The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-03-04
BISHOP RE:sTARICk ON
G|BsON's GOOD WORK

Editor Advertisers In the Govern
or's message to the Legislature there
is reference to the school for boys
at Waialee.
There has been much written of late
about the training of the boys of Ha-
waii in agricultural pursuits. There is
a belief among many that the training
given boys in the Islands seems to turn
them out as clerks and job ehasers
rather than workers in trades or the
cultivation of the soil. ] suppose it is
because of the fact that most of our
labor is done by Orientals that boys
look down upon farming of any kind.
That education necessarily units boy
for hard, manual labor is shown not to
be the case in the great agricultural
States of the Union where the farmers
as rule are men of good education
and some of an advanced education.
From my own observation l do think
that many industrial schools rather
play at work, or that work is not a
principal but a side issue. / believe
that boys should be given by the State
good grounding in the three s and
that trades are best learned by an ap-
premiership system. Boys from indus
trial schools too often think they know
a trade because they know the rudi-
ments and are not willing to spend
years as an apprentice. This is what
employers of labor tell me all over the
Islands.
Whatever may be said of other.
schools there is one school ON the
Islands in which the boys really do
farming and where results are seen in
the crops produced and in the habits of
industry formed. / refer to the indus
trial or reform school under the charge
have never seen anyone who has visited
the school who has not been enthusiast
tic at what he has seen.
On the occasions when have had
the privilege of spending some hours
at Waialee, I have been astonished
at what [ have seen and at what [ have
been told.
] am not going to give exact figures
as to acres, etc, but to state the fact
that the boys raise all the taro needed
for the entire school of one hundred
and fifty boys. They raise more ba-
nanas than they need and send four
punches week to the Girls reform
school in Honolulu. Pigs are raised
fnI 4Io4 he,
themselves and send in occasional pigs
to the girls school. Sugar cane is
raised and sold to the Kahuku planta-
ton. There are now thirty-two acres
of excellent cane under cultivation.
Vegetables of various kinds and excel
lent quality are grown for the supply
of the school. Usually there is an
abundance for use.
/ have been told by employers of
labor that they have in general found
the boys from Waialee well fitted for
work
Mr. Gibson and his staff are doing
an excellent work and in a spirit which
is remarkably lacking the perfunctory
appearance of some institutions. No
one on visit would know the char
acter OF Che SCHOOL unless ne We're told
what it was. l have visited in nv
life many schools of this kind but this
has more hopeful spirit pervading
it than any I have ever seen.
Mr.. Gibson has no idea that | am
writing this. The only purpose is that
/ am anxious that the industrial school
at Waialee should get liberal appro-
priation. | went just now to call IN
Mr. Gibson on the telephone to get a
few figures but was informed there was
no telephone. Perhaps this means there
IS no money for one. If that is the