The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-08-24
BISHOP MUSEUM
AND SUNDAY OPENING

Editor Advertiser read your edi-
torial in the last Sunday issue, relative
to the opening of the Bishop Museum
on Sundays, with much interest, and as
one who has been able to observe from
a favorable viewpoint the conditions
prevalent here, 1 would like to briefly
set down the conclusions I have arrived
at after some years of intimate study
of this question.
While it is undoubtedly true that the
opening of museums and kindred insti-
tutions on Sunday has been very sue
cessful in other countries, the fact that
Hawaii is essentially an open-air coun-
try renders it almost certain that for
this reason alone public attendance at
the local museum on this day would be
very small. The practice which has
prevailed of opening the Bishop Mu-
scum on public holidays may perhaps
be taken as very fair criterion of the
possible success of tie movement pro-
posed. On these days, from carefully
compiled statistics covering many years,
the average attendance has been GER
tainly less than six persons. / write
without access to the actual figures, but
these can no doubt be examined at the
Offices of the museum trustees. Careful
analysis of the records will also reveal
the interesting fact that the proportion
of Oriental and other visitors to white
ones is at least four to one, which win
reduce the average daily attendance of
the intelligent white visitor which the
Bishop Museum attracts ON public holt
days to, at generous allowance, two
persons. When it is remembered that
this institution is one of the best equip
ped local museums of the world, and
that the above attendance has been
probably contributed by tourists, the
project of Sunday opening is one which,
one does not wonder, gives the trustees
pause.
The fact of Sunday baseball having
proved successful in HonolusA has, it
appears to me, very little to do with
this subject. 1t requires little induce
ment to get young people to exercise |
their limbs and lungs on any day of the
week, but wild horses will hardly CO.
cree them indoors on Sunday when the !
beautiful Hawaiian open air is calling. |
The general interest of our commun- |
III fisaA
by the pamphlets which the Promotion
Committee circulates. In these in the |
space of a single paragraph devoted to
the museum more blunders and inaccur-
acies are disseminated than years of at
tempts to rectify can dispel.
The only reason for opening the
Bishop Museum on Sundays would be |
to confer benefit upon the resident |
Tourists are in this in
stance practically negligible in the mat
ter, for few of these are ever stranded |
in Honolulu for a single day, and that |
on Sunday 1t could, however, easily |
be shown that the proportion of resi-
dents of Honolulu visiting the local
museum is ridiculously small. Chinese,
Koreans and other nationali-
ties go there in great numbers, but not |
the more intelligent white citizen. A |
careful canvass taken among the mem
bers OF the families of the principal |
residents of Honolulu would reveal the |
fact that a very great many of them
have never been inside the Bishop Mu-
suem, and that some indeed have only |
a hay idea of its whereabouts.
These conditions are well known to
the trustees of the museum. There can |
be ITO doubt that the reason this in |
stitution is not opened on Sundays is
that there is no valid argument which |
can be addueed in favor of such a move, |
ment. The tourist would not be bene- |
flied by it. The local white residents |
are apathetic in the matter. prefer Ito |
their credit picnicking and other out |
door excursions on Sundays, and have
Saturday afternoon and public holidays |
in which to disport themselves at the |
museum The other nationalities of |
Honolulu have over one hundred days |
in the year to indulge their curiosity, |
which should certainly be a sufficient /
number on which staff of educated |
white men is sacrificed to make an
Oriental holiday.
L. G. BLACKMAN.