page_title: Foreign Mission School
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Foreign Mission School / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The "Four Owyhean Youths": Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree.
context_page_description: The Foreign Mission School was an educational institution which existed between 1817 and 1826 in Cornwall, Connecticut. It was established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to bring Christianity and Western culture to non-White people by educating missionaries of their own culture.
context_section_description: The school was called a seminary at the time, "for the purpose of educating youths of Heathen nations, with a view to their being useful in their respective countries" according to Jedidiah Morse.
  The school was established in the last few months of 1816, and opened in May 1817. The first principal was Edwin Welles Dwight (1789–1841). After the first year, Dwight was replaced by Reverend Herman Daggett who ran the school for the next six years.
  Daggett was nephew of Naphtali Daggett who had been president of Yale College, and Dwight was distant cousin of the Yale president in 1817, Timothy Dwight IV. 
  Approximately one hundred young men from non-European indigenous peoples were trained at the school with the intent of their becoming missionaries, preachers, translators, teachers, and health workers in their native communities.
  According to Morse, 
  there belong to it (the school) a commodious edifice for the School, a good mansion house, with a barn, and other out-buildings, and a garden for the Principal; a house, barn, &. with a few acres of good tillage land for the Steward and Commons; all situated sufficiently near to each other; and eighty acres of excellent wood land, about a mile and a half distant.
  In the constitution there is a provision, that youths of our own country, of acknowledged piety, may be admitted to the school, at their own expense, and at the discretion of the Agents.
  
  Under the instruction of the able and highly respected Principal, the Rev. Mr. Daggett, and his very capable and faithful assistant, Mr. Prentice, the improvement of the pupils, in general, has been increasing and satisfactory, and in not a few instances, uncommonly good. Besides being taught in various branches of learning, and made practically acquainted with the useful arts of civilized life; they are instructed constantly, and with special care in the doctrines and duties of Christianity. Nor has this instruction been communicated in vain. Of the thirty-one Heathen youths . . . seventeen are thought to have given evidence of a living faith in the Gospel; and several others are very seriously thoughtful on religious concerns.
  From its founding, the school rapidly became a symbol of American Christianity's Second Great Awakening, and connected the small farm town of Cornwall in Connecticut's Litchfield Hills to the early 19th century's clash of civilizations, as epitomized by the Trail of Tears, the conversion of Hawaii to Protestantism, and the worldwide Christian missionary movement. Cornwall had been chosen for the school's location due to the devoutness of the residents and their consequent willingness to donate their efforts, money, and property to a devout cause, as well as their reputation as hard-working people of good character. 
  Henry Opukahaia, the school's first pupil, was an 18-year-old Native Hawaiian abandoned in New Haven, Connecticut in 1810 by his ship. He traveled widely to promote the school, but died in Cornwall in 1818 at 26 before he could return home. He recruited four more Hawaiians, including one who called himself "George Prince" with a record of fighting in the War of 1812, and the school printed a pamphlet with their stories to raise money. Samuel F. B. Morse, son of Jedidiah, painted their portraits. Other students came from distant countries as well as many Native American tribes, bringing 24 different native languages.
  In its first year, the school had twelve students; seven Hawaiians, one Hindu, one Bengali, a Native American, and two Anglo-Americans. By the second year, there were twenty-four; four Cherokee, two Choctaw, one Abenaki, two Chinese, two Malays, one Bengali, one Hindu, six Hawaiians, and two Marquesans, as well as three Anglo-Americans.
  The students followed a demanding schedule befitting the devout mission of the school, doing field work  in the time unoccupied by their mandatory church attendance, prayer, and 7 hours of daily coursework. The program of study included astronomy, calculus, theology, geography, chemistry, navigation and surveying, French, Greek, and Latin, in addition to
caption: The Four Hawaiian Youths: Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree by S. F. B. Morse, 1816
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