Peter T Young

January 25, 2016 by Peter T Young 13 Comments

William Hardy Hill

He reportedly came to Hawaiʻi and jumped a whaling ship, and stayed. (Maui Council)

“Doc Hill (William Hardy Hill) was kind of the maverick businessman in Hilo … (he) eventually, became probably the most influential businessman on this island.” (Henderson)

“Doc” acquired his moniker for selling eyeglasses, after he came to the Big Island in 1913; he opened the Hill Optical Co in the Young Kwong Hoy building in 1917 (between what is now the Kress bldg. & Basically Books.)

License No. 1 under the 1917 legislation to Regulate the Practice of Optometry was granted to Hill; he was a charter member of the Optometry Board of Examiners.

“He had some experience in optics from a job in a jewelry store back on the Mainland, so when he noticed a display of 40-cent eyeglasses in a Chinese store he persuaded the proprietor to let him have four dozen pair on credit. These he peddled to aging Orientals in the plantation camps for $4, on easy payments.” (Star Bulletin, June 6, 1970; Schmitt)

Although the published biographical sketches of Hill mention only a grammar school or high school education, he reportedly possessed a Doctor of Optics degree from Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology. (Schmitt)

Doc added his jewelry business in 1919, and both his optical and jewelry businesses were among the largest in the Territory. When he was elected to our Territorial House of Representatives in 1928, Doc sold his optical and jewelry businesses to his bookkeeper, Freiderich Wilheim “Fritz” Koehnen. (Narimatsu)

“(O)nce you become associated with Doc Hill, you get very much involved with politics.” (Henderson) Hill was a member of Hawaiʻi territorial house and senate (he was senate president 1932-1959;) delegate to Republican National Convention from Hawaii Territory, 1944; member of Hawaii state senate, 1959-67.

Sometimes irascible, oft times flamboyant, but always keenly analytical and astute in his approach to the problems of the day. Senator Hill contributed greatly to the work of the legislature and to the development of the 50th State. (Congressman Matsunaga)

After President Dwight D Eisenhower signed the proclamation welcoming Hawai‘i as the 50th state of the union on August 21, 1959, the First Legislature of the State of Hawai‘i convened on August 31, 1959, in accordance with the Hawai‘i State Constitution.

During this 45-day First Special Session of 1959, the Senate elected Senator William H. Hill of the first senatorial district as Senate President. Senator Hill stated in his Opening Day remarks:

“This session of the Legislature is the most important that Hawai‘i has ever had and without a doubt will be the most important that will ever be known in Hawai‘i because in this session the die will be cast for future sessions.”

“Doc could go on telling you stories forever. (He’d say, ‘You gotta do things when you can, not when you can’t.’ In other words, if there’s a deal to be made or something that you want done, you do it when you can, and that means right now”. (Henderson)

‘Little Doc,’ his talking mynah bird joined him “(e)very year until the bird died In 1965, ‘Little Doc’ was brought from Hilo by his master to alt caged outside of the Senator’s ʻIolani Palace office – whistling at the wahines and saying ‘Vote for Doc Hill’ in true campaign style.”

Perhaps the ceremonial highlight of Doc’s Senate career came in 1967, when he appeared during one of the extended days of the session dressed in a kimono.

“Mr. President,” he said. “I have been humiliated, insulted and shunned the past few days and it’s all your fault. Last Thursday, Mr. President, I arose on this floor to tell you of rumors that the Senate might not adjourn as scheduled the next day.”

“I told you that my wife was going back home to Hilo In a few hours and wanted to know how many shirts she should leave for me In Honolulu. And you told me – before this body – that she should leave only one shirt.”

“Along about Saturday, I began to notice that when I would approach a group of senators I thought were my friends, they would scatter or else get upwind of me. I wondered what was wrong. Had I voted wrong on one of their pet measures?”

If ever the term Elder Statesman fit a man. It fit Doc. After many years in the inner circle of power In Hawaii government, age and the Democratic ascendancy In the Senate moved him back into the ranks during the late 1960s.

But really, Doc Hill never took a back seat to anyone in speaking his piece on the Senate floor. And age which slowed his step hasn’t yet worked its way up to the quick mind beneath that Caesar-like haircut. (Congressman Matsunaga)

It’s well known that Senator WH ‘Doc’ Hill of Hilo is a capitalist, period. (Honolulu Record, December 6, 1956)

“(Doc Hill) eventually got control of, at that time, the Hilo Electric Light Company (later known as Hawai’i Electric Light Co, (and the) General Motors dealership. … (He also had) Wailoa Motors, which operated a major tire-recapping facility that dealt mainly with the sugar plantations cane haul trucking tire needs”.

We had nine theaters around the island … (Hilo Theatres, Ltd) … I might say the theater business was a very good business before television arrived.” (Henderson)

He organized ‘Realty,’ a holding company in 1926; it was parent company to several of his holdings. (Realty was later renamed Realty Investment Co, Ltd.)

He also had “Hilo Thrift and Loan (Hilo Finance and Thrift Co., Ltd,) that eventually became what is known as Realty Finance. Doc was involved in “all kinds” of real estate ventures (land; built and bought businesses; developments, etc.)

From 1954 to 1973, Big Island developers, including Realty Investment Co Ltd, won permission to chop up thousands of acres in Lower Puna and sell them off into thousands of individual lots. (Dayton) Most of the subdivisions were created prior to the adoption of the Zoning Code in 1967. (Puna CDP)

Mainland marketing pieces for Puna subdivisions noted, “Your Future Is Here! If you’ve ever wanted to own property in Hawaii, it pays you to act now. Combine investment with pleasure in the 50th State of the Union.”

“William H Hill, says in his (Hilo Electric Report) that ‘the vast water supply, temperate climate and other natural resources, many still untapped, make the Big Island the Territory’s most valuable land area for economic development and location of new industry’.” (Salt Lake Tribune, April 10, 1960)

Hill and his wife Ouida and large homes in Hilo and Kona, and has hosted notable visitors for decades’ John Wayne and Pilar Palette were married on the grounds of his Keauhou Bay estate on November 1, 1954. ‘Doc’ Hill died in 1970.

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Doc Hill Estate at Keauhou

W.H. “Doc” Hill, far right, and Richard Henderson, second from right-PBN

Director John Farrow (left), John and Pilar Wayne at Doc Hill’s Home in Kona

January 24, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Laupāhoehoe

The northeastern coast of the island of Hawaiʻi presents an almost continuous succession of valleys, with intervening uplands rising gently for a few miles, and then more abruptly toward the snows of Mauna Kea and the clouds.

The rains are abundant on that side of the island, and the fertile plateau, boldly fronting the sea with a line of cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet in height, is scored at intervals of one or two miles with deep and almost impassable gulches.

The streams reach the ocean either through rocky channels worn to the level of the waves, or in cascades leaping from the cliffs and streaking the coast from Hilo to Waipiʻo.

In the time of Līloa, and later, this plateau was thickly populated, and requiring no irrigation, was cultivated from the sea upward to the line of frost. A few kalo patches are still seen, and bananas grow, as of old, in secluded spots and along the banks of the ravines. (Kalākaua)

“Lapahoi (Laupāhoehoe – leaf of lava) is a small stony flat with a few huts and sweet potatoes and taro patches scattered over it. It lies at the extremity of a deep ravine, the declivities on either side nearly 500 feet in height and extending to the sea beach, terminating in a rocky precipice.”

“The coast all the way to Lapahoi was intersected by many deep ravines, many of which had large rivers forming beautiful waterfalls that fell over the outward cliffs into the ocean, the angry surf of which broke a long way up upon the rocks underneath.” (Macrae, 1825)

“The country, by which we sailed, was fertile, beautiful, and apparently populous. The numerous plantations on the eminences and sides of the deep ravines or valleys, by which it was intersected, with the streams meandering through them into the sea, presented altogether a most agreeable prospect.”

“The coast was bold, and the rocks evidently volcanic. We frequently saw the water gushing out of hollows in the face of the rocks, or running in cascades from the top to the bottom.”

“After sailing very pleasantly for several hours, we approached Laupāhoehoe: although we had come upwards of twenty miles, and had passed not less than fifty ravines or valleys, we had not seen a spot where we thought it would be possible to land without being swamped”.

“(A)lthough we knew we had arrived at the end of our voyage, we could discover no place by which it seemed safe to approach the shore, as the surf was beating violently, and the wind blowing directly towards the land.” (Ellis, 1823)

In January 1834, David Douglas (a fir tree was named after him) visited the island of Hawai‘i, traveled around the base of Mauna Kea – including the upper Laupāhoehoe forest zone – and ascended Mauna Kea; while on his second visit to the island, he died at a location near the mauka boundary of Laupāhoehoe and Humuʻula.

In 1859, Abel Harris and FB Swain entered into a partnership and secured a section of land on the Laupāhoehoe peninsula and lower plains; they ran a trading station and attempted to undertake several business ventures, including, collection of pulu (down) from hāpuʻu tree ferns, hunting bullocks in the upper forest lands, and cultivation of sugar cane on the lowlands.

The lowlands of the Laupāhoehoe region became the focus of sugar plantation efforts as early as the 1850s. But it was not until 1876, that a full-scale plantation was incorporated, and a mill established.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

As elsewhere, sugar cultivation exploded on the Big Island. As a means to transport sugar and other goods, railroading was introduced to the Islands in 1879. All the sugar grown in East Hawaiʻi, in Puna and on the Hāmākua Coast, was transported by rail to Hilo Harbor, where it was loaded onto ships bound for the continent.

The rail line crossed over 12,000-feet in bridges, 211-water openings under the tracks, and individual steel spans up to 1,006-feet long and 230-feet in height.

Some of the most notable were those over Maulua and Honoliʻi gulches, the Wailuku River and Laupāhoehoe. Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length.

While the main business of the railroad remained the transport of raw sugar and other products to and from the mills, it also provided passenger service.

Targeting tourists to augment local passenger and raw sugar transport, the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway ran sightseeing specials under the name “Scenic Express.”

Not for the faint of heart, rail trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

But the end was near for the railway. Early in the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami struck Hawaiʻi. The railroad line between Hilo and Paʻauilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled and one engine was literally swept off the tracks.

At Laupāhoehoe Point, waves destroyed teachers’ residences and flooded school grounds, killing twenty-five people, including sixteen students and five teachers of Laupāhoehoe School.

(The 1946 tsunami killed 159-people and caused $26-million in property damage throughout the islands. To prevent such widespread loss of life and property, the territory-wide Tsunami Warning System was put in place in 1948 and successfully utilized for the 1952 and 1957 tsunamis.) (hawaii-edu)

At the time of the tsunami, plantations were already phasing out rail in favor of trucking cane from the field to the mill. It was inevitable that trucking would also replace rail as the primary means of transporting sugar to the harbor. The tsunami accelerated that transition.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. In Laupāhoehoe, a concrete platform remains where Hula dancers once performed for tourists. And the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of Mr. Stanley, the superintendent of maintenance.

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Hawaii Consolidated Railway Train

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Bridge on the Hamakua Coast, Hawaii, c.1930

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Roughed out Canoe at the 4,500’ Elevation in Dense Koa forest-Sept 11, 1885

Laupahoehoe

January 23, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Voyaging … and Returning

“In the South Pacific the North Star cannot be seen – north is a dark area of the sky over which stars arch on their nightly paths. One night the navigator discovers a new star just above the horizon in the center of the place of darkness.”

“And as time passed the new star did not appear to move. … Soon everyone was awake to see this miracle; this star that did not move. … Could it have been placed by the gods to light our way to new land?”

Later, “… a massive cloud bank on the western horizon appeared to be standing still, not moving in the wind – a sign that it might be building over an unseen island. … Then we saw a bird, it was homeward bound after its day of fishing. Flying over the water it headed straight for the strange cloud bank in the west and we knew land was near.”

“Looking anew at the clouds we saw a sight difficult to comprehend. What had appeared as an unusual could formation was now revealed as the peak of a gigantic mountain, a mountain of unbelievable size, a white mountain …” (Herb Kane; The Discovery of Hawaiʻi)

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, recent studies suggest it was about AD 900–1000 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

The motivations of the voyagers varied. Some left to explore the world or to seek adventure. Others departed to find new land or new resources because of growing populations or prolonged droughts and other ecological disasters in their homelands. (PVS)

By the time European explorers entered the Pacific in the 15th century almost all of the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years and oral traditions told of explorations, migrations and travels across this immense watery world. (Kawaharada)

According to Hawaiian oral traditions collected in the 19th century, voyaging continued between Hawai‘i and the South Pacific after the original settlement of Hawai‘i. The motives given for voyaging are various:

Maintaining Family Connections

The earliest traveler mentioned in oral tradition is the goddess Papa, or Walinuʻu; according to tradition she returned to Kahiki because her parents were from there; in Kahiki she became a young woman again; after her rejuvenation, she returned to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Moʻikeha is said to have sent his son Kila to Tahiti to bring his grandson Laʻamaikahiki to Hawai‘i. (Fornander; PVS)

Marriage

Hawaiʻiloa voyaged from Hawai‘i to Tahiti to search for husbands or wives for his children. He brought back his brother Ki’s first born son Tu-nui-ai-a-te-Atua as a husband for his daughter O‘ahu. (Fornander; PVS)

Keanini (whose mother was from Hawai‘i) sailed from Kahiki to Hawai‘i to marry Ha‘inakolo; he and Ha‘inakolo returned to Kahiki. After they had a child called Leimakani, Ha‘inakolo and Leimakani returned to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Family Quarrels and Unhappy Love Affairs

Pele, the volcano goddess, quarreled with her sister Namakaokaha‘i, a sea goddess, and left her homeland (the mystical land of Kuaihelani) to come to Hawai‘i. (Emerson; PVS)

Pāʻao feuded with his brother Lonopele. After each killed the other’s son, Pāʻao migrated to Hawai‘i. (Kamakau; PVS)

Burial in Homeland

Laʻamaikahiki took Mo‘ikeha’s bones back to Tahiti for burial. (Fornander; PVS)

Acquiring Mana from the Homeland

Pāʻao, who brought the war god Kūkaʻilimoku to Hawai‘i, returned to Tahiti to bring back a chief of pure blood (Kamakau; PVS)

Escaping Flood and Famine

Pupu-hulu-ana left Kauai during a famine and searched for islands to the east (Kamakau; PVS) ‘Olopana left Waipi‘o for Kahiki after a flood brought on a famine (Kalakaua; PVS)

Maka‘ika‘i – Sightseeing and Adventure

Kaulu “traveled throughout Kahiki, saw all the kingdoms of the world” (Kamakau; PVS) Paumaukua “was a chief who traveled around Kahiki and brought back with him several foreigners”. (Kamakau; PVS)

Mo‘ikeha’s grandson Kaha‘i-a-Ho‘okamali‘i went sightseeing to Tahiti and brought back with him a breadfruit tree from ‘Upolu (Taha‘a in the Society Islands) and planted it at Pu‘uloa, ‘Ewa district, O‘ahu. (Kamakau; PVS)

Obtain Materials or Plants not Available on one’s home island

The tradition of Aka describes a voyage from Hiva (Marquesas) to Rarotonga to obtain highly prized red feathers; the story of Pepe-iu describes a voyage made to bring the breadfruit plant from Hiva to Rarotonga. (PVS)

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18th century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pāʻao or Moʻikeha in the 14th century. The reason for the cessation of voyaging is not known. (PVS) (Lots of information here from Polynesian Voyaging Society)

The image shows a Herb Kane depiction of readying a canoe for a voyage. (Herb Kane)

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Readying_Canoe_for_a_Voyage-(HerbKane)

January 22, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter

Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter (also known as Henry Augustus Peirce Carter) was born in Honolulu August 7, 1837.

His father came from one of the old Massachusetts families, and had gone to Honolulu to engage in business, one of the first traders between the East Indies, Chinese ports and the Pacific Coast.

At about ten years old, young Carter was sent to the continent to be educated; for three or four years he attended school in Boston (all the formal education he ever had.)

When he was thirteen years old he went to San Francisco, and shortly afterward back to the Islands. He was office boy at C Brewer (he later became president of the firm.)

It was young Henry Carter who recognized that the commerce of Honolulu could not prosper until the Islands produced some commodity that could be used in exchange for merchandise which was imported and consumed here.

Hence, he persisted in accepting sugar agencies, believing that the sugar industry could but offer some permanent relief to the trying situation that then existed. (Nellist)

In 1862, Carter married Sybil Augusta Judd, a daughter of Dr. Gerrit P Judd of Honolulu (who came to the Islands in 1828 as a physician for the Missionaries and who later served the Kingdom.)

(The Carters had five children; one of them, George Robert Carter was appointed the 2nd Territorial Governor in the Islands.)

Carter brought Peter Cushman Jones into the business in 1871 as a junior partner, to eventually take over the operations while the sugar industry was growing.

For some years during his business life Carter had devoted considerable time to study of foreign affairs; with the expectation of someday becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs; when he gave up his business life, he was appointed.

Though born in the Islands and intensely loyal to his American parentage, he did not approve of the policy of annexation. At a public meeting in 1873, held at the old Hawaiian Hotel, this young merchant boldly challenged the wisdom of annexation but debated in a most winning manner in favor of reciprocity with the US.

He pointed out the past unsuccessful efforts in this direction and the reasons thereof, and urged the wisdom of slower but more certain growth of American sentiment in these Islands.

In 1876 he travelled to the US as one or the foreign legation; that year the first Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated. Immediately upon the establishment of the Reciprocity Treaty and the reduction of duties on certain commodities between the US and the Kingdom of Hawaii, a cry was raised over the advantage in trade that this new treaty gave to the Americans.

He then travelled to England, France and Germany to explain the treaty. (NY Times) Carter pointed out the treaty did not violate ‘favored nation’ clause of other treaties and that he negotiated similar treaties with others.

With a commodity for world markets and a treaty to benefit local growers, the development of the sugar industry caused the labor question to become acute, and in 1882 Carter was sent on a diplomatic mission to Portugal where he was successful in securing a new treaty regulating the Portuguese immigration to Hawaii.

On January 1, 1883, the Hawaiian Minister Resident at Washington, Judge Allen, died suddenly in the midst of a reception at the White House. In February, Carter was sent to Washington as his successor.

Carter’s efforts were successful in protecting the Reciprocity Treaty from various attacks, and finally in securing its definite renewal.

This renewal, which went into effect in 1887, carried for the first time the Pearl Harbor clause, by which the US was granted the use of a naval station at Pearl Harbor. This clause was the subject of much official correspondence between Mr. Carter and the secretary of State. (Nellist)

Carter served his country as Minister to the US for about 10-years. He was one of King Kalākaua’s closest advisers” and in all affairs of great moment to the kingdom his advice was carefully considered”. (Hawaiian Gazette, November 24, 1891)

“Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter was probably the ablest diplomat ever to serve the Hawaiian kingdom. … He was a man of great energy, of positive views and facility in the expression of them, with a self-confident and forceful manner that sometimes antagonized those who disagreed with him.”

“From 1875 until his death he spent most of his time abroad, as a diplomatic representative of the Hawaiian kingdom in the United States and Europe, where he became a familiar and much respected figure.” (Kuykendall) Carter died November 1, 1891, in New York.

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January 21, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Junior … Intermediate … Middle

The arrival of the first company of American Protestant missionaries in Hawaiʻi in 1820 marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy.

The missionaries were scattered across the Islands, each home was usually in a thickly inhabited village, so that the missionary and his wife could be close to their work among the people. The missionaries established schools associated with their missions .

On July 14, 1826, the American missionaries finalized a 12-letter alphabet for the written Hawaiian language, using five vowels (a, e, i, o and u) and seven consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p and w.) That alphabet continues today.

Planning for the written Hawaiian language and development by the missionaries was modeled after the spoken language, attempting to represent the spoken Hawaiian sounds with English letters.

Interestingly, these same early missionaries taught their lessons in Hawaiian to the Hawaiians, rather than English. The missionaries learned the Hawaiian language, and then taught the Hawaiians in their language. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians.

Common schools (where the 3 Rs were taught) sprang up in villages all over the Islands. In these common schools, classes and attendance were quite irregular, but nevertheless basic reading and writing skills (in Hawaiian) and fundamental Christian doctrine were taught to large numbers of people. (Canevali)

The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

“Statute for the Regulation of Schools” passed by the King and chiefs on October 15, 1840. Its preamble stated, “The basis on which the Kingdom rests is wisdom and knowledge.”

“Peace and prosperity cannot prevail in the land, unless the people are taught in letters and in that which constitutes prosperity. If the children are not taught, ignorance must be perpetual, and children of the chiefs cannot prosper, nor any other children”.

The 1840 educational law mandated compulsory attendance for children ages four to fourteen. Any village that had fifteen or more school-age children was required to provide a school for their students.

William Richards, a missionary, was appointed Minister of Public Instruction and helped develop a highly-organized educational system. He was later replaced by missionary Richard Armstrong. Richard Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

In 1855 the office of Minister was replaced by the Board of Education, whose members were appointed by the King, and the department was named the Department of Public Instruction.

The educational system and means of instruction evolved over time, in the Islands and across the continent. Younger learners were first in ‘preparatory’ or ‘grammar’ schools in the Islands (we now generally refer to these as elementary schools.)

Older learners were in ‘colleges’ (i.e. Oahu College (Punahou,) St Louis College;) these are now typically called high schools.

Historically, grades K-8 were considered ‘elementary.’ In 1888 on the continent, Charles Eliot launched an effort to reorganize schooling, arguing that the last years of elementary school was a waste and students should be working on college preparatory courses instead. Rather than grades 7 and 8 as part of elementary, the push was to put them in the high school.

Then, on July 6, 1909, the Columbus, Ohio, Board of Education authorized the creation of the first junior high school in the US. (Ohio History Central)

In the Islands, between 1909 and 1920 the education system underwent a series of changes. In 1909, school agents were replaced by supervising principals; in 1913 the building and maintenance responsibilities of the school agents were transferred out of the department to the Counties. (State Archives)

In 1920, a report was published on the survey of schools conducted by the Bureau of Education of the Federal Department of the Interior.

The report noted that on the continent typical middle-class families in America were sending their children to public secondary schools, but in Hawai‘i, public schools were so few and geographically isolated, that many had to go to private schools or were forced to drop out.

Therefore, the commission recommended the establishment of secondary or Junior high schools which should offer more academic and vocational choices to feed various high schools. (NPS) There was a rapid increase in the establishment of Junior high schools.

By 1922, there were six in the rural parts of the state. In 1928, Central Grammar School became Central Junior High School with an enrollment of approximately 1,200 students and 47 teachers. It was one of 5 Junior high schools in Honolulu (with Lincoln, Washington, Kalākaua and Lili‘uokalani.) (NPS)

Then, in 1932, the board of education changed all formerly-named Junior High Schools to Intermediate Schools. (NPS) The education department continued to maintain a policy of naming Intermediate schools after American Presidents or members of the Hawaiian Royal family.

Then, a new reform movement took place with the Junior/Intermediate-aged students (~11-13;) rather than have a focus on college preparatory, school reformers were looking for an educational program to meet the intellectual, emotional, and the interpersonal needs of young adolescents. (Jadallah)

In 1963, William Alexander first used the expression middle school to describe the schools between elementary and high school. Alexander, regarded as the ‘father of the middle-school,’ led the movement to create middle-schools and a middle-level curriculum that would meet the unique needs of young adolescents. (McFarland)

The Carnegie Corporation (1989) issued a report that profoundly affected the education of young adolescents. ‘Turning Points’ advocated reforms intended to make their education more personalized, supportive, and active: interdisciplinary teams, cooperative learning, involvement with families and community, mentoring, and active teaching. (Daniels)

With a new program, school names started to change again. While no wholesale change took place (as happened with the Junior High to Intermediate,) Intermediate schools in the Islands started adopting the ‘Middle School’ philosophy and label.

Today, while the Junior High School reference is long gone, there are many Intermediate and Middle Schools across the Islands.

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JA Cummins Junior High School