Schools | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 1, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Dartmouth

“It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!” (Daniel Webster)

The rolling hills and plentiful foliage of New Hampshire are home to over 20 colleges and universities. New Hampshire’s first school, founded seven years before the country, is Dartmouth College, an Ivy League institution along the banks of the Connecticut River in the small town of Hanover. (Messier, SeaCoastOnLine)

Dartmouth’s first classes, consisting of just four students, were held in a single log hut in Hanover in 1770. (LOC) The college was named in honor of William Legge, the British Earl of Dartmouth, a friend of Wentworth’s and an important benefactor.

Dartmouth College has its origins in More’s (later Moor’s) Indian Charity School, an educational enterprise established in the year 1754 at Lebanon, Connecticut, by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a minister of the Congregational faith and a graduate of Yale. (Christopher DeLuca)

“Wheelock … first founded a private ‘Latin’ school, aimed at educating both colonists and natives in the classics, including a young Samson Occom, a Mohegan who became trained as an excellent minister.”

“In time, Wheelock realized his passion, founding Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut. The sole purpose of this small school was to prepare students to become Protestant missionaries, including Natives among their own tribes and colonists where Native numbers were lacking.”

“This school was open to male and female students of many ages and was free to attend, operating upon donations (both monetary and farm product-based). Despite English being the only language necessary to preach, Wheelock insisted upon teaching his pupils Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as well. “

“The Reverend also taught his charges farming and agricultural skills, despite complaints from some students’ parents, who were themselves farmers. Underlying the obvious paternal motivations behind these curricular choices, we can see the nucleus of what would become a liberal arts curriculum.” (Dartmouth Review)

“[T]he Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, of Lebanon, in the colony of Connecticut, in New England, aforesaid, now doctor in divinity, did, on or about the year of our Lord 1754, at his own expense, on his own estate and plantation, set on foot an Indian charity school …”

“… and for several years, through the assistance of well-disposed persons in America, clothed, maintained and educated a number of the children of the Indian natives, with a view to their carrying the Gospel, in their own language, and spreading the knowledge of the great Redeemer, among their savage tribes …”

“[T]he said Eleazar Wheelock thought it expedient, that endeavors should be used to raise contributions from well disposed persons in England for the carrying on and extending said undertaking …”

“… and for that purpose the said Eleazar Wheelock requested the Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, now doctor in divinity, to go over to England for that purpose, and sent over with him the Rev. Samson Occom, an Indian minister, who had been educated by the said Wheelock.”

“… considering the premises and being willing to encourage the laudable and charitable design of spreading Christian knowledge among the savages of our American wilderness, and also that the best means of education be established in our province of New Hampshire, for the benefit of said province …”

“… do, of our special grace, certain knowledge and mere motion, by and with the advice of our counsel for said province, by these presents, will, ordain, grant and constitute that there be a college erected in our said province of New Hampshire by the name of Dartmouth College …”

“… for the education and instruction of youth of the Indian tribes in this land in reading, writing, and all parts of learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and christianizing children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youth and any others.” (Dartmouth Charter)

Fast forward … “Since 2012, the Native and Indigenous Pre-Orientation program has served incoming Indigenous students in their transition to Dartmouth.”

“As our community continues to grow, and increasingly represents more and more Indigenous communities, we are dedicated to building a Native and Indigenous Pre-Orientation program that meets the changing needs of Indigenous students.”

“The purpose of the Native and Indigenous Pre-Orientation is to connect incoming Native American, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, and Indigenous first year students with the key offices and resources that will guide and support them throughout college.”

“The Native American Program in collaboration with the Admissions Office, works with various campus partners to provide community-based resource structures and programs that holistically support our students, in their total academic, social, and emotional wellbeing.” (Dartmouth)

“Hōkūpa‘a is a student-led organization at Dartmouth greatly supported by the Native American Program (NAP). It was created by and for students who are from or are connected to the Pacific Islands.”

“‘Hōkūpa‘a,’ meaning ‘steadfast star,’ is the name of the North Star, Polaris, in the Hawaiian language. This particular star has great importance to traditional seafaring and navigation — Indigenous Islanders throughout the Pacific relied on this star to find their way about the ocean.”

“We bring light to the story behind the name Hōkūpa`a to reiterate our commitment to our pan-Pasifika family and our time-honored interconnectivity. Navigation, the ocean, and the stars are some of the main connecting forces of the Pacific Islands and its peoples. As an organization, Hōkūpaʻa aims to create a similar space for Pacific Islander students on Dartmouth’s campus.”

“The Dartmouth Lūʻau is an annual event that celebrates the existence and representation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander identity on the Dartmouth campus. Since its initiation, the Dartmouth Lūʻau has brought together communities from across campus, as well as regionally, to celebrate, honor, educate, and share their Native heritage.” (Dartmouth)

The college as it stands today almost ceased to exist in the 1800s, when the state of New Hampshire attempted to change Dartmouth’s original charter to make it a state university.

The case of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward eventually worked its way up to the US Supreme Court, where Dartmouth College prevailed under the leadership of alumnus and lawyer Daniel Webster, who re-founded the college in 1819. (Messier, SeaCoastOnLne)

As of 2023 there were approximately 4,500 undergraduates and 2,200 graduate students enrolled in the four-year, private, liberal arts college.

The school has more than 40 undergraduate academic departments and programs in the arts and sciences. Dartmouth College is the home of one the nation’s oldest professional schools of engineering, the first graduate school of management, and one of the nation’s top medical schools. (LOC)

May 25, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Seabury Hall

“I give, devise and bequeath unto the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Hawaiian Islands, its successors and assigns forever, all of my right, title and interest in and to the said property to the said church.”

“It is the desire and intent of both the church and myself that the church shall maintain and operate on the said property a good school …” Katherine [‘Kate’] McGrew Cooper, Last Will and Testament, March 27, 1958.

From the 1950s, during a seven (7) year period of planning and discussion, Kate Cooper, together with then Episcopal Bishop Harry Kennedy and the Rev. Rodger Melrose, Seabury’s founding Chaplain and Headmaster, spent countless hours planning and praying on what Seabury Hall might become. (Seabury)

Whoa, let’s look back …

On the morning that the advertisement for “Maunalei” appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser (November 19, 1944), Mrs Charles B Cooper was sitting on the lanai with a group of friends. One of them tossed the paper to her, saying, “Here is the house that you should buy, Kate.” (Seabury Hall Alumni)

The advertisement read, “Situated at an elevation where it is constantly cool, this five bedroom house designed by Honolulu’s leading architect, is the last word in modem planning, comfort and construction. Set apart, it provides a home designed for peace and quiet living.”

“One looks out toward West Maui and the north shore while toward the south one sees the slopes of Lanai in the distance beyond the south shore. … The grounds, 8.79 acres, are fully landscaped in a manner which does not destroy the mountain beauty of the setting and yet is in keeping with the semi-colonial design of the house.” (Adv, Nov 19, 1944)

“Maunalei” was built in 1929 by Dr William Baldwin, the second son of Emily and Henry Perrine Baldwin. It was designed by Mr. Baldwin’s cousin, Charles W Dickey, one of Hawaii’s most outstanding architects. The contractor was Charles C. Savage.

Following Dr Baldwin’s death, the house was put up for sale to settle his estate. For some time, ‘Kate’ Cooper had been looking for just such a house. Maunalei did seem to be the perfect answer for her. She purchased the estate (for approximately $109,000) and was settled on Maui by early 1945. She loved Maui and lived here very happily for 18 years.

In 1958, foreseeing a need for a boarding school for girls, Mrs. Cooper bequeathed her estate to the Episcopal Church in Hawaii, and at her death in 1963 Seabury Hall was born. (Seabury Hall Alumni)

(Seabury Hall is named after Rev. Samuel Seabury, the first Episcopal Bishop of the American Church. November 14, 1784, Samuel Seabury was consecrated Bishop in the Church of God. Seabury served the church in Connecticut.)

Founded in 1964 as an Episcopal boarding school for girls, Seabury Hall, in the 1970s the School accepted boys, and in the late-1980s it eliminated the boarding program to focus exclusively on serving Maui. It is now a coeducational independent day school. (Seabury Hall)

The school is Episcopal in religious affiliation but nonsectarian in its instruction. (Maunalei was later renamed the Cooper House and houses administrative offices, a reception area, a dining facility, and a chapel.)

“Groundbreaking ceremonies for Seabury Hall’s girIs dormitory, designed by Bruce Cruikshank, will take place tomorrow [February 20, 1964] near Makawao, Maui. Seabury Hall is to open in September as a boarding school for girls and a day school for girls and boys.”

“Its nine acres were a gift from the late Mrs Katherine McGrew Cooper to the Episcopal Church. The new dormitory will have 30 double rooms on two floors, an infirmary and teachers quarters. The Reverend Roger M Melrose, headmaster, will officiate”. (SB, Feb 19, 1964)

“’Seabury Hall is being established to fill a need in Hawaii for a girls’ boarding school,” Bishop Kennedy said. “’We need a school where girls living in a community learn to meet the changing demands of life and education with new and better methods, while maintaining an unswerving emphasis upon standards and ideals of lasting value.” (SB, June 3, 1964)

Beginning in 1993, the school has built a full-size gymnasium, a Middle School building, an Upper School building, parking for school and public events, a library, and most recently a new Arts, Innovation, and Music Center. Extensive playing fields support the PE and athletic programs.

Signature programs at Seabury Hall include an AP Capstone Program in addition to 22 AP courses and 10 Honors courses offered; Engineering and Technology; Hawaiian Studies and Hawaiian language; Community Service Leadership; Winterim Program and experiential learning.

Seabury has little over 500 students (325 in Upper School and just under 200 in Middle School). It is accredited by Western Association of Schools and Colleges; Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. (Lots of information here is from Seabury Hall.)

May 15, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Barefoot Football

“Barefoot football occupied a special niche in Hawaiian sports from 1924 through the Depression and World War II years, but has been out of style since the early ‘50s – a memory to oldtimers and unbelievable in the minds of late-comers to the Islands.”

“The first barefoot football league was ·organized in 1924 by AK Vierra to fill a need of young men not playing in high school or with the senior club teams which provided competition for the University of Hawaii.”

“It was called the Spalding League and Vierra had the insight to draw teams from the various neighborhoods – Kalihi, Kakaako, Palama, Pawaa, Pauoa and Liliha – assuring bitter rivalry and fierce support from the fans.” (Gee, SB, Oct 28, 1975)

“Thousands of young men, ranging in age from 15 to 30 on O‘ahu, Maui, Hawai‘i and Kauai, participated in hundreds of barefoot football leagues … [it was] the ‘fastest, wildest, scrappiest brand of football in the United States.’” (Soboleski, TGI, May 10, 2020)

“[T]he nucleus of that Kalihi Thundering Herd were generally boys, young men, that were from the Kalihi-Waena area, although they did attract players from Kalihi-Kai. Some from Kalihi-Uka. I don’t think anybody from Fern Park was on the Thundering Herd team.”

“We did have a couple from the Palama area before Palama had their own team. We had a very good player there named Bill Flazer. Tall, skinny fellow. He was a very good punter. It was the barefoot leagues. They played barefoot, the leagues.” (Adolph ‘Duffie’ [rhymes with ‘Goofy’] Mendonca, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

Standard equipment consisted of a jersey and sailor-moku pants – no head gear, no shoulder pads. The weight limit was 150 pounds. Shoes, of course, were prohibited.” (Gee, SB, Oct 28, 1975)

“There was a senior league, they was called Kalihi Thundering Herd. They were the 150 pounds. And I’ m pretty sure they had that weight limit, too. If you couldn’t make ‘em, you was disqualified for that game, that’ s all.” (Albert O Adams, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“The shoeless game achieved such wide popularity that weight divisions were established for the smaller players, with limits of 120, 130 and 140 pounds. A barrel weight league for the 175-pounders also was formed.” (Gee, SB, Oct 28, 1975)

The Kalihi Thundering Herd was the senior team. … “And Benny Waimau was the coach [of the seniors]. … Yeah, he was a good coach. Boy, he’d make them pull the car right around the block. Fernandez [Park].”

“That old Essex car–he would get maybe about couple guys, just pull ‘em. Pull that car right around the block. I’d say it’s good – about pretty close to quarter mile.” (Albert O Adams, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“They had a clinic, and this Knute Rockne came down. The Kalihi club sent Benny Waimau to the clinic with other good coaches, you know, coaches coaching high school. I guess maybe Otto Klum was there, too. He used to coach University of Hawaii.”

“What we heard afterwards [was] that Knute Rockne asked the coaches some questions, you know, and then they would answer. Then, Benny Waimau asked him a question, and he looked at Benny, and he told [asked] Benny what team he was coaching.”

“And Benny said, ‘Oh, the barefoot Kalihi Thundering Herd … He [Knute Rockne] said, .. Well, you better get in something bigger

than that … Because he [Benny] was really a good coach.” (Albert O Adams, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“[W]e had this guy, Tommy Beck, he lived right up there. He used to work in Pearl Harbor – he had the loot that time, he had the money. You know when you work that kind place, you get the money, eh? He would sponsor – he would buy the jerseys for the Thundering Herd. I think that time maybe the jerseys only cost two, three dollars one, I think. Good jerseys.” (Peter Martin, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“One time we had a fight in the [Honolulu] stadium. … So, they want to throw us out of the league. The guy was running this Spalding League, so he told them guys …”

“‘Any time you throw out this Kalihi Thundering Herd, there will be no more barefoot league.’ Because they figure that we the one draw the crowd and all that. I don’t know why they blame us because most time, it’s the Kakaako guys troublemakers.” (Peter Martin, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“I played one year. And then I helped Benny Waimau, and Julian Judd and them to help coach the team after that. Because when I played for McKinley, I couldn’t play for the Kalihi Thundering Herd.”

“Because the first time they started they was under, I think, the Wilson Sporting Goods sponsored that. Till after that, then they came under Spalding. Then they formed the Spalding League. The Spalding League was connected with E.O. Hall & Son.” (Alexander Beck, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

The barefoot football was also on the neighbor islands, “Barefoot football which proved so popular in Hilo last year will be continued again this coming grid season … Plans have already been made for a ‘barefoot’ game between the best team on this islands and the best on Maui.” (Hilo Tribune Hearld, Aug 16, 1927)

“[I]n this little bull session a few days ago, and quite an interesting discussion it was until one soldier boy, in reference to the not-too-bright football situation in Hilo, remarked: ‘We’ve got to have real football here this season. What good at all is barefoot foot going to do anybody the way they play it here?’”

“… well, Toma, you could’ve seen the blood in my eyes at 50 paces when I realize the full implication of that crack … in my rage, I could say no more that to let him know that ‘barefoot football is as big to us here in Hilo as Notre Dame football is to South Bend fans.’”

“‘[N]ow that you’re a fighting man on Uncle Sames team, I know that you realize more than ever before, what our little leagues have meant and will continue to mean to our boys … you’ve always championed this anyway …’”

‘”Our ‘senseless’ football has developed its quota of fine men for the armed forces, just as Notre Dame and California and Michigan and Yale teams have turned in theirs … the harder the officials find it to form a league this season, the more solid is our proof that we have contributed much toward helping Uncle Sam score his winning touchdown.”

“[M]any of our boys are today faced with the toughest battle of their lives, and you can bet your last bit if K-ration, Toma, that they are using football strategy very handily under fire from time to time … yep, Toma, the same football strategy that they would have been otherwise ignorant of it weren’t for the barefoot football they played back home.”

“… barefoot football has been the best Hilo has been able to offer, but it offered the same fundamental benefits as football of the intercollegiate calibre … it is, most important of all, American football.” (Bert Nakaji, Hilo Tribune Herald, Aug 25, 1944)

Then, “With the slow demise of barefoot football leagues, the likes of which there has been only one here for several years past, the advent of the Pop Warner program is bound to be just the shot in the arm the sport in general has needed …”

“… it’ll be good for the kids, just as Midget and little league and Colt and Pony baseball have been, and it’ll be good for prepskol football . . . on these Pop Warner teams will be the future stars of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation …” (Nakaji, HTH, Dec 22, 1963)

@old.hawaii
The Hawaii Barefoot Football League emerged in the mid-1920s with approximately 100 different teams across the islands. . In the video, it shows a match between the Palama Settlement ( plain colored shirts) team and an unidentified opponents. . Bill Flazer one of the most well known punters for the Palama Settlement team. (he’s shown in the beginning of the video) . #hawaii #hawaiian #kanaka #hawaiitiktok #hawaiiantiktok #fyphawaii #808viral #palamasettlment #footballtiktok #football #barefootfootball #oldhawaii #kalihi #fyp #foryoupage #foryourpage #viralhawaii #foryoupageofficiall #foru #4u #fypage #virall #viraltiktok #viralvideos #viral_video #hawaiifootball
♬ original sound – Panaewa

May 12, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lanai City Schools

The schools in Pālāwai, Kō‘ele, and Lānai City underwent changes in name and location. The schools had their start around 1904 when Charles Gay started Pālāwai School, a one-room schoolhouse for his own children and children of ranch employees. (UHM Center for Oral History)

The Pālāwai School was built near the lower end of Keaaku Gulch where it opens into Pālāwai basin, about two miles south of Kō‘ele. The school was built like a house and had one classroom. (The Pālāwai School building had been moved three times.)

Pālāwai was chosen for the location of the school because of its central location; students came from Kō‘ele, Malauea, and Waiapa‘a. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

Violet Gay was the eighth of eleven children born to Charles Gay and Louisa Kala Gay; some of her sibling went to school on O‘ahu. As she notes, “there were five of us that stayed on Lanai and went to [Pālāwai] School.”

“My oldest sister, Amelia, is Mrs. Dickson. And they all came to Punahou, you know. My grandmother put them all in Punahou, see. And they were boarders up at Punahou.”

“Then when she [Amelia] left, she came back to Lanai, that’s when they started the school. Down Palawai, started a school. And I was six years old when I went to the school.”

“About twelve or fifteen children, I think, went to that school. And we walked all the way from Ko’ele, you know, where Kahonu is, past Kahonu down there to Palawai.” (Violet Keahikoe Gay, UHM Center for Oral History)

“It was a one-room schoolhouse, a short walk from our home. And they put me in school so that we could have fifteen children in order to get a schoolteacher. The schoolteacher lived with us because there was no other place for her to stay.”

“Well, it was a little white house with several windows around it and inside we had these desks and blackboards on the walls, the back wall with no windows. … We were put in rows of desks by age, and the teacher would go row by row teaching. Each row, just a different subject.”

“And we had two little outhouses (laughs) away from the school. One for boys and one for girls. … There was a flagpole out in front. … We put the flag up every morning and learned the Pledge of Allegiance. And then we’d march into class . And that’s about all I remember of that.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

Sometime about 1920-22, the Pālāwai School was moved to Kō‘ele, and set up at a site near where the 7^th green of the Cavendish Golf Course is today. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612) It then became generally known as Kō‘ele School.

In 1922 the school became part of the public school system of the Territory of Hawaii. The Kō‘ele School ceased functioning as a classroom in 1927, when the two-room Kō‘ele Grammar School was built a short distance away. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

Around 1927, with the construction of the new Kō‘ele Grammar School, the Pālāwai/Kō‘ele) School was moved to the Kō‘ele Ranch Camp and became a residence. The building underwent numerous alterations since the time it was a one room school house, including a kitchen addition, bathroom, and the partitioning of the original single class room. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

The Kō‘ele Grammar School was a single-story, gable roof, wood building with an 8′ wide lanai along the front long side of the building. The interior of the main portion of the Kō‘ele Grammar School is divided into two 24’ x 26’ classrooms by a partition wall with a doorway (no door).

“When I was ready for the sixth grade [in 1927] we went over to the [Ko’ele Grammar] School [located near the present Cavendish Golf Course clubhouse], which was about another half mile away.”

The building was financed by the County of Maui. It was built about a half mile from the Kō‘ele Ranch Camp, to the south, across Iwiole Gulch on the site of what would become the Cavendish Golf Course. Students from Kō‘ele Ranch and from Lānai City attended. Eighth grade graduation ceremonies from Kō‘ele Grammar School were held at the Lanai Theater in Lānai City.

“I think there were six of us [in 1928]. And it was the first class to graduate from [Ko‘ele Grammar] School, so we had a big ceremony down at the one and only theater. We had chairs set up on the platform … we had these lovely leis, leis you don’t often see anymore.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

In September 1928, the people of Lanai City petitioned the Maui County board of supervisors to have the school’s name changed to Lanai City School.

By the mid-1930s, school children of Hawaiian Pineapple Co. (HAPCo) employees had expanded public school enrollment on Lanai to such a degree that additional classes were held in the Lanai Japanese School and in the HAPCo plantation gymnasium.

By about 1937, “There were two buildings and the smaller building had two classes and the other building must have had four classes. … And new teachers were brought in, they had to build a cottage for these new teachers. Because prior to that, the teacher at [the old] Ko‘ele School stayed with us.”

“At the Ko‘ele [Grammar] School, by the golf course. When we’d go to school, we had to make a garden. We had a project. We’d go out and make our garden and plant vegetables.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

“[W]hen we used to be naughty, we had to go pull weeds. And during our Ko‘ele [Grammar] School days – not the old cottage, maybe we were too young, but the other school – if you were naughty or were to be punished, we had to go pull weeds, you know. And then we always took turns to clean the rooms. Young as we were, we used to mop.” (Warren Nishimoto, UHM Center for Oral History)

“[M]ost of the kids, from sixth grade into seventh grade, most of the kids would leave. The ones that (the family) could afford it, their parents either send them to Lahainaluna (in Maui), Punahou (or) Kamehameha School in Honolulu. That’s about it. We might lose maybe five or six (children per school year).” (Charlotte Richardson Holsomback, UHM Center for Oral History)

“I was pau with school after the sixth grade. … most of them [the girls] quit after the sixth grade. However, if there were older sisters who could take care of the house, sometimes a girl could go on to intermediate school.” (Tama Teramoto Nishimura, UHM Center for Oral History)

In January 1938, the Lānai High and Elementary School was opened at its present location on Fraser Avenue. The buildings of the Kō‘ele Grammar School complex were moved, in sections, to this new high school site.

During the 1970s the Kō‘ele Grammar School, on its second site at the high school campus near 7th and Fraser Avenues, was used as a meeting hall for the Lanai City chapter of the Boy Scouts of America.

May 6, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Education in Hawaiʻi

Before the foreigners arrived, Hawaiians had a vocational learning system, where everyone was taught a certain skill by the kahuna. Skills taught included canoe builder, medicine men, genealogists, navigators, farmers, house builders and priests.

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

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built 1,103 schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 52,882 students. (Laimana)

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the printing of 140,000 copies of the pīʻāpā (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers. (Laimana)

The word pīʻāpā is said to have been derived from the method of teaching Hawaiians to begin the alphabet “b, a, ba.” The Hawaiians pronounced “b” like “p” and said “pī ʻā pā.” (Pukui)

In 1831, Lahainaluna Seminary, started by missionary Lorrin Andrews, was created in Maui to be a school for teachers and preachers so that they could teach on the islands. The islands’ first newspaper, Ka Lama Hawaii, was printed at this school.

Hilo Boarding School opened in 1836, built by missionary David Lyman, a missionary. Eight boys lived there the first year. This school was so successful a girls’ boarding school was created in 1838.

Oʻahu’s first school was called the Chiefs’ Children’s School (Royal School.) The cornerstone of the original school was laid on June 28, 1839 in the area of the old barracks of ʻIolani Palace (at about the site of the present State Capitol of Hawaiʻi.)

The school was created by King Kamehameha III, and at his request was run by missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Amos S. Cooke; the main goal of this school was to groom the next generation of the highest ranking chief’s children of the realm and secure their positions for Hawaiʻi’s Kingdom.

The Chiefs’ Children’s School was unique because for the first time Aliʻi children were brought together in a group to be taught, ostensibly, about the ways of governance. The School also acted as another important unifying force among the ruling elite, instilling in their children common principles, attitudes and values, as well as a shared vision.

Kamehameha III called for a highly-organized educational system; the Constitution of 1840 helped Hawaiʻi public schools become reorganized.

William Richards, a missionary, helped start the reorganization, and was later replaced by missionary Richard Armstrong. Richard Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

“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 creation of the Common Schools (where the 3 Rs were taught) marks the beginning of the government’s involvement in education in Hawaiʻi. At first, the schools were no more than grass huts.

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.)

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.

Oʻahu College, later named Punahou School, was founded in 1841 on land given to missionary Hiram Bingham by Boki (at the request of Kaʻahumanu.) Bingham gave the land to the mission for the school.

By 1832, the literacy rate of Hawaiians (at the time was 78 percent) had surpassed that of Americans on the continent. The literacy rate of the adult Hawaiian population skyrocketed from near zero in 1820 to a conservative estimate of 91 percent – and perhaps as high as 95 percent – by 1834. (Laimana)

From 1820 to 1832, in which Hawaiian literacy grew by 91 percent, the literacy rate on the US continent grew by only 6 percent and did not exceed the 90 percent level until 1902 – three hundred years after the first settlers landed in Jamestown. By way of comparison, it is significant that overall European literacy rates in 1850 had not risen much above 50 percent. (Laimana)

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.

For more on this, click the link: Education in Hawaii.