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June 20, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Theosophy

The Celtic Revival emerged in late nineteenth-century Scotland and Ireland from a desire for a distinct national identity and a rise in academic interest in history and folklore.

As artists and writers were exploring themes of Celtic mythology and mysticism, a spiritual sect called the Theosophical Society was also quickly gathering steam. Among the many people attracted to the tenets of Theosophy were Celtic Revivalists. (Willamette)

The various forms of theosophical speculation have certain common characteristics. The first is an emphasis on mystical experience. Theosophical writers hold that there is a deeper spiritual reality and that direct contact with that reality can be established through intuition, meditation, revelation or some other state transcending normal human consciousness.

In addition, most theosophical speculation reveals a fascination with supernatural or other extraordinary occurrences and with the achievement of higher psychic and spiritual powers. Theosphists maintain that knowledge of the divine wisdom gives access to the mysteries of nature and humankind’s inner essence. (Britannica)

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a Russian woman of noble birth, and Henry Steel Olcott, an American lawyer and newspaperman, founded the modern Theosophical movement in New York City in 1875.

“As a system of thought, however, Theosophy (derived from the Greek theos and sophia, meaning ‘divine wisdom’) has roots in the thought of Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato and early Indian philosophy dating from the Vedas and Upanishads.” (Karpiel)

When Theosophy emerged in New York as an innovative transnational religious movement represented by the Theosophical Society it was not based on any particular religious tradition, but on the idea of an ancient universal wisdom religion that had been largely buried for centuries and was to be revived and spread under the guidance of the theosophists and their mysterious masters.

From its US American beginnings and even more so after the shift of its headquarters to Adyar, Theosophy was no more “at home” in Europe than in other parts of the world. Like elsewhere, special efforts, e. g. translation work, the reinterpretation of native traditions and the reshaping of Theosophy according to diverse local contexts were necessary to gain a foothold there. (Baier)

The basic goals of the Theosophical Society are enunciated in the so-called Three Objects: ‘to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color; to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; and to investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in human beings.’ (Britannica)

By the late 1890s, the Theosophical Society had more than six hundred branches worldwide, primarily on the Indian subcontinent and in Europe and the United States, with membership ranging from dozens to a few hundred in each chapter.

Not a mass movement, the society instead acted as a catalyst in the revival of Buddhism in Asia and a primary vehicle for the introduction of Asian religious ideas to the West.

Theosophy was often perceived by critics as identical to Buddhism after Blavatsky and Olcott relocated the Society to India in 1880 and took up a pro-Buddhist and anticolonial position. (Karpiel)

Theosophy made it to the Islands; Mary Foster organized the first Hawaiian Theosophical study group, the ‘Aloha Branch,’ in February 1894, along with Auguste Marques.  Subsequently they established several other study groups: the Hawai‘i and Lotus branches.  (Karpiel)

Mary (Robinson) Foster was the oldest child of James Robinson, an early English immigrant who founded Honolulu’s first shipbuilding concern, and Rebecca Prever, the half-Hawaiian descendent of a line of Maui chiefs.

In 1860 Mary Robinson married Thomas Foster, a young shipyard owner from Nova Scotia who founded the Interisland Steam Navigation Company, one of two main interisland shipping concerns during the last two decades of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

Foster inherited considerable property from both her father, who died in 1876, and her husband and became responsible for managing a wide range of business interests and large tracts of land in rural O‘ahu (including Kahana valley) and in Honolulu.

Auguste Marques was a doctor of science, philanthropist, scientist, musician, teacher, diplomat, and capitalist.  In 1890-1891, he served in the last year of the King’s legislature. He was the Russian consul from 1908 to 1917, the Panamanian consul in 1909, French consul from 1910 to 1929, and of Belgium in 1914. He continued to be Russian consul long after the revolution.

Marques hosted weekly Theosophical classes at his house on Wilder Avenue with membership fluctuating between seven and twenty-five in the first decade of the group’s existence.

Despite the sparse number of members, Foster and Marques brought a succession of visiting lecturers and prominent personalities to Honolulu during the same period, drawing large crowds and press attention.

Marques also penned a series of articles for The Theosophist, the journal of the Theosophical Society published in Adyar, India.  Expounding on Hawaiian mythology and symbolism, he documented chants and prayers that connected families and communities with the land, sea, and ancestral gods.

Foster shared this intense interest in Hawaiian culture, fusing it in later years with Theosophical and Buddhist beliefs. It was perhaps at this juncture that the independently wealthy Marques and Foster met and became friends and allies.

Marie de Souza Canavarro, the wife of the Portuguese consul, was another early Theosophist in Honolulu, finding kindred spirits within the group following her disillusionment with Roman Catholicism.

Canavarro, who came to Hawai’i from California, engaged in a lifelong quest for spiritual truth through esoteric traditions, gaining minor celebrity a few years later for her promotion of Buddhism nationwide through lectures and books. (Karpiel)

The Theosophical Society website notes Hawaii Island Study Center in Pahoa, Puna as one of their “lodges, study center and camps.”

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Mary Foster, Auguste Marques, Theosophy

November 5, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kahana

Forever I shall sing the praises
Of Kahana’s beauty unsurpassed
The fragrance of beauteous mountains
By the zephyrs to thee is wafted
(Written for Mary Foster and her country home at Kahana)

The island of Oʻahu is divided into 6 moku (districts), consisting of: ‘Ewa, Kona, Koʻolauloa, Koʻolaupoko, Waialua and Waiʻanae. These moku were further divided into 86 ahupua‘a (land divisions within the moku.)

Kahana (Lit., the work, cutting or turning point;) approximately 5,250-acres, is one of the 32 ahupua‘a that make up the moku of Koʻolauloa on the windward and north shore side of the island.  It extends from the top of the Koʻolau mountain (at approximate the 2,700-foot elevation) down to the ocean.

The ahupuaʻa of Kahana, like all land in Hawai`i prior to the Great Māhele of 1848, belonged to the King. It is estimated that a population of 600 – 1,000 people lived here at the time of the arrival of Captain Cook (1778,) and about 200 at the time of the Māhele.

Much of the lower marshland surrounding the river was planted with taro; the higher dryland area leading to the ridges on both sides of the river was planted with trees, sugar cane, banana and sweet potato.  Groves of bamboo, ti leaves, kukui and hala trees at various locations indicate significant areas of ancient dwelling places.  (Kaʻanaʻana)

Ane Keohokālole, mother of King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani received the bulk of the ahupuaʻa of Kahana at the Māhele; several kuleana awards to makaʻāinana (commoners) were scattered in the valley, as well as land for a school and roads.

Keohokālole received 5,050-acres, and the kuleana awards totaled less than 200-acres (the kuleana lands included the house lots and taro loʻi of the makaʻāinana.) The remainder of the ahupuaʻa included undeveloped uplands.

In 1856, Keohokālole and her husband Kapaʻakea created an asset pool, a type of trust.  As trustee, Keohokālole later sold Kahana (May 1857) to AhSing (also known as Apakana,) a Chinese merchant.  (LRB)

These lands later passed through the hands of a few other Chinese merchants  before being bought by a land hui composed of Hawaiian members of the Church of Jesus Chris Latter Day Saints, called the Ka Hui Kuʻai i ka ʻĀina ʻo Kahana in 1874. The hui had 95 members; most members getting one share, and a few receiving multiple shares.  (LRB)

The hui movement was not isolated to Kahana, it was throughout the Islands.  They were formed as an attempt to retain or reestablish part of the old system that predated private ownership granted through the Māhele.  (Stauffer)

Here, each shareholder had his or her own house lot and taro loʻi, but all had an undivided interest in the pasture and uplands, and in the freshwater rights, ocean fishing rights and Huilua fishpond.

Each member was allowed an equal share in the akule that were caught, and could have up to six animals running freely on the land (additional animals would be paid at a quarter per year.)  (LRB)

When the call came in the late-1880s for Mormons to gather at Salt Lake City, many from Kahana wanted to leave for Utah with other Hawaiian Mormons; at least a third of the founders of the Hawaiian Mormon Iosepa (Joseph) Colony in Utah were from Kahana.  (Stauffer)

Then, Mary Foster (daughter of James Robinson and wife of Thomas Foster – an initial organizer of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, that later became Hawaiian Airlines) became involved in purchasing interests in land in Kahana.

This was the beginning a “bitter economic and legal struggle” with Kāneʻohe Ranch for control of the valley.  An out of court settlement was reached in 1901 in which Mary Foster bought out the Ranch’s interest, giving her a controlling interest in Kahana.

With added acquisitions, by 1920, she eventually owned 97% of the valley.  Mrs. Foster died in 1930, and Kahana passed to her estate and was held in trust for her heirs.

When World War II broke out, the military moved the Japanese families out, and in 1942 the US Army Corps of Engineers erected a jungle warfare training center in the valley.

In 1955, the Robinson Agency, acting as the agent for the Foster Estate, contracted with a planner for feasibility studies on Kahana. The report recommended making an authentic South Sea island resort village – an inn with 20 rooms, creating a small lake in the valley, and a nine-hole golf course.  Nothing happened as a result of this plan.

A study on usage of the valley as a public park was done, but no action was taken. Also in 1962, a private foundation presented a plan to create a scientific botanical garden.

In 1965, John J. Hulten (real estate appraiser and State Senator) prepared a report for DLNR noting that Kahana was ideally suited to be a regional park, offering seashore water sports, mountain camping, and salt and freshwater fishing, and a tropical botanical garden. “Properly developed it will be a major attraction with 1,000,000 visits annually.”

The “proper development” he had in mind included 600 “developable acres” for camping, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, and swimming, and foresaw over 1,000 camping sites plus cabins, restaurant, and shops.

He said that a hotel and other commercial buildings could be developed, and wanted the creation of a 50 acre lake.  All of this development would be assisted by a botanical garden and a mauka road from Likelike Highway to Kahana.

In 1965, the State condemned the property for park purposes with a $5,000,000 price, paid in five annual installments (which included some federal funds.)   By 1969, the State owned Kahana free and clear.

A 1987 law authorized DLNR to issue long term residential leases to individuals who had been living on the lands and provided authorization for a residential subdivision in Kahana Valley. In 1993, the Department entered into 65 year leases covering 31 residential properties – in lieu of rent payments, the lessees are required to contribute at least twenty-five hours of service each month.

A later law (2008) created the Living Park Planning Council, placed within the DLNR for administrative purposes. The purpose of the Council was to create a master plan and advise the Department of matters pertaining to the park.

Kahana Valley State Park was renamed the Ahupuaʻa ʻo Kahana State Park in November 2000.  Kahana is the second-largest state park in the state park system (Na Pali Coast State Park is larger, at 6,175 acres.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Oahu, Ane Keohokalole, Keohokalole, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon, Koolauloa, Iosepa, DLNR, Mary Foster, Kahana, Hawaii

August 28, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

James Robinson

James Robinson came to the islands from London, his birthplace, arriving here in 1820, before the first missionaries (while rounding Cape Horn his ship passed the “Thaddeus,” which was bringing the first missionaries from New England.)

He was carpenter on the whaling ship “Hermes.”  In 1822, sailing from Honolulu for Japan the Hermes was wrecked on the reef of Holoikauaua (what is now referred to as Pearl and Hermes.)

This seeming disaster turned into a new industry for Honolulu and proved to be the foundation of his subsequent business and of his fortune.

The combined crews (totaling 57) made it safely to one of the small islands and were castaway for months with what meager provisions they could salvage.

He and the crew built a small schooner (the Deliverance) from the wreckage and the survivors of the wreck sailed back to Honolulu to remain permanently.

After his arrival, Robinson was befriended by Kamehameha II and John Young.  He and a ship-mate, Robert Lawrence (a cooper (barrel maker,)) sold the Deliverance for $2,000 and found employment in repairing schooners owned by the king and chiefs.

They received the assistance of Kamehameha II and, in 1827, established their shipyard in Honolulu harbor at Pākākā, or “the Point,” on land obtained from Kalanimoku. They were later joined as a full partner by James Holt, “a very respectable man from Boston.”

In 1840, the Polynesian commended the partners and their shipyard:  “Honest, industrious, economical, temperate, and intelligent, they are living illustrations of what these virtues can secure to men. …”

“Their yard is situated in the most convenient part of the harbor has a stone butment and where two vessels of six hundred tons burthen can be berthed, hove out, and undergo repairs at one and the same time. There is fourteen feet of water along side of the butment.”

“The proprietors generally keep on hand all kinds of material for repairing vessels. Also those things requisite for heaving out, such as blocks, falls, etc. On the establishment are fourteen excellent workmen, among whom are Ship Carpenters, Caulkers and Gravers, Ship Joiners, Block-makers, Spar-makers, Boatbuilders, etc.”

In mid-September 1830, Joseph Elliott moved to The Point to open a hotel with Robinson.  Lawrence and Holt, Robinson’s partners, appear to have specialized in the hotel and liquor business, which also featured a boarding house. The Shipyard Hotel had the advantage of being a “first chance – last chance” operation.

Years rolled on, and the firm of James Robinson & Co. (including Robert Lawrence and Mr. Holt) was a significant success and carried on a business that employed a large number of ship-carpenters and caulkers. More whaling ships were repaired at their establishment than at any other in the Pacific.

This partnership lasted until 1868, when Mr. Lawrence died. For many years their building was one of the sights of the town, being decorated with the figurehead from an old vessel.

Robinson became so wealthy; reportedly, he lent substantial funds to the Hawaiian government during the 1850s and maintained a close relationship with the kingdom’s leaders until his death in 1876.

Hawaiians called him Kimo (James) Pakaka as Honolulu Harbor grew up around his shipyard.

In 1843, James Robinson married Rebecca Prever; they had eight children: Mark, Mary, Victoria, Bathsheba, Matilda, Annie, Lucy and John.

Mr. Robinson died at his residence in Nuʻuanu valley August 8, 1876.  However, his legacy lived on through his children.

His descendants became a well-known island family and his fortune founded the Robinson Estate.  His son, Mark, was a member of Queen Liliʻuokalani’s cabinet (Minister of Foreign Affairs) during the chaotic last months of the monarchy as factional battles separated the royal government.  He was a founder of First National Bank of Hawai’i and First American Savings.

His daughter Lucy married a McWayne (apparently, Robinson’s ship facility eventually became McWayne Marine Supply at Kewalo Basin – some old-timers may remember that later name.)

Daughter Victoria married a Ward.  Their residence was known as Old Plantation, and included the current site of the Neil F. Blaisdell Center.  Her estate, Victoria Ward Ltd, had other significant holdings in Kakaʻako.

Daughter Mary married a Foster.  Her husband Thomas Foster was an initial organizer of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company.  That company founded a subsidiary, Inter-Island Airways, that later changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines.

Foster had also purchased the estate of the renowned botanist William Hillebrand, which was bequeathed to the city as Foster Botanical Garden at the death of his wife Mary.

The image shows Honolulu Harbor in 1854.  The Robinson facilities are on the right hand side – to the left of the Fort wall (you can see a ship being repaired at the shore.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Prominent People, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, James Robinson, Inter-Island Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Victoria Ward, Blaisdell Center, Old Plantation, Mary Foster, Pakaka, Mark Robinson

November 6, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Foster Botanical Garden

In 1853, Queen Kalama leased 4.6 acres of land to William Hillebrand, a botanist as well as a physician; he and his wife built a home in the upper terrace area of the present garden. The magnificent trees which now tower over this area were planted by him.

Six years after his arrival, he and nine other Honolulu physicians petitioned to charter an organization called the Hawaiian Medical Society. Today, it is the Hawaii Medical Association.

Appointed physician to the royal family at The Queen’s Hospital (now The Queen’s Medical Center), Hillebrand also served as chief physician at the hospital from 1860 to 1871.

While on a mission for the King to bring Chinese immigrants to work in the islands’ sugar fields, Hillebrand introduced Common Myna birds to Honolulu (as well as “carrion crows, gold finches, Japanese finches, Chinese quail, ricebirds, Indian sparrows; golden, silver and Mongolian pheasants; and [two] axis deer from China and Java”.)

After 20 years, Hillebrand returned to Germany, where he published Flora of the Hawaiian Islands in 1888.

In 1884, the Hillebrand property was sold Thomas R. Foster and his wife Mary E. Foster, who continued to develop the garden at their homesite.

In 1919, Foster leased two-acres to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association for its experiment station, under the direction of Dr. Harold L. Lyon, a botanist and plant pathologist.

Lyon proceeded to build on the work of plant conservation and landscape architecture which Dr. Hillebrand and Mrs. Foster had initiated. By 1925, his plant nursery had produced over a million trees, most of them exceptional varieties which were not grown elsewhere.

Hundreds of new species of trees and plants had been imported, cultivated and distributed throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

Upon Mrs. Foster’s death in 1930, the 5.5 acre site was bequeathed to the City and County of Honolulu as a public garden and was opened to the public on November 30, 1931, with Lyon as its first director.

Over a span of 27 years, Dr. Lyon introduced 10,000 new kinds of trees and plants to Hawaiʻi. The Foster Garden orchid collection was started with Dr. Lyon’s own plants.

Through purchases by the City and gifts from individuals, under the directorship of Paul R. Weissich (1957-89), Foster Garden expanded to over 13.5-acres and also developed four additional sites on Oahu Island to create the 650-acre Honolulu Botanical Gardens system (including, Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden, Koko Crater Botanical Garden, Liliʻuokalani Botanical Garden and Wahiawa Botanical Garden.)

Taken as a whole, these five gardens feature rare species from tropical environments ranging from desert to rainforest, comprising the largest and most diverse tropical plant collection in the United States.

In addition to being a pleasant place to visit, Foster Botanical Garden is a living museum of tropical plants, some rare and endangered, which have been collected from throughout the world’s tropics over a period of 150 years.

Today the garden consists of the Upper Terrace (the oldest part of the garden); Middle Terraces (palms, aroids, heliconias, gingers); Economic Garden (herbs, spices, dyes, poisons); Prehistoric Glen (primitive plants planted in 1965); Lyon Orchid Garden; and Hybrid Orchid Display.

It also contains a number of exceptional trees, including a Sacred Fig which is a clone descendant of the Bodhi tree that Buddha sat under for inspiration, a sapling of which was gifted to Mary Foster by Anagarika Dharmapala in 1913.

In 1975, the Hawaiʻi State Legislature found that rapid development had led to the destruction of many of the State’s exceptional trees and passed Act 105 – The Exceptional Tree Act.

The Act recognizes that trees are valuable for their beauty and they perform crucial ecological functions. All told, Foster Botanical Garden contains 25 of about 100 Oʻahu trees designated as exceptional.

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Foster_Botanical_Garden-sign
William_Hillebrand
William_Hillebrand
Mary_Elizabeth_Mikahala_Robinson_Foster
Mary_Elizabeth_Mikahala_Robinson_Foster
Baobab Tree, Adansonia digitata
Bo Tree, Ficus religiosa
Bodhi_tree_foster_botanical_gardens-Genetically identical to the Bodhi Tree (original) at Sri Mahabodhi temple, India
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Daibutsu-replica of the Great Buddha of Kamakura-dedicated in 1968 for centennial of Japanese immigration to Hawaii
Dendrobium_thyrsiflorum
Dischidia-imbricata-on-Millettia-pinnata
Doum Palm, Hyphaene thebaica
False Olive Tree, Elaeodendron orientale
Flowering_Talipot_Palm
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Guama Tree, Lonchocarpus domingensis
Kapok Tree, Ceiba pentandra
Pili Nut Tree, Canarium vulgar
Tattele Tree, Pterogota alata
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Foster_Botanical_Garden-GoogleEarth

Filed Under: Place Names, Prominent People, General Tagged With: Hawaii, Mary Foster, Queen's Medical Center, Queen's Hospital, Hawaii Sugar Planters, Harold Lyon, Foster Botanical Garden, Hilldebrand

June 20, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Japanese High School

Japanese came to Hawai’i between 1885 and 1924, when limits were placed on the numbers permitted entry. “The government contract workers who arrived in Hawaii in the 1880s did not have much time or energy to worry about their children’s education.”

“Their only aim was to make enough money to return to Japan. With mothers going to work from early in the morning the children were virtually left to themselves all day long.” (Duus)

“At first the parents had no mind to settle permanently in this territory. One day they would go back to Japan and take their children with them. But they would be greatly to blame if their children were found unable to speak and write in their mother tongue.”

“It was thus the earnest wish of the parents for the welfare of the children that they should be fully equipped with Japanese instruction, so as to enable them, on their return home, to stand on an equal footing with those who were born in Japan and educated there.”

“In the early days then, Japanese schools tried very hard to meet this request of the parents. Though the school hours were limited to less than two hours in the morning or two hours in the afternoon, they used to give not only the language lesson, but teach as many subjects as you will find in the curriculum of Japanese instruction in Japan.” (Imamura)

“Because of the lack of higher education among most immigrants and their children in Hawai’i, Buddhist Bishop Yemyo Imamura proposed building a Hongwanji high school, incorporating dormitories for students from rural O‘ahu and the neighbor islands.”

“While in Japan in early 1906 he gained approval from the Honzan, Hongwanji’s headquarters temple in Kyoto, and on his return to Hawai‘i he spoke to (Mary) Foster about the new project.” (Karpiel)

“Mary Foster donated a large piece of land covered with kiawe trees, now bisected by the Pali Highway, which was used to construct Hongwanji High School in 1907 (the first Buddhist High School in the United States) and the new Honpa Hongwanji Betsuin in 1918.” (Tsomo)

The final stretch of the Pali Highway to be completed was the segment which connected it to the downtown area between Coelho Lane and the intersection of Bishop Street and Beretania Street. It impacted the school. Planning for this segment had
begun as early as 1953.

When the Pali Highway was constructed, the Honpa Hongwanji, whose property was bisected by the proposed new segment, requested three of its buildings be relocated and a pedestrian underpass be constructed under the new highway to connect the temple with its school premises. (HHF)

The Japanese High School of the Hongwanji got the attention of others. “The first Japanese language program at a public school was established at McKinley High School in Honolulu on October 1, 1924.” (Asato)

“The minutes of the Japanese committee of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, dated September 10, (1924) a month before the Japanese program at McKinley High School began, reveals who was involved with this movement.”

“During the meeting, Treasurer Theodore Richards expressed his concern about female high-school students who attended the Hongwanji School for advanced Japanese language study, saying that they ‘were getting led away from Christianity.’”

“Richards was discussing the Hongwanji Girls’ High School (Hawai Kōtō Jogakkō) established in 1910, the girls’ counterpart of Hongwanji’s junior high school, Hawai Chūgakkō, established three years earlier.” (Asato)

World War II totally disrupted Buddhist activities in Hawaii. On December 7, 1941, the Buddhist community was busily preparing for Bodhi Day services at various temples. The next day the temples were closed, and the Buddhist ministers were interned.

Labeled “potentially dangerous enemy aliens,” most Buddhist clergy, language school teachers, community leaders, businessmen doctors, anyone who had been identified as possible enemies of the United States, were rounded up to be taken away to detention camps, passing through the assembly center at Sand Island on O‘ahu. (Hongwanji Hawaii)

In 1949, one of the most momentous decisions made by the Hongwanji after the war was the adoption of a proposal to establish the Hongwanji Mission School, the first Buddhist, English grade school.

In 1992, the Hongwanji Mission School became available for students up until the 8th grade. Prior to that, the school was an elementary school with students from preschool to the sixth grade. In September of 1993, the middle school building was completed, and the class of 1994 was the first class to occupy it.

In the fall of 2003, with the encouragement of Bishop Chikai Yosemori, the Pacific Buddhist Academy (PBA) opened its doors to the first class of fourteen students. PBA is a college preparatory high school, and the first Shin Buddhist high school in the western world.

The school’s mission is “to prepare students for college through academic excellence; to enrich their lives with Buddhist values; and to develop their courage to nurture peace.” (Hongwanji Hawaii)

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Japanese High School plaque
Japanese High School plaque
Japanese High School plaque
Japanese High School plaque
Aloha Garden-Japanese High School
Aloha Garden-Japanese High School

Filed Under: General, Schools, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Japanese, Mary Foster, Japanese High School, Hongwanji High School, Yemyo Imamura, Honpa Hongwanji

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