Schools | Page 24 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 1, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

North Pacific Missionary Institute

On October 1, 1872, the Hawaiian Evangelical Association Theological School opened its doors for men interested in a life of Christian ministry.

In its infancy, Rev John D Paris became the head of the institution, accompanied by Rev Dwight Baldwin and Rev Benjamin W Parker as instructors.

Recruitment of Native Hawaiian students was an ongoing problem. A year after the school opened Rev. Paris wrote, “Aka, auhea la ka nani o ke aupuni kanaka ole?! Auhea hoi ka pono o ke Kula Kahuna haumana ole?” (But where is the glory of the Kingdom without men? Where indeed is the value of the ministers’ school without students?) (Williams)

Beginning with 13 students, the school endeavored to graduate these men as ministers in order to send them on to more missionary work around the world, paying special attention to the Pacific.

The school’s three-year program curriculum included Bible History, Sacred Geography, Church History, Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity, Christian Theology, Composition and Delivery of Sermons, and Pastoral Theology.

The Theological School took up residence within an older structure, previously used as a Marine Hospital, owned and operated by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd. It was located at the corner of what is today Punchbowl and South Beretania Streets in Honolulu (presently, where the Kalanimōku Building (DLNR & DAGS) is situated.) (In 1874, Paris retired and moved back to Kona.)

In 1877, Rev. Charles McEwen Hyde was sent to Hawaiʻi from Massachusetts to reorganize the school as the North Pacific Missionary Institute.

Hyde was former valedictorian at Williams College and graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary; he envisioned “a grand opportunity to do important service for Christ and for the world.” (Williams)

He quickly picked up the Hawaiian language in order to converse with the indigenous population, and began delivering his sermons in Hawaiian.

“With great skill and patience and energy he has conducted its affairs, and the Institute has been one of the most effective agencies for the support of Christian institutions at the Islands.”

“But Dr. Hyde’s energies were by no means confronted to this one seminary. He sought in every way to upbuild the native Hawaiian churches, and to promote the work of education in schools of all grades.”

“’From this institution has gone forth, under the training of Dr. Hyde, the whole circle of younger men who today fill the pastorate of the Hawaiian churches.’ And after referring to several of these pastors by name, it is well added: ‘These men are the best of witnesses to the faithful and painstaking service of this most indefatigable of teachers.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 13, 1899)

Hyde served as Principal until 1883, until resigning his position to the temporary care of Rev. Henry H. Parker.

In 1889, it was decided by the Hawaiian Board that a new building was to be erected that would accommodate the seminary’s students with better living and learning quarters. A wooden structure was built in 1890.

The building had 16-dormitories and several large lecture rooms for instruction. During construction, the students attended classes at Kawaiahaʻo Church.

“Eleven students had been under instruction, three of these having entered this year. Instruction is now given in the afternoons as well as the mornings. Friday afternoon and Saturday are the only times available for such work as may be available as a means of self-support.”

“It has been necessary therefor to supplement the meagre weekly cash allowance, granted by the Hawaiian Board, by the distribution of weekly rations of rice, bread, salmon and kerosene to each student. The students are not pampered children of ease by any means, but learn from the very first to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 7, 1895)

“In the training which it furnishes to these leaders of the churches, the theological school affects the moral and religious life of the country. It holds the same relation to the ministerial profession that the law school does to the legal profession, or the medical college to the practice of medicine.”

“A well trained ministry is peculiarly necessary at the present time for the Hawaiian Islands. Everything is in a transition state, and a strong ministry is needed, which can hold to the good which has been achieved in the past and make it effective in the new order of things which is to come.” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 6, 1896)

“The work of the Institute in training Hawaiians for pastoral and missionary service has been carried on as heretofore. It has also been enlarged in its scope, so as to furnish more instruction through the use of the English language.”

“Rev. John Leadingham, formerly instructor in the Slavic department of the Oberlin Theological Seminary, has been appointed by the ABCFM Associate Instructor in the NPM Institute and began his work in November, 1894.” (Board of Education Report, 1896)

“Professor Leadingham’s lessons in English have not been confined to the students, but he has kindly consented to teach English to a class of young Hawaiian lawyers. Two Portuguese young men also, who wish to enter the gospel ministry, have been under instruction for the last three months.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 7, 1895)

“The privileges of the Institute are now opened to other nationalities, and in addition to the 8 Hawaiian students, one Portuguese and one Chinese are taking the prescribed course of study. This extends over three years. In some instances, a fourth year is added for special study.”

“Of the thirty-six pastors now serving the fifty-five Hawaiian Evangelical churches, twenty-five are graduates of the NPM Institute. Besides these there are six graduates engaged in foreign missionary work in the Gilbert Islands.” (Board of Education Report, 1896)

In 1900, Leadingham became the Principal (he left the islands in 1904.) The Hawaiian Board later redirected its efforts into the consolidation of Kawaiahaʻo Seminary, Mills Institute and the Japanese Boarding School into the Mid-Pacific Institute.

The “first great step in the development of its higher educational work by purchasing between thirty-six and thirty-seven acres of land in Mānoa Valley – the Kidwell estate. Upon this it is proposed to locate the Mid-Pacific Institute”.

“In making this purchase the Board has parted with the premises of the North Pacific Missionary Institute on Punchbowl street to the Methodist church” (and, in between, the Korean School.) (Hawaiian Star, May 18, 1907) (Lots of information here is from Williams and Mission Houses.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

North Pacific Missionary Institute (NPMI)

John D Paris

CM Hyde

Charles_McEwen_Hyde_(PP-73-2-016)

J Leadingham & Family

Honolulu and Vicinity-Dakin-Fire Insurance- 28-Map-1906-noting fromer site of NPMI

Downtown and Vicinity-Dakin-Fire Insurance- 10-Map-1899-noting_NPMI

September 23, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Student Farmers

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries from the northeast US, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Islands. There were seven couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity.

These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

They quickly reduced the Hawaiian language to written form and established schools in which the native Hawaiians were taught to read and to write.

Their instruction was not confined, however, to the ‘three R’s.’ Included in the original band of missionaries was a New England farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, indicating the importance they attached to giving some instruction in western agriculture to the native Hawaiians.

Effectively, they were teaching to the Head, Heart and Hand. Let’s look at some examples.

In 1823, Kalākua Kaheiheimālie (ke Aliʻi Hoapili wahine, wife of Governor Hoapili) offered the American missionaries a tract of land on the slopes surrounding Puʻu Paʻupaʻu for the creation of a high school.

Betsey Stockton from the 2nd Company of Protestant missionaries initially started a school for makaʻāinana (common people) and their wives and children on the site.

Later, on September 5, 1831, classes at the Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (Upper Lāhainā)) began in thatched huts with 25 Hawaiian young men.

Each scholar was expected to furnish himself with food and clothing by his own industry. Accompanying the work in the fields, a small amount of organized instruction in western agriculture was given. (History of Agricultural Education)

In September 1836, thirty-two boys between the ages of 10 and 20 were admitted as the first boarding students, from the neighbor islands, as well as from the “other side of the island” thus, the beginning of the boarding school at Lahainaluna.

It soon was apparent to the missionaries that the future of the Congregational Mission in Hawaiʻi would be largely dependent upon the success of its schools. The Mission then established “feeder schools” that would transmit to their students’ fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and religious training, before admission to the Lahainaluna.

In 1835, they constructed the Hilo Boarding School as part of an overall system of schools (with a girls boarding school in Wailuku and boarding at Lahainaluna.)

On January 6, 1835 “our children’s school commenced, eighty children present, sixty knew their letters. A number of the more forward children are employed as monitors to assist the less forward. (ie. advanced)” (Sarah Lyman)

The school was operated to an extent on a manual labor program and the boys cultivated the land to produce their own food. (The boys’ ages ranged from seven to fourteen.)

“Mr. Lyman who was brought up on a farm had an abiding faith in the value of manual labor; and his work in Hilo had convinced him that such activity in both primitive and introduced vocation was as necessary as book learning during the period of transition from one culture to another.” (Lorthian)

Rev. William Brewster Oleson had served as principal of the Hilo Boarding School for 8 years. Then, on November 4, 1887, Kamehameha School for Boys opened with 37 students and four teachers – Oleson was appointed its first principal and helped organize the school on a similar model.

Manual labor has a regular feature of the activities of the Kamehameha Boys’ School. Between 1889 and 1893 the school experimented with the raising of cows, pigs, chickens, and vegetables.

Later, the Kamehameha School flocks and herds were improved, and they began the production of forage crops, vegetables, and fruits on a larger scale, and strengthened the classroom work. (History of Agricultural Education)

Punahou, another boarding school, formed in 1841, required that “All students who entered the Boarding department were required to take part in the manual labor of the institution, under the direction of the faculty, not to exceed an average of two hours for each day.” (Punahou Catalogue, 1899)

“We had a dairy, the Punahou dairy, over on the other side of Rocky Hill. That was all pasture. We had beautiful, delicious milk, all the milk you wanted.” (Shaw, Punahou)

Later, in January 1925, Punahou bought the Honolulu Military Academy property – it had about 90-acres of land and a half-dozen buildings on the back side of Diamond Head. (The Honolulu Military Academy was originally founded by Col LG Blackman, in 1911.)

It served as the “Punahou Farm” to carry on the school’s work and courses in agriculture. “We were picked up and taken to the Punahou Farm School, which was also the boarding school for boys. The girls boarded at Castle Hall on campus.” (Kneubuhl, Punahou) The farm school was in Kaimuki between 18th and 22nd Avenues.

In addition to offices and living quarters, the Farm School supplied Punahou with most of its food supplies. The compound included a big pasture for milk cows, a large vegetable garden, pigs, chickens, beehives, and sorghum and alfalfa fields that provided feed for the cows. Hired hands who tended the farm pasteurized the milk in a small dairy, bottled the honey and crated the eggs. (Kneubuhl, Punahou)

While the programs of ‘manual labor’ and farming have been dropped by almost all of the respective school’s curriculums, a lasting legacy and reminder of the prior farming is seen in the Lahainaluna Time Clock.

Between 1941 and 1976, Lahainaluna boarders punched in their “in” and “out” times (according to their assigned student number) to keep track of their daily hours worked for their room and board. (It stopped when the only repairman familiar with the clock passed away.)

While Lahainaluna still has farming activity (raising pigs and cultivating dryland taro, corn, butter lettuce, beans, ti and other crops (Advertiser,)) they don’t punch in/out with the clock.

However, according to the Boarder’s Handbook (2014-2015,) every weekday afternoon and Saturday morning, boarders are to “Check in at the time clock” before they start their 3 ½ hours of work. Likewise, “All Boarders must report to the Time Clock every day and sign out with the Farm Manager when working Overtime until all hours are cleared.”

“Boarders will be evaluated on their dorm and farm work performances; farm and school attendance records; dorm, school, and farm discipline records; school academic effort and achievements; and their overall attitude and behavior in the Boarding Program.” (Lahainaluna High School Boarder’s Handbook, 2014-2015)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Kahu Earl Kukahiko (right), teaches students about farming -1980s-(mauinews)

Lahainaluna boarding student Josh Arata, 16, a senior from Ha’iku, tends to the 5-month old pigs-(advertiser)

Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Chef Paris Nabavi-Sangrita Grill+Cantina-donated $1,200 to Lahainaluna High School’s Agriculture Program-(mauitime)

Hilo_Boarding_School_and_Gardens-from_Haili_Hill-(Lothian)-1856

Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)

Kamehameha-Campus of the three historical schools-(KSBE)-1932

Kamehameha [Dormitory Row]-(KSBE)

Kamehameha School for Boys, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class–1924

Punahou-Campus-from-the-air-1939

August 30, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiians Study Abroad

In 1880, the Legislative Assembly appropriated $15,000 for the “Education of Hawaiian Youths in Foreign Countries, to be expended in the actual education of the youths, and not traveling and sight seeing”. (Session Laws, 1880)

Subsequently, a Board consisting of the Board of Education and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was proposed to “have the management of the education of Hawaiian youths in foreign countries.” (Proceedings, 1880 Legislative Assembly)

This was a program designed and implemented by King Kalākaua.

From 1880 to 1887, 18 young Hawaiians attended schools in six countries where they studied engineering, law, foreign language, medicine, military science, engraving, sculpture and music.
A ‘studies abroad program,’ as it would be called today, was designed to ensure a pool of gifted and highly schooled Hawaiians who would enable the government to fill important positions in the foreign ministry and other governmental branches.

Seventeen promising young men and one young woman were sent on government funds to the four corners of the world: five to Italy, four to the U.S., three to England, three to Scotland, two to Japan and one to China. Several other students went abroad on funds of their own. (Schweizer)

Kalākaua personally selected the participants in his education program and probably planned to groom these young Hawaiians to become future leaders in his monarchy. Several of the youths were descended from Hawaiian aliʻi (nobility.) Several were the offspring of leaders in Kalākaua’s government.

As members of Hawai’i’s leading social families, some of the students had mingled with visiting dignitaries and intellectuals. Most of Kalākaua’s protégé’s had attended Honolulu’s best private schools where they had studied Latin and the Classics.

They were young Hawaiians with a heritage and background to indicate that they would benefit from an education abroad.

Kalākaua selected Robert William Wilcox, Robert Napuʻuako Boyd and James Kanaholo Booth as the first students in his program. They sailed from Hawaiʻi to San Francisco on August 30, 1880.

Once in Italy, Wilcox was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Civil and Military Engineers in Turin, Boyd in the Royal Naval Academy at Leghorn and Booth in the Royal Military Academy in Naples. (Late in 1884, Booth died from cholera in Naples.)

Early in 1887, two more Hawaiian youths traveled to Italy to study, accompanied by Colonel Sam Nowlein, an officer in Kalākaua’s Royal Guards. August Hering wanted to learn sculpture and Maile Nowlein, Colonel Nowlein’s daughter, and the only female participant in the Hawaiian studies abroad program, would study art and music.

In the summer of 1882, Colonel Charles Judd escorted Henry Kapena, Hugo Kawelo, Joseph Kamauʻoha, John Lovell, Mathew Makalua, Abraham Piʻianaiʻa and Thomas Spencer to the US and Great Britain.

Spencer was enrolled in St Matthew’s School in San Mateo, California (“one of the best schools for boys in California, and acknowledged to be the best military-discipline school in the state.” (Thrum, 1885))

In 1885, two more Hawaiians, Prince David Kawananakoa and Thomas P Cummins, also enrolled at St Matthew’s. Both young men had previously attended Punahou School. Kawananakoa later studied at Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, England.

Piʻianaiʻa and Makalua were enrolled at St Chad’s, a preparatory school in Denstone, England. Kamauʻoha was admitted to King’s College in London (he died there in 1886.)

In November of 1882, Judd entered John Lovell, Hugo Kawelo, and Henry Kapena as apprentices at the Scotland Street Iron Works in Glasgow.

Also in 1882, James Kapaʻa, James Hakuʻole and Isaac Harbottle sailed for the Orient. That year, Hawaiʻi negotiated to bring Japanese to the Islands to work on the sugar plantations.

Hakuʻole and Harbottle, brothers aged 10 and 11 years old respectively, disembarked in Japan; Kapaʻa went to China. The government planned that the Hawaiian youths would be trained in the Asian languages and culture and then use their knowledge to aid in the government’s immigration plans.

Henry Grube Marchant was the last participant to be appointed in Kalākaua’s program; he trained in Boston in the art of engraving. He also sought “to learn the art of photographing upon the wooden block and such other branches of business that would enable him to become a good wood engraver in all branches of his work.”

Then, in 1887, following the ‘Bayonet Constitution’ and the curtailing of Kalākaua’s power, the “Reform Cabinet” cut the expenditures for Kalākaua’s education program and called most of the students home. (lots of information here is from Quigg.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Kalakaua

Seated (L2R) John Kaulukou, James Hakuole & Kapena Standing (L2R) unidentified, Isaac Harbottle & (probably) James Kapaa-WC

David Kawananakoa, against bicycle wheel, Thomas Cummins, seated center front, at St. Matthews Military Academy, c. 1885-WC

St._Matthews_Military_Academy,_San_Mateo,_California,_in_the_1880s

Thomas Pualii Cummins in San Francisco, c. 1885-WC

Robert_William_Wilcox_in_Italy,_c._1886

Robert_N._Boyd_in_Livorno,_Italy,_c._1884

Matthew_Manuia_Makalua_in_London,_England,_c._1884

Joseph_Kamauʻoha_in_London,_England,_c._1884

John_Lovell_in_Glasgow,_Scotland,_c._1883

Isaac_Harbottle_in_Japan,_c._1887

Hugo_Kawelo_in_Glasgow,_Scotland,_c._1883-WC

August 23, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Uldrick Thompson

Uldrick Thompson, Sr was orphaned at the age of 4 – his father, Ambrose Thompson, died of tuberculosis when he was 3 years old. While caring for her husband, his mother contracted the same disease, and died a year later.

His maternal uncle, Uldrick Reynolds and his wife Sarah Myners-Reynolds took him in as one of their own according to the wishes of Thompson’s mother. They farmed halfway between Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs in New York.

Thompson was raised in a Methodist community and in the Methodist church. Uncle Uldrick attended Church regularly, revival meetings occasionally and Camp meetings not at all. The family kept the Sabbath day by attending church, avoiding unnecessary work and reading the Bible and good literature.

But Uncle Uldrick’s personal conduct was more influential; he didn’t swear, drink or gamble and paid his debts, his word being as good as a bond. Thompson sought to do likewise throughout his life.

Thompson was encouraged to become a professional teacher and enrolled at Oswego Normal School. There he met Alice Haviland of Brooklyn, New York; they were married at her parents’ home on July 5, 1882.

On November 4, 1887, the Kamehameha School for Boys opened with 37 students and four teachers. A year later the Preparatory Department, for boys 6 to 12 years of age, opened in adjacent facilities. (Organization of the Kamehameha School for Girls was delayed until 1894.)

Then, Thompson received a letter from General Samuel C Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute and son of Hawaiʻi missionary Reverend Richard Armstrong. He was recommended to teach in Hawaiʻi. He met with Charles Reed Bishop and agreed to teach at the new Kamehameha School for Boys.

On August 23, 1889, Rev William Brewster Oleson, principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys (popularly called the Manual School or Department) and Mr Harry Townsend, the vice-principal, met the Thompsons on the dock; they stayed at the Oleson home for a few days.

Thompson (1849-1942) was a teacher at Kamehameha School for Boys (1889-1898 and 1901-1922) and served as the school principal (1898-1901.)

“You who come to Kamehameha and find it as it now is, cannot conceive the degree of barrenness that greeted us that day. No rain for two years! Not a blade of green grass or even a weed in sight!”

“The few algaroba trees scattered about were not taller than a man, and seemed as stunted and discouraged as the mesquite of Arizona. And rocks, rocks, rocks everywhere, with cracks in the clay between large enough to put your foot in.” (Thompson; KSBE)

“One and one half hours work, before breakfast was required of every boy, from the first day of organization. The rising bell sounded at 5:30 am; the Morning Work began at 5:45 and continued till 7 o’clock. Then breakfast.”

“This work consisted of care of the buildings, grounds; helping about the kitchen and dining room; cutting wood for the school fires and for the teachers; and in clearing the Campus of rocks and weeds.”

The core classes were arithmetic, algebra, geometry, English, geography, penmanship, business, health, book-keeping and mechanical drawing. “The curriculum emphasized industrial training considered necessary for a Hawaiian to achieve personal and social success.”

For the girls, along with the standard curriculum, there were sewing, cooking, laundering, nursing and hospital practice classes. Girls 13 and older learned how to be homemakers and mothers. (Ruidas)

“Mrs. Thompson and I and the children, had an ideal life on The Kamehameha Campus. We would not have exchanged our experiences there for anything that might have been offered on the mainland.”

A lasting legacy of Thompson is a clock he made when he was 80; in 1928 he donated it to Oswego Normal School, where Thompson first received his teacher training. (Charles King and Sam Keliinoi of the first graduating class at Kamehameha (1891) came to the Oswego Normal School.)

It took Thompson a year to complete the towering grandfather clock made of koa; “His friend, DH McConnell, donated the Oxford-Whittington-Westminster chimes and works.” Thompson “requested it be placed in Sheldon Hall when built.”

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Uldrick Thompson-ksbe

The Dolphin Clock by Uldrick Thompson

Grandfather-clock-built-by-Uldrich-Thompson-Principal-KSB-1898-1901

Early Teachers at Kamehameha Schools

V4-01-A-KSB-First-Graduating-Class-1891

L2R-Dormitory A, Dormitory B, the Dining-Kitchen-Classroom Building, Dormitory C-ksbe

Graduating_Class_of_the_Kamehameha_School_for_Boys,_1900

Assembly-Uldrick Thompson-ksbe

Downtown Honolulu-Uldrick Thompson-ksbe

Downtown Honolulu Landmarks-Uldrick Thompson-ksbe

August 20, 2015 by Peter T Young 7 Comments

Kawaiahaʻo Female Seminary

“The inception of this school emanated from Mrs Halsey Gulick. In 1863, when living in the old mission premises on the mauka side of King street, she took several Hawaiian girls into her family to be brought up with her own children … The mother love was strong in that little group as some of us remember.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1897)

The usefulness of such a school became evident; as the enrollment grew, the need for a more permanent organization was required.

“It might be claimed that the real beginning was when Rev. Dr. Gulick and wife first occupied the Clark house, and on March 6, 1865, opened a family school for girls.” (The Friend, April 1, 1923)

In 1867, the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society (HMCS – an organization consisting of the children of the missionaries and adopted supporters) decided to support a girls’ boarding school. An early advertisement (April 13, 1867) notes it was called Honolulu Female Academy.

HMCS invited Miss Lydia Bingham (daughter of Reverend Hiram Bingham, leader of the Pioneer Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi) to return to Honolulu to be a teacher in this family school; she was then principal of the Ohio Female College, at College Hill, Ohio.

“Her love for the land of her birth and Interest for the children of the people to whom her father and mother had given their early lives, led her to accept the position, and in March, 1867, she arrived on the Morning Star via Cape Horn.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1897)

HMCS appropriated funds for repairs and additions to the buildings; “(t)he old stone buildings which had formerly been used as printing office and bindery by the mission, with the house of Rev EW Clark, then occupied by Dr. H. Gulick, were repaired and remodelled, to enlarge and make more comfortable the necessary rooms for the school now successfully started.”

“It would be impossible to tell those of you who only know the present building, how crowded and uncomfortable some of those rooms were but we rejoiced, for it was improvement! Miss Bingham soon became principal of the school.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1897) It was later named Kawaiahaʻo Female Seminary.

It started with boarders and day students, but after 1871 it has been exclusively a boarding school. “Under her patient energy and tact, with the help of her assistants, it prospered greatly, and became a success.” (Coan)

At first the school was designed to prepare Hawaiian girls to become ‘suitable’ wives for men who were at the same time preparing to become missionaries and work in the South Seas.

This objective took the back seat to industrial education as new industrial departments were added. This included sewing, washing and ironing, dressmaking, domestic arts and nursing.

The mainstay of the curriculum involved furnishing complete elementary courses, including music, both vocal and instrumental, and training in the household arts. Concerts given by the girls helped the school to make money.

In January 1869, Miss Elizabeth Kaʻahumanu (Lizzie) Bingham arrived from the continent to be an assistant to her sister. Lizzie was a graduate of Mount Holyoke and, when she was recruited, was a teacher at Rockford Female Seminary. (Beyer)

“To those of us who were then watching the efforts of these Christian ladies the school became the centre of great interest. The excellent discipline, the loving care, the neatness and skill shown in all departments of domestic life, the thoroughness of the teaching and the high Christian spirit which pervaded it all caused rejoicing that such an impulse had been given to education for Hawaiian girls.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1897)

“Every Sunday one of the teachers accompanied the Girls to Kawaiahaʻo Church diagonally across the street to the morning service.” (Sutherland Journal)

“When Miss Bingham came to Hilo (on October 13, 1873 she married Titus Coan,) the seminary was committed to the charge of her sister, whose earnest labors for seven years in a task that is heavy and exhausting so reduced her strength, that in June, 1880 she was obliged to resign her post.” (Coan)

While Kawaiahaʻo was both growing and changing into an industrial school, two other female seminaries came into existence: Kohala Female Seminary and Maunaʻolu Seminary (East Maui Female Seminary.)

At the end of the century, all the female seminaries began to lose students to the newly founded Kamehameha School for Girls. This latter school was established in 1894.

It was not technically a seminary or founded by missionaries, but all the girls enrolled were Hawaiian, and its curriculum was very similar to what was used at the missionary sponsored seminaries.

Since Kawaiahaʻo Seminary was located only a few miles from this new female school, it experienced the biggest loss in enrollment and adjusted by enrolling more non-Hawaiian students.

In 1905, a merger with Mills Institute, a boys’ school, was discussed; the Hawaiian Board of Foreign Missions purchased the Kidwell estate, about 35-acres of land in Mānoa valley.

By 1908, the first building was completed and the school was officially operated as Mid-Pacific Institute, consisting of Kawaiahaʻo School for Girls and Damon School for Boys.

Finally, in the fall of 1922, a new coeducational plan went into effect – likewise, ‘Mills’ and ‘Kawaiahaʻo’ were dropped and by June 1923, Mid-Pacific became the common, shared name.

Kohala Female Seminary and Maunaʻolu Female Seminary continued to exist through the 1920s, offering a high school diploma to their graduates. (Hiram and Sybil Bingham, parents of Lydia and Lizzie, are my great-great-great grandparent.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger