The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-03-25


lack of persistent effort; and that the
white child IS self Handicapped. Faith
full diligence and sincere effort, give TO
the other races that training and com
prehension that the American child fire.
quently fails to secure
So the hildren-American, Hawai-
ian, Chinese, japanese, Portuguese, Ko-
reans, ete.,-in any given grade,
progress generally, together, and the
race factor SO far as mental aptitude
is concerned, is negligible.
1t is claimed by some, who support
their statements with ample proof, that
this popular belief in the scholastic
handicap of nonwhite races is untrue.
It is claimed by such that the differ
ences between the home and the school,
just enumerated, have no appreciate
effect upon school work. The child Is
not handicapped in the mode, or in the
number of modes of expression. The
conclusion from these statements is,
however, the same as that previously
given, namely-that the children of all
j nationalities progress with general uni
fornfty of promotion, through the
grades.
If we deny this statement-if We
claim that the children Of different
races have markedly different mental
ability-then we must confess that the
school system which forces these chill
| dren to do the same amount of work
i in the same length of time, is radically
wrong.
If the Chinese and the Japanese can
progress at a markedly faster rate than
the white child, or the Hawaiian. then
| it Is not fair TO put them all in the
same room and grade, some restrained,
some tagging.
Pushing this assertion of racial men
tai difference to its logical conclusion
we arrive at the segregation of each
race in its own school, moving at its
own racial rate of progress. The con-
ditions become those now actually in
practise in certain portions of the
South, where the negro goes to one
school, and the white TO another.
An interesting problem, suggested by
the above considerations, is this; At
what age, in an individual, do the char
acteristie mental traits of that individ-
ual s race first appear9 The answer be-
comes determinant of considerable
Importance IN education.
The general super education of chill
dren is notorious-we have been train
ing Juvenile minds in adult terms-a
foolish dollhouse system that is slowly
being replaced by the activity
education The boy of twelve represents
the man of a thousand years ago, and
his training should be eorrespondingly
primitive and physical. Too commonly
he is trained as if he were in full pos
session of the centemporaneeus race
mind, into which heritage he does not
really come until the middle period of
his adolescence.
The consensus of opinion is that
racial mental differences do not appear
as distinctive until adolescence, and
are thus, from the viewpoint of the
elementary school, negligible.
The race factor in elementary educa-
ton, therefore becomes matter of
minor Importance, and the school in
which varied races progress with gem
eral uniformity though the grades vari-
ations being individual and not racial
amply justifes itself. Indeed, its
pupils. from their very diversity, learn
unconsciously broad humanitarianism,
surmounting race prejudice, and max
ing for ideal citizenship.
VAUGHAN McCAUGHEI.