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Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901

Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901-400

Hilo Boarding School and Mission Houses

Hilo_Boarding_School_and_Gardens-from_Haili_Hill-Lothian-1856

Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)

Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835

Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Punahou-Girls-Court-of-the-E-Building-1877

Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866-E bldg to left-Old School Hall right

Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Kamehameha School for Boys campus-(KSBE)-before 1900

February 25, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Foreign Mission School

In June 1810, Mills and James Richards petitioned the General Association of the Congregational Church to establish the foreign missions. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was formed with a Board of members from Massachusetts and Connecticut.

ABCFM had its origin in the desire of several young men in the Andover Theological Seminary to preach the gospel in the heathen world. (The term ‘heathen’ (without the knowledge of Jesus Christ and God) was a term in use at the time (200-years ago.))

“The Board has established missions, in the order of time in which they are now named at Bombay, and Ceylon; among the Cherokees, Choctaws, and the Cherokees of the Arkansaw ….”

It is important to note that in the early nineteenth century all land west of the Ohio Valley was considered foreign territory. Westward continental expansion bled into the Pacific and beyond. (NPS)

By 1816, contributions to the ABCFM had declined. There were several reasons including post-War of 1812 recession and the fact that India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) were too remote to hold public interest. (Wagner)

Folks saw a couple options: bring Indian and foreign youth into white communities and teach them there, or go out to them and teach them in their own communities. They chose the former.

“If the proper means were employed, no doubt can be entertained, that many of these Youths would become the instruments of good, to themselves and to the nations to which they belong. From the declarations o: providence of God, it is reasonable to hope, that some, if favoured with a religious education, would become the subjects of divine grace.”

“The great object in educating these Youths, is, that they may be employed as instruments of salvation to their benighted countrymen. Should they become qualified to preach the Gospel, they will possess many advantages over Missionaries, from this, or any other part of the Christian World.”

Formation of Foreign Mission School

“(W)e have a school at Cornwall, Connecticut, instituted for the purpose of educating youths of Heathen nations, with a view of their being useful in their respective countries. This school commenced in May, 1817. The number of pupils is at present about thirty; fifteen of whom are Indian youths, of principal families, belonging to five or six different Indian tribes …”

“… several of these last receive an allowance from the government; and I beg to commend them all to the favor of the President, as very promising youths, in a course of education, which will qualify them for extending influence, and for important usefulness, in their respective nations. They, as well as the pupils in the schools in the nations, are exercised in various labors, and inured to industry; and the school comprises most of the branches of academical education, and is under excellent instruction and government.” (Morse, 1822)

The object of the school was the education, in the US country, of heathen youth, so that they might be qualified to become useful missionaries, physicians, surgeons, schoolmasters or interpreters, and to communicate to the heathen nations such knowledge in agriculture and the arts, as might prove the means of promoting Christianity and civilization. (ABCFM)

Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School exemplified evangelical efforts to recruit young men from indigenous cultures around the world, convert them to Christianity, educate them and train them to become preachers, health workers, translators and teachers back in their native lands.

The school’s first student was Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia (Obookiah,) a native Hawaiian from the Island of Hawaiʻi who in 1808 (after his parents had been killed) boarded a sailing ship anchored in Kealakekua Bay and sailed to the continent. In its first year, the Foreign Mission School had 12 students, more than half of whom were Hawaiian.

Curricula operated at various levels, as some of the pupils were more advanced in their studies while others where just learning basic literacy – the more advanced students helped teach the others.

Students rose around 5 or 6 am and ate breakfast together at 7 am in the dining room of the steward’s house. Daily classes ran from 9 am to noon, and again from 2 to 5 pm, with all sessions taking place on the first floor of the main school building just across the street from the steward’s house.

The coming of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and other young Hawaiians to the US, who awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches, moved the ABCFM to establish a mission at the Islands. When asked “Who will return with these boys to their native land to teach the truths of salvation?”

Bingham and his classmate, Asa Thurston, were the first to respond, and offer their services to the Board. (Congregational Quarterly) They were ordained at Goshen, Connecticut on September 29, 1819; several years earlier from Goshen came the first official request for a mission to Hawai‘i; this ordination of foreign missionaries was the first held in the State of Connecticut.

“During its brief existence, Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School taught over 100 students. More importantly, however, it connected a small town in Connecticut to larger, international events, such as the flourishing Christian missionary movement. Additionally, it reveals the boundaries of tolerance in the early 1800s.” (Connecticut History) By the time the school closed in 1826, only fourteen students remained.

Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School

Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835

Steward’s_House

Cornwall Valley Map Sketch-1825-26

Cornwall Map-1854

Litchfield and Cornwall Map

Henry_Opukahaia,_ca. 1810s

Four_Owyhean_Youths-Thomas Hoopoo, George Tamoree, William Tenooe and John Honoree

December 19, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Founder’s Day

(The following is an address delivered on Founder’s Day at Kamehameha Schools by Charles R Bishop – published in Handicraft.)

The trustees of the estate of the late Hon. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, deeming it proper to set apart a day in each year to be known as Founder’s Day, to be observed as a holiday by those connected with the Kamehameha Schools …”

… and a day of remembrance of her who provided for the establishment of these schools, have chosen the anniversary of her birth, the 19th of December, for that purpose, and this is the first observance of the day.

If an institution is useful to mankind, then is the founder thereof worthy to be gratefully remembered. Kamehameha I by his skill and courage as a warrior, and his ability as a ruler, founded this nation.

Kamehameha II abolished the tabu and opened the way for Christianity and civilization to come in. Kamehameha III gave to the people their kuleana and a Constitutional Government, and thus laid the foundation for our independence as a nation.

Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma were the founders of the Queen’s Hospital. Kamehameha V was a patriotic and able sovereign, and Lunalilo was the founder of the Home which hears his name. All these should be held in honored remembrance by the Hawaiian people.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop, by founding the Kamehameha Schools, intended to establish institutions which should be of lasting benefit to her country; and also to honor the name Kamehameha, the most conspicuous name in Polynesian history, a name with which we associate ability, courage, patriotism and generosity.

The founder of these schools was a true Hawaiian. She knew the advantages of education and well directed industry. Industrious and skillful herself, she respected those qualities in others. Her heart was heavy, when she saw the rapid diminution of the Hawaiian people going on decade after decade, and felt that it was largely the result of their ignorance and carelessness.

She knew that these fair islands, which only a little more than a century ago held a population of her own race estimated at 300,000 or more would not be left without people; that whether the Hawaiians or not, men from the East and from the West would come in to occupy them: skilful, industrious, self-asserting men, looking mainly to their own interests.

The hope that there would have come a turning point, when, through enlightenment, the adoption of regular habits and Christian ways of living, the natives would not only hold their own in numbers, but would increase again like the people of other races, at times grew faint, and almost died out.

She foresaw that, in a few years the natives would cease to be much if any in the majority, and that they would have to compete with other nationalities in all the ways open to them for getting an honest living; and with no legal preferences for their protection, that their privileges, success and comfort, would depend upon their moral character, intelligence and industry.

And so, in order that her own people might have the opportunity for fitting themselves for such competition, and be able to hold their own in a manly and friendly way, without asking any favors which they were not likely to receive, these schools were provided for, in which Hawaiians have the preference, and which she hoped they would value and take the advantages of as fully as possible.

Could the founder of these schools have looked into the future and realized the scenes here before us this day, I am sure it would have excited new hopes in her breast, as it does in my own.

If the Hawaiians while continuing friendly and just toward all of those of other nationalities, are true to themselves, and take advantage of the opportunities which they have, and are governed by those sound principles and habits in which they have been instructed, and in which these youths now present are here being taught day by day both in precept and example, there is no reason why they should not from this time forth, increase in numbers, self-reliance and influence.

But on the other hand, if they are intemperate, wasteful of time, careless of health and indifferent as to character; and if they follow those evil examples, of which there are so many on every side, then, nothing can save them from a low position and loss of influence, in their own native-land, or perhaps from ultimate extinction as a race.

But let us be cheerful and hopeful for the best, and see to it that from these schools as well as from the other good schools – shall go out young men fitted and determined to take and maintain, a good standing in every honest industry or occupation in which they may engage.

These schools are to be permanent and to improve in methods as time goes on. They are intended for capable, industrious and well-behaved youths; and if Hawaiian boys of such character fail to come in, other boys will certainly take their places.

We look to those who may be trained in the Kamehameha Schools to honor the memory of the founder and the name of the schools by their good conduct, not only while in school, but in their mature lives as well.

So long as we are in the right, we may reasonably trust in God for his help; let us always try to be in the right. (All from the Founder’s Day at Kamehameha Schools by Charles R Bishop.)

Charles_Reed_Bishop_and_Bernice_Pauahi_Bishop_in_San_Francisco-September_1876

November 15, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Haleakala School

Asa G Thurston, son of missionary Asa Thurston, married Sarah Andrews, daughter of missionary Lorrin Andrews and Mary Wilson Andrews, in October 1853.

“Mr Thurston soon met with severe financial reverses. In his strenuous efforts to recover himself he contracted aneurism, of which he died in the early sixties, leaving his widow and three orphan children in poverty.” (Hawaiian Star, January 16, 1899)

Sarah Andrews Thurston, became a teacher for nine years in the Royal School in Nu‘uanu Valley to support her young family after her husband’s death.

In 1868 she was offered the job of matron of a new industrial school for boys in Makawao, Maui, known as the Haleakala School, nine miles from the summit of that mountain. Her brother, Robert Andrews, had been appointed principal, and Sarah moved her family – Lorrin, his older brother, Robert, and sister, Helen – to Maui. (Twigg-Smith)

“The location is a remarkably healthy one, in Makawao, on the slope of Haleakala, the great mountain of Maui, at an elevation of some 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, in the range of the trade winds, and consequently enjoys a temperature of perpetual spring, never either uncomfortably hot or cold.”

“It is also admirably secluded, ‘far from the busy haunts of men,’ and there are no temptations for the boys to roam. The property is a valuable one for grazing and tree-culture, comprising something over 1,000 acres leased from the government by the Board of Education.”

“Belonging to the establishment is a fine herd of cattle, which under the care of Mr. Harvey Rogers, supplies a large quantity of milk, part of which is used by the scholars, and much fine butter made of the rest.”

“The school numbers at present thirty-three boarders and five day scholars, and applications are now pending from others wishing to place their boys where they can be educated.”

“The studies embrace a good common school course, with religious exercises, singing, and military drill. The discipline of the school is strictly military.”

“Flogging is abolished, and the effort is being made to bring the boys to be useful men, as well in the practical work of life as in scholarship.”

“The boys are organized as a company of Infantry, and have their officers appointed from their racks on of good behavior, study and discipline.”

“The buildings are convenient, but need enlarging if many more scholars are to be admitted. There ought to be room for seventy or eighty.”

“The scholars are expected and required to assist in the work of the dairy, in agriculture, tree-planting, and in fact, in everything that is required to be done on the place.”

“They are about being uniformed, i.e., the dress suit for Sundays and holidays made of blue flannel, and as a particular pattern must be followed, arrangements have been made so that the suits can all be made at the school. Economy and uniformity is particularly required.”

“A large vegetable garden is being enclosed, and the boys are given plots of ground to cultivate. The articles thus of raised are fairly valued, and each boy is credited on his school account with what he has thus furnished.”

“The food is abundant and good in quality; kalo, as pai-ai, poi, beef, fresh and salt potatoes, rice, milk in abundance, syrup, and hard-bread are the staples.”

“The school is flourishing, and is a credit to the Principal, Mr. F. L. Clarke, to the Matron, Mrs. Thurston, and to all concerned. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 3, 1873)

“The annual examination of this school for boys, was held on Thursday, June 8, and was largely attended by an interested audience of natives and foreigners, who, by their frequent expressions of applause, shewed that they were much pleased with the exercises.”

“The school-room was crowded at an early hour, and from the beginning to the end of the examination there was exhibited on the part of the teachers an earnest endeavor to draw out the capabilities of to the scholars; and this was satisfactorily responded to by the latter in their answers to the various questions propounded.”

“We were struck with the range of topics. ‘Arithmetic’ embraced questions of practical importance not found in the books, but of first value to the resident of these Islands; ‘Geography,’ (in which super-excellence was shown) embraced a wider range than is usually seen in its study …”

“… and the questions in Orthography evinced careful study, and a sensible idea of what is demanded of the young Hawaiian. Ease of delivery, correctness of gesture, and distinctness in elocution, made the duty of listening to the selections a pleasure.”

“One thing struck us as peculiarly happy – the majority of the pieces spoken gave prominence to our duties and obligations to God; and as all the pieces spoken were the selections of the scholars themselves, we are lead to the inference that ‘out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 17, 1876)

As noted, son of the school Matron, Lorrin Thurston, was a student at the school, as were other notables, including his classmates Robert Wilcox and Eben Low.

The school facilities were later used by Maunaolu Seminary (following a fire at their facilities in 1898).

Haleakala School-Reg0603-1872-sites noted

Haleakala School-Reg0603-1872-school site noted

October 26, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Armstrong Appointment

“The Missionaries have been the fathers, the builders and the supporters of education in these Islands, and (William Lee) thought it proper that their wishes in reference to the appointment of a person to superintend Education should in some degree be consulted”. (William Lee)

“Mr Richards the Minister of Public Instruction is sick and has been given up to die, though he still lives. The Minister of the Interior has been appointed to act for him provisionally”. (Gerrit Judd)

“Mr. Wyllie rose and said a sense of duty to the King induced him to state that the appointment of a Minister of Public Instruction, in the peculiar circumstances of the Islands, was the most important under the Crown.”

“On public instruction was based the Security of His M’s Crown, and the progress of His subjects in civilization and christianity. That, therefore, an appointment so momentous for good or evil, ought not to be precipitately made.” (Two names were discussed, Lorrin Andrews and Richard Armstrong.)

“That the man of greatest talent, most moral worth, most devoted to the King and to His Subjects and best acquainted with the language should be selected and he believed that man to be Mr Armstrong.”

“He gave this opinion as if speaking in presence of his Maker and having to answer for it, at the great day of Judgement. But he
hoped that whoever might be appointed, the appointment should be considered provisional, so as to meet the case of the possible recovery of Mr Richards.” (Richard Wyllie)

Lee “Said it was his mind that this matter is the most important one that can come before the Privy Council. With the Minister of Public Instruction rested the weighty responsibility of moulding the mind and character of this Nation for generations to come.”

“How necessary then, that we select the best man the Kingdom affords. He had looked around him to see who this man was, and his mind and heart were fixed upon Richard Armstrong.”

“He was his first choice, and in his humble opinion the Man of all men best adopted to discharge the high duties of this Post. He gave his preference to Mr Armstrong because he was a good Man, a wise Man and an industrious Man.”

“He would say nothing in disparagement of Mr Andrews of Molokai, for he knew little or nothing about him. But he did know Mr Armstrong, and thought he should certainly have the first offer.”

“He was a tried and devoted to this Nation and one whom we could not mistake – A question of such vast importance required our most sober deliberations, and he trusted that in whatever we did, we might not move with precipitation.”

“He most heartily concurred with Mr Wyllie in his remarks, and would end as he began, in stating it as his firm conviction, that Richard Armstrong was the Man.” (Lee)

“Mr (John Papa) Ii spoke very eloquently in favor of both candidates – said that either of them do well, but that Mr Armstrong was a good fisher of Men and that his loss would be severely felt in the Church.” (Ii)

Richards died – “the oldest, the most devoted, faithful and tried servant of His Majesty. He had given all the best energies of his body, mind & soul to this Nation, and what was more, he had died in poverty”. (William Lee)

“Kekuanaoa states that in his opinion Mr Armstrong be appointed and so notified. In his opinion, Mr Armstrong was the best Man and that he ought to be appointed at once.” (Kekuanaoa)

“Mr Wyllie stated that notwithstanding all that had been said, he could not without violence to his conscience, do otherwise than support the views of Governor Kekuanaoa and John Ii. Their views were r that Mr Armstrong should be appointed subject to the approval of the Missionaries at their next General Meeting.”

“He (Mr Wyllie) supported those views, both because he considered Mr Armstrong the best man, & because the whole Missionary body thought him to be the best Man. …” (Wyllie)

“It was, therefore, due, no less in gratitude than in policy, for the Government, to act so as to cultivate the good opinion & continue the sympathy of the American Board of F. Missions in the U. S. and the good will of the Missionaries here.”

“Nothing would do that more effectually than the appointment of M. Armstrong, whom all the Missionaries considered the fittest Man for the Post, although from the value they attach to him, they did not like to part with him.”

“He believed and Mr Armstrong also believed that by waiting till the next General Meeting, the Missionaries would so far consent to his separation, as to enable him to take office with their approval.” (Wyllie)

“Mr Wyllie moved the following Resolution ‘Resolved that the Reverend Mr Armstrong’s offer to assist the Minister of the Interior until the next General Meeting of his brethren, be accepted; and that if he can then obtain the approval of his brethren, he be appointed to the Office of Minister of Public Instruction.’” (Wyllie)

“The Rev. Mr. Armstrong, having by letter to Judge Lee, dated May 1848, accepted the office of the Minister of Public Instruction, tendered him by Resolution of the 2nd of December 1847 – took the Oath of Allegiance.” (All from Privy Council Minutes)

Armstrong left the mission and became Minister of Public Instruction on June 7, 1848. Armstrong was to serve the government for the remainder of his life. He was a member of the Privy Council and the House of Nobles and acted as the royal chaplain.

He set up the Board of Education under the kingdom in 1855 and was its president until his death. Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

The government-sponsored education system in Hawaiʻi is the longest running public school system west of the Mississippi River. To this day, Hawaiʻi is the only state to have a completely-centralized State public school system.

Armstrong helped bring better textbooks, qualified teachers and better school buildings. Students were taught in Hawaiian how to read, write, math, geography, singing and to be “God-fearing” citizens. (By 1863, three years after Armstrong’s death, the missionaries stopped being a part of Hawaiʻi’s education system.)