
did not seek and would not now ask
if she were here any word of thanks.
ton
that fair appreciation which shows to
best advantage in proper use of what
she has put in your hands for the bet
terment of yourself and your people.
In just the proportion that she has
been generous with you SO should you
be grateful and appreciative. Your
daily work in school should bear wit
ness to the spirit which pervades
Founders Day. And in your later life
when school days are no more comes
the greatest test of all. 1t is not so
difficult to remember that we are be-
ing generously dealt with when all
around us in these large grounds and
handsome buildings stand monuments
of that generosity, and when teachers
are with you to remind you lest you
forget. But when you have left these
things behind and when that training
which you have received here is serv-
ing you well and when nearly every
act of your earning life reminds you
that you have learned how at Kane
hameha, then should the spirit of
Founders Day be with you.
Every day you should rise up and
call her blessed who gave you tools
to work with, who made a new life
possible to you, who took you in and
after giving you food and raiment,
sent you forth with new light shin .
ing in your eyes-the light which comes
alone from the power of personal
achievement. The fires which flash in
to fame on Founders Day should be