Images of Old Hawaiʻi

  • Home
  • About
  • Categories
    • Ali’i / Chiefs / Governance
    • American Protestant Mission
    • Buildings
    • Collections
    • Economy
    • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
    • General
    • Hawaiian Traditions
    • Other Summaries
    • Mayflower Summaries
    • Mayflower Full Summaries
    • Military
    • Place Names
    • Prominent People
    • Schools
    • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
    • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Collections
  • Contact
  • Follow

November 20, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Vocational Training

100 years ago, a 1920 ‘A Survey of Education in Hawaii’ addressed the Islands occupational needs and opportunities – the implementation of manual labor and vocational training was strongly suggested for Hawai‘i. The 1920 report concluded,

“From the foregoing analysis of the occupational needs and opportunities of the islands it is clear that a course of school study and training which is limited to the usual academic subjects would ignore almost entirely the very heart of the life and work of the islands. …”

“Nevertheless, outside of teaching, the islands offer comparatively few opportunities in the professions; therefore, the great mass of the children and young people now in the schools, if they are to become stable, self-supporting, worthy members of society must find their opportunities either in agriculture itself or in occupations directly related to agricultural enterprises. …”

“It should be required that every boy and girl going through school, no matter where headed, should spend some time each day on the farm in gaining through actual experience a firsthand knowledge of what it means to farm in Hawaii in a practical way. …”

“In connection with the public-school system of the islands there is no work in manual training, cooking, agriculture, industries, music, art, or in vocational activities beyond the meagerest beginnings. An exception to this statement, however, should be pointed out, in that many of the schools have accomplished satisfactory results in developing school gardens and also in encouraging the making of gardens in the homes. …”

“On account, therefore, of inadequate maintenance funds at the command of the educational authorities of the Territory, all those activities which are now generally accepted as being necessary parts of an all-round effective education have been impossible of accomplishment, and in this respect, again, as compared with progressive mainland communities, the educational authorities of the islands are badly handicapped.” (p. 45)

The term manual and industrial education refers to either the manual labor system and/or manual training system in vogue during the 19th century. Charles Bennett coined this term. (Beyer)

“If the term ‘manual training’ seems abrasive to the contemporary reader, it’s understandable. However, at the turn of the century, the term may not have had the connotation of semi-skilled, hard physical labor that it does at present.” (Broadbent)

Manual and industrial education emphasized a curriculum where learning was accomplished by both the hands and the mind. After becoming institutionalized in Europe, it next took root in the United States.

Since the primary sponsors of Western education for Hawaiians were either American Protestant missionaries or their children, who usually returned to the U.S. for their college education, it is apparent that Hawaiian education had an American influence. (Beyer)

Vocational education means “organized educational programs offering a sequence of courses which are directly related to the preparation of individuals in paid or unpaid employment in current or emerging occupations requiring other than a baccalaureate or advanced degree.” (Perkins Act 1990)

The Core of Traditional Native Hawaiian Education was Based on Vocation (that Included Appropriate Protocols)

“The ideals of Hawaiian education are the same throughout its many fields, from what Westerners would consider the most utilitarian to the most intellectual or religious.”

“Indeed, the utilitarian were considered ‘oihana ‘ike ‘professions of knowledge’, and the intellectual and religious always had a practical purpose. As in much Asian philosophy and religion, knowledge should lead to wisdom, competence, service for others, health, long life, and so on.” (Charlot)

Practicality or usefulness is a high ideal of Hawaiian education that is applied to all branches of learning. Knowledge and activity should have a waiwai ‘virtue, value, or benefit’. These ideas continued into post contact times. (Charlot)

Before the foreigners arrived, Hawaiians had a traditional 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, priests, etc.

Learning was accompanied by prayers, kapus, rules, and regulations: Ma na oihana hana a pau o Hawaii nei, ua aoia me ke kapu wale no ‘In all the work occupations of Hawai‘i, they were taught only with the kapu’.

The student had to follow the kānāwai ‘laws’ of learning to achieve effective knowledge, especially in such fields as sorcery, but also in spear throwing, boxing, and wrestling. Laws had to be followed also in the practice of professions such as fishing, tapa making, and house building.

Joseph Emerson states that canoe making “became a religious rite all through.” Hula and other kinds of training demanded sexual abstinence. Kamakau (February 10, 1870) describes the strict kapus enjoined while educating children from chiefly, priestly, or professional families. Education was provided in temples for some occupations. (Charlot)

Post-Contact (after James Cook arrived (1778)), The King and Chiefs Sought Education in Western Vocational Skills

Post contact, this idea of functional education addressing specific skills is exemplified in a letter 15 Chiefs (including King Kamehameha III) signed on August 23, 1836, asking the missionaries to send more teachers. The Chiefs’ focus was on teachers to teach specific vocational skills. The letter (initially prepared and signed in Hawaiian is translated below):

“Regards to you, our friends in America,”

“Here is our hope for the improvement of the lands here in Hawaii. Give us more instructors like those you have in your land, America. These are the kinds of instructors we are considering: A carpenter, A tailor, A house builder, A cobbler, A wheelwright, A paper maker, A maker of lead printing type, Farmers who know the planting and care of cotton and silk, and sugar refining. A maker of fabric, and carts suitable for heavy work.”

“A teacher for the chiefs in matters of land, comparable to what is done in enlightened lands. And if there are other things appropriate for those endeavors, those as well.”

“If you agree and send these teachers, we will protect them when they arrive, provide the necessities to make their professions viable and give our support to these needed endeavors.”

(The letter is signed by 15-chiefs, including Kauikeaouli (King Kamehameha III.) Na Kauikeaouli, Nahiʻenaʻena, Na Hoapili Kane, Na Malia Hoapili (Hoapili Wahine?). Gov Adams (Kuakini), Na Kaahumanu 2 (Kīnaʻu), Kekāuluohi, Paki, Liliha, ʻAikanaka, Leleiōhoku, Kekūanāoʻa, Kanaʻina, Kekauōnohi and Keliʻiahonui” (Awaiaulu MHM Project 2016)

While missionaries with various skill sets had been in the islands since 1820, this letter identifies the kingdom’s need for teachers in new fields of industry and business.

Shortly after, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) sent the largest company of missionaries to the Islands; including a large number of teachers (19, including their wives). The Eighth Company arrived at Honolulu on April 9, 1837 on the Mary Frasier from Boston.

Manual Labor and Vocational Education in Hawai‘i

When the missionaries established schools and seminaries (i.e. the female seminaries, as well as Lahainaluna, Hilo Boarding School, Punahou,) the focus was educating the head, heart and hand.

In addition to the rigorous academic drills (Head), the schools provided religious/moral (Heart) and manual labor/vocational (Hand) training.

Post contact but prior to the arrival of the missionaries (1820), “no one bothered to create a formal school system that would teach the natives any of the skills they would need to compete in the international arena. Then, the missionaries came along.” (Broadbent)

The missionary educators in Hawai‘i began to use manual and industrial education in the 1830s as one of several curricular alternatives; after mid-century, they began to steer all of the schools they controlled or influenced towards some form of this educational system. “One of the first vocations to be taught was printing. The printed word was considered essential”. (Broadbent)

By the early years of the 20th century, manual labor/vocational training was the preferred curriculum in both the private and public schools of Hawai‘i. As a result, in terms of length of time and continuity, it was more preponderant than what was practiced in the US. (Beyer)

Lahainaluna was designed first, “to instruct young men that they may become assistant teachers of religion;” second, “to disseminate sound knowledge embracing literature and science;” third, to qualify native school teachers for their respective duties; fourth, “it is designated that a piece of land shall be connected with the institution and the manual labor system introduced as far as practicable.” (Westervelt)

Reverend William Brewster Oleson was hired from the Hilo Boarding School to become the first principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys. Hilo Boarding school was the first manual labor type school in the Pacific. It instituted a program of rural education based on the idea of learning by doing. (Moe) Oleson brought that philosophy and program to Kamehameha.

While the manual labor system involved the inclusion of working with the hands as part of the curriculum, the manual training system involved instruction of the hands through the specific use of tools. (Beyer)

Later, shortly after the University of Hawaiʻi started (1907,) short courses or ‘special lectures’ of education of “less than college grade” were offered in agriculture as ‘extension’ work.

Nationally, the Cooperative Extension Service was created in 1914 with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act (but it excluded Hawaiʻi.) UH developed its own version of an extension program, which was the basis of a successful appeal to Congress after several years of struggle for Hawai‘i’s inclusion in the Act in November 1928. (CTAHR)

Following adoption of the Smith-Hughes Act, 1917, two types of full-time day classes in vocational agriculture were organized in Hawaiʻi. ‘Type A’ classes (primarily for upper elementary and intermediate grades) are those in which pupils spend approximately half of their school time in the classroom where they receive Instruction in English, mathematics, hygiene, geography, vocational agriculture and other subjects.

The remaining time was spent in the field where the pupils do all of the work on a class project in sugar cane or in pineapple production. Field work was closely supervised by the teacher of vocational agriculture, but all money earned was divided among the boys in proportion to the time they work. They also had a home project.

Under the ‘Type B’ plan (typically for high school students,) pupils did not use a portion of the school time for field work. Practical experience was gained through extensive home project programs. Classroom instruction in agriculture is under the teacher of vocational agriculture, but academic subjects were taken with other pupils of the school under regular teachers of these subjects.

Some schools incorporated the program into their curriculum. Then, the 1967 session of the 4th Hawaii State Legislature resolved that “it is of great urgency to the citizens of this State, adults as well as youths, that there be developed a comprehensive state master plan for vocational education.” A ‘State Master Plan for Vocational Education’ was prepared the next year.

Occupational Needs and Opportunities of the Hawaiian Islands

The 1920 Survey of Education in Hawaii and note that the Commissioner of Education was considering/ implementing manual labor/ vocational training in the schools in Hawai‘i. Of note, the Commissioner of Education’s Survey stated,

“It must be clear that the vocational needs as well as the vocational opportunities of the islands are in large part connected directly or indirectly with the sugar industry, and in a less degree with pineapple growing.”

“Obviously, the educational system of Hawaii must take into account the specific opportunities for employment which the sugar industry affords in all its phases. It is pertinent, therefore, to inquire about the nature of the occupational opportunities which this great industry offers and the qualifications required for success therein.” (p. 32)

The 1920 report goes on to conclude,

“Such a course, beyond that general preparation through securing literacy which an academic course gives, would in nowise minister in any practical way either to the success of the individual in his attempts to find a vocation to which he is adapted and in which he would derive satisfaction, or to the needs of the industries themselves.”

“The schools of Hawaii must see to it that all the children of the islands shall grow up to be literate men and women, and to accomplish this the core of the work of the schools, as of schools wherever placed, must consist of academic studies of the usual type.”

“Furthermore, the schools must see to it that the way is open at the top so that those pupils developing an aptitude for teaching, for law, for medicine, for research work, for linguistics, for the ministry, for journalism, shall secure that broad educational foundation which success in such highly specialized professions demands. …”

“Aside, then, from the core of work running throughout the entire system from the kindergarten to the university which should properly make for literacy, for culture, for general information, for catholicity of view and of interest, the school, at every step of the way, should be laying a foundation for occupational success.”

“The elementary school in this connection, for example, should be devoting much attention to training in the various forms of handwork, manual work, cooking, simple sewing, the making of beds, and the care of the house, [When I was a kid, a lot of those we called ‘chores’ in our house.] the making of school and home gardens, the organizing of pig clubs and poultry clubs, and in the use of tools through making simple repairs and through making articles for use in the home.”

“Every junior and senior high school in the Territory should have near by a well-stocked farm in charge of a practical, progressive, scientific farmer and his wife who herself should be an expert in all those matters properly falling within the field of the duties of a housewife on a farm. …”

“In the classrooms of these schools, a portion of the time could well be devoted to a discussion of those theoretical and scientific considerations which lie back of the problems which naturally grow out of the activities of the farm.”

“The university, aside from offering courses on the campus at Honolulu in applied arts and sciences, could well have a branch set down in one of the islands among the plantations, where the university could send its young men who are looking forward to plantation service in a directive capacity.”

“At such a branch opportunity should be provided whereby a capable young man might spend one-half his time in actual field service and the other half in the college branch working under the direction of persons trained in plantation science. A training of such character, both scientific and practical would offer a satisfactory career to one who wishes to make preparation for it.” (p. 34-36)

The 1920 Survey further called for “for lengthening the school day to seven or eight hours, thereby making it possible effectively to organize agricultural, industrial, manual, and play activities for those children whose parents work in the fields and who but for such opportunities might be running the streets or roads.” (p. 142)

Manual Labor and Vocational Education on the Continent

What was happening at schools in Hawai‘i was consistent with what was happening at schools on the continent.

The rise of the American Education Society in 1815 helped promote the use of manual labor among the theological seminaries. Up to 1829, the most successful manual labor experiment was the one at the Andover Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. Its voluntary program based upon mechanical labor became the model for other seminaries. In many other schools, it was largely agricultural, and, in the most successful schools, it was compulsory. (Beyer)

The purpose was to help three classes of young men: the “worthy poor” who wanted an education; the “idle well-to-do” who needed proper motives to industry to keep them from dissipation; and the “especially talented” students who needed exercise for the good of their health. (Beyer)

In less than 10 years manual labor became a force as an educational movement. In certain schools, it left a type of work, which grew and became permanent. “In Fellenberg’s academy for the upper classes of society, manual labor was used as a means of physical training. In Fellenberg’s farm and trade school, manual labor was a means of paying for instruction and living expenses.” (Beyer)

“Perhaps the best expression of the need for educating students, who were inclined to favor technical subjects, can be found in the Fourth Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1870-1875, produced in California.”

“The State Superintendent wrote ‘We shall be a poor and dependent people so long as we import from abroad all of those articles of consumption which require the highest order of skilled labor in their manufacture….’” (Broadbent)

“[T]he history of Vocational Education in the United States can be traced back to 1906 with the creation of the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. … The National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education had as its two basic purposes the education of the lay population relative to the need for industrial education and the necessity of obtaining federal funding to support this effort.” (Broadbent)

The Need Continues to Be Evident

In Hawai‘i and on the continent (then and now), not every student wants to go or is destined to go to college.

“Vocational education wasn’t designed to prepare students for college. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, the law that first authorized federal funding for vocational education in American schools, explicitly described vocational ed as preparation for careers not requiring a bachelor’s degree.” (Hanford)

“Congress, in passing the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, decided that there would be alternative opportunities available for children predicated on their personal proclivities and preferences in learning styles.”

“The Smith-Hughes Act was very specific regarding the intention of the legislation. It was designed to prepare a substantial portion of the workforce for skilled and well paid employment.” (Broadbent)

“‘The early vocational education was driven by a philosophy of fitting people to their probable destinies,’ says Jim Stone, director of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education.” (Hanford)

“Vocational education at the secondary level has traditionally had several objectives, including providing students with general employability skills and preparing them to enter paid and unpaid employment in specific occupations.” (National Center for Education Statistics)

“[O]ver the next 78 years Congress incrementally added to the legislation whenever it appeared that some national need existed that vocational educators could possibly solve. In 1929 it passed the George-Reed Act which provided money for agriculture and home economics.” (Broadbent)

“The interest in vocational education in the early 20th century was prompted in part by big economic and social changes. Factory owners were facing a shortage of skilled labor in a rapidly industrializing society. And public schools were seeing an influx of immigrants and farm kids.”

“Many of those kids would have learned farming or skilled trades from their parents in an earlier era. But with the rise of factories, it was no longer safe for kids to learn to work alongside their parents. So they went to high school instead.” (Hanford)

“‘And secondary schools didn’t know what to do with them,’ says Jeannie Oakes, author of Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality.”

“High schools ‘were used to dealing with this very small group of mostly quite privileged children of educated families and they gave them this nice liberal arts education in preparation for the university,’ she says. ‘Well that didn’t seem to be fitting at all for these kids who’d come in from the farms, or these new immigrants. So the idea was, let’s put vocational training into public education and we can solve all of these problems.’”

“By 1937 the enrollment of vocational education had reached 1,500,000 students. Clearly occupationally oriented education or, to use the increasingly archaic term “vocational,” was meeting the educational needs of a good number of students.” (Broadbent)

Today, Hawai‘i has about a 90% high school graduation rate. Pre-pandemic, “The college-going rate had been relatively steady at about 55% for the past several years” (Star Advertiser, March 24, 2021). Today, that puts about half of the post-high school students on the street looking for work. Hawai‘i needs vocational training just as much now, as it did a century ago.

© 2022 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Schools Tagged With: Education, Vocational Training, Manual Labor

April 29, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Continuation School

(The 1909 Report of the Public School Fund Commission carried a paper, Our Children, Our Schools, and Our Industries, by Andrew S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction, New York State.)

He noted “We have exploited the fundamental principles of our democracy in our politics and in our religion much, more completely and satisfactorily than in our education or in our industries. The application of those principles to our training and our work of hand is now to be pressed to conclusions.”

“The usefulness of our society to the individual depends upon the character and the efficiency of the units who comprise the mass.”

“The worth of the individual to the State, on the other hand depends upon the common acceptance of the principles of the Golden Rule, as well as upon the ambitions which are inspired by the common thinking and the prevalent anxiety and aptitude of the people for work.”

“Whether the work be intellectual or manual has; nothing to do with the right of the toiler to respect and regard.”

“Individual success and the growing strength of a people must come, if it comes at all, through steady application by growing numbers, through increasing competency, through sound living, and through the slow accretions of goods and of esteem.”

“It would be an appalling and pathetic mistake for a people to think that subtlety and greed can become the basis of either personal or national prosperity.”

“Economic conditions have forced combinations. The disappearance of individual responsibility in the corporation and the labor union, has wrought havoc with old-fashioned thinking and with moral fiber.”

“The time must soon come when the man in the corporation shall be stopped from using the common power of the people to oppress rather than to aid the people, and when the man in the union shall be stopped …”

“… from using the organized strength of his fellows to do the least he can for his wage, and from debasing himself through subtle antagonism to the people for whom he works, or a heavy shadow will rest upon the pathway of the Republic.”

“The man in the union, and all the rest of us, both in this generation and the next, must be aided more completely by the schools, and to do that some radical changes in the basis, the thought, and the plan of the schools seem imperative.”

“The child must have his chance, – an equal, open, hopeful, chance. But he must not be misled. His chance is in work. It is in his becoming accustomed to discipline, to direction, to industry, and to persistence, before he is sixteen years of age.” (Draper 1909)

In that same report the Maine Superintendent of Schools stated, “Of all the larger educational movements of the time probably no other is destined to have so far reaching influence as that which seeks to introduce into our school work a more distinctly utilitarian purpose than has before been recognized.”

“The general object of the introduction of this purpose has been so much under recent discussion that it is hardly necessary to repeat this here. We are learning, however, from the experience of other people, that it pays in every sense to train for efficiency in action as well as for efficiency in thinking, and that, I conceive, is the underlying motive of a right sort of vocational training.”

“We are recognizing that in the discharge of its duty to itself the State is bound to consider as much the man who is to work with his hands as it does him whose labor is to be of the head; indeed that is the rightly organized industrial state …”

“… there can be no complete separation of one from the other, and, therefore, that productive industry is entitled to men trained to co-ordinate hand and brain in a higher, better and, therefore, more profitable workmanship.” (Maine Superintendent)

Draper added several recommendations to his paper, including:
• Require attendance at seven years of age, instead of eight, and let it continue, in elementary school or trades school, to seventeen, but excuse from attendance before eight, at the parents’ request, on the ground of immaturity, and also excuse from attendance whenever the work in the elementary school and trades school is completed, or after fifteen if the child is regularly at work,

• Establish schools for teaching trade vocations, the work to begin at the end of the elementary school course, and continue for three years. Let the trades schools be open both in the day time and evening.

• Establish continuation schools, to be open mainly in the evenings, where the work shall be of a, general character, suited to the needs of youth who are employed through the day and are not doing the work in the trades schools

• In other words, make our evening schools more general and better. Let the work in the continuation schools go perhaps half way or more through the high school course, but with less formalism about it.

• Shorten the time in the elementary schools to seven years. Take out what it is not vital for a child to know in order to learn or to do other things for himself. Assume that he will learn and do things on his own account, if he has the power.

• Strive to give him power, and expect that through it he will get knowledge. Stop reasoning that mere information will give him power. Stop the dress parade and pretense about teaching, which consume time unnecessarily.

• Push the child along and aim to have him finish the elementary school in the fourteenth year. When he is fifteen send him to the trades school whether he has finished the elementary school or not.

• Assume that if the child does not go to the high school, his school work may end with his seventeenth, and not in his fourteenth, year.

• Put into the elementary schools, from the very beginning, some phase of industrial work. Up to the last year or two let it be work that can be done in the schoolroom, at the desks, under the ordinary teachers, and will occupy two or three hours a week. This might proceed from folding paper, molding sand, modeling clay, outlining with a needle, to the simple knife work in wood, plain sewing, knitting, and the like. In the last year or two send the classes to central rooms specially prepared, perhaps to the trade schools, for more complex wood work, cooking, etc. Always emphasize the drawing.

• As the child comes to the end of the elementary schools, expect him to elect whether he will go to the high school, to a trades school, or to work.

• Wherever he goes, expect that the schools will keep track of him until he is at least seventeen. If he goes to the trades school, expect him to get into the possession of the fundamental knowledge and something of the skill of a trade by his seventeenth or eighteenth year.

• If he goes to work in a store or factory, expect him to come to the continuation school till his seventeenth year is completed. Have him and, his parents understand that he is responsible to the schools until he is perhaps eighteen years old.

• Set up trades schools in spacious, but not necessarily ornate buildings. Start the particular kind of trades schools that the business of the town and the interests of the trades call for.

• Let it be understood that wherever there are a sufficient number of children to learn a particular trade, there will be a school to teach it to them. Let the trades school partake more of the character of the shop’ than of the school.

Hawai‘i had continuation schools. “The aims of the continuation school in Hawaii are to give the employed boy or girl, 14 to 18 years of age, a better understanding of the work and world about him, to help him use his leisure time wisely and to give him guidance in his work and other problems.” (US Office of Education, 1935)

“The continuation school is conducted under an instructor furnished by the Territorial department of public instruction. The purpose of the continuation school is to offer an opportunity to those who for some reason or other did not complete or feel that they did not receive as much education as they would like to have had.”

“In order to attend the school, the employee must sacrifice a half day of work each week without pay. This is a hard and fast rule of the continuation school system over which we have no control. Classes are held daily from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., with the exceptions of Saturdays and Sundays, but each class only attends school once a week.”

“For the first semester beginning September 1937, 47 employees have enrolled. English is compulsory. Other subjects are typing, shorthand, community civics, social science, shop work, and journalism.” (Congress, Joint Committee on Hawaii, 1937)

The image shows the Territorial Normal School – it’s not a continuation school, The Normal School is where teachers were taught.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook 

Follow Peter T Young on Google+ 

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn  

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

© 2020 Hoʻokuleana LLC

  • Territorial Normal and Training School

Filed Under: Schools, Economy Tagged With: Vocational Training, Continuation School, Normal School, Hawaii

May 15, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Vocational Training

When the missionaries established schools and seminaries (i.e. the female seminaries, as well as Lahainaluna, Hilo Boarding School, Punahou,) they included teaching of the head (‘common’ courses, the 3Rs,) heart (religious, moral) and hand (vocational training, manual labor.)

Lahainaluna was designed first, “to instruct young men that they may become assistant teachers of religion;” second, “to disseminate sound knowledge embracing literature and science;…”

“… third, to qualify native school teachers for their respective duties; fourth, “it is designated that a piece of land shall be connected with the institution and the manual labor system introduced as far as practicable.” (Westervelt)

Later, shortly after the University of Hawaiʻi started (1907,) short courses or ‘special lectures’ of education of “less than college grade” were offered in agriculture as ‘extension’ work.

Nationally, the Cooperative Extension Service was created in 1914 with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act (but it excluded Hawaiʻi.) UH developed its own version of an extension program, which was the basis of a successful appeal to Congress after several years of struggle for Hawai‘i’s inclusion in the Act in November 1928. (CTAHR)

Again, nationally, the Smith-Hughes Act (1917) was “An Act to provide for the promotion of vocational education; to provide for cooperation with the States in the promotion of such education in agriculture and the trades and industries …”

“… to provide for cooperation with the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure”. (The law wasn’t effective in Hawaiʻi until March 10, 1924.)

“That for the purpose of cooperating with the States in paying the salaries of teachers, supervisors, or directors of agricultural subjects there is hereby appropriated for the use of the States.”

“(T)hat the controlling purpose of such education shall be to fit for useful employment; that such education shall be of less than college grade and be designed to meet the needs of persons over fourteen years of age who have entered upon or who are preparing to enter upon the work of the farm or of the farm home; that the State or local community, or both”.

“(S)uch schools or classes giving instruction to persons who have not entered upon employment shall require that at least half of the time of such instruction be given to practical work on a useful or productive basis, such instruction to extend over not less than nine months per year and not less than thirty hours per week”. (Smith-Hughes Act, 1917)

Two types of full-time day classes in vocational agriculture were organized in Hawaiʻi. ‘Type A’ classes (primarily for upper elementary and intermediate grades) are those in which pupils spend approximately half of their school time in the classroom where they receive Instruction in English, mathematics, hygiene, geography, vocational agriculture and other subjects.

The remaining time was spent in the field where the pupils do all of the work on a class project in sugar cane or in pineapple production. Field work is closely supervised by the teacher of vocational agriculture, but all money earned was divided among the boys in proportion to the time they work. They also had a home project.

Under the ‘Type B’ plan (typically for high school students,) pupils did not use a portion of the school time for field work. Practical experience was gained through extensive home project programs. Classroom instruction in agriculture is under the teacher of vocational agriculture, but academic subjects were taken with other pupils of the school under regular teachers of these subjects.

Some schools incorporated the program into their curriculum. Then, the 1967 session of the 4th Hawaii State Legislature resolved that “it is of great urgency to the citizens of this State, adults as well as youths, that there be developed a comprehensive state master plan for vocational education.” A ‘State Master Plan for Vocational Education’ was prepared the next year.

Its introductory comments included, “Technologically-induced shifts in job opportunities have imposed new career training demands. The rapid opening of new fields of knowledge has changed the very nature of work itself; the priorities shifting from muscle power to mental powers.”

“We witness a tremendous shift from production-oriented jobs to service jobs; we must now have a corresponding emphasis on the development of the required communicative and social skills.” (Master Plan, 1968)

“Given the apparent inadequacies in education and the accompanying human tragedy and waste, and given the extremely tight local labor market and the desperate long-term need for more educated, more highly trained manpower, there would seem to be a good deal of prophetic wisdom in the expansion of the Community College occupational training programs.”

Recommendations for the Master Plan included: “1. The main responsibility of the DOE in the K-12 programs should be provision of basic and general education. The DOE programs should provide for exploratory and pre-vocational experiences. …”

“2. Vocational education at a secondary school level should be seen as an integral part of total education. At the Community College level, general education should be an integral component of vocational education.” (Master Plan, 1968)

The community college system was brought into being. It replaced the technical schools that had existed previously.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook 

Follow Peter T Young on Google+ 

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn  

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

© 2015 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901
Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901
Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)
Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924
Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Lahainaluna-Time_Clock_for_work_on_Farm
Lahainaluna-Time_Clock_for_work_on_Farm
Lahainaluna_seminary_workshop,_mechanical_printing_press_and_movable_type_in_type_case_in_background,_ca._1895
Lahainaluna_seminary_workshop,_mechanical_printing_press_and_movable_type_in_type_case_in_background,_ca._1895
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls_sewing_class,-(WC)_late_1890s
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls_sewing_class,-(WC)_late_1890s
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls nursing class-KSBE
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls nursing class-KSBE
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls cooking class c1900-KSBE
Kamehameha_School_for_Girls cooking class c1900-KSBE
Kamehameha_School_for_Boys-Carpentry_shop_students_building_a_school_cottage_1902-1903,_(WC)
Kamehameha_School_for_Boys-Carpentry_shop_students_building_a_school_cottage_1902-1903,_(WC)
Kamehameha_School_for_Boys_Print_Shop,-(WC)_1897
Kamehameha_School_for_Boys_Print_Shop,-(WC)_1897
Kamehameha School for Boys-Students working in the Carpentry Shop, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)
Kamehameha School for Boys-Students working in the Carpentry Shop, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)

Filed Under: Schools Tagged With: Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, Punahou, Lahainaluna, Hilo Boarding School, Vocational Training

Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Connect with Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Arakawas
  • “Honolulu’s Tropical Jewel”
  • California Girl, Wenona
  • Morgan’s Corner
  • Forest Birds
  • Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Examination’
  • Keahuolū

Categories

  • General
  • Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance
  • Buildings
  • Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings
  • Hawaiian Traditions
  • Military
  • Place Names
  • Prominent People
  • Schools
  • Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks
  • Economy
  • Voyage of the Thaddeus
  • Mayflower Summaries
  • American Revolution

Tags

Albatross Battery Salt Lake Billingtons Bob Crosby Catholics Ceylon Clay Collegia Theatre David Howard Hitchcock Department of Hawaiian Home Lands Diamond Head Fanning French Colonial Exposition H-4 Hale O Lono Henry Ford Herbert Young Hurricane James Hay Wodehouse Jamestown Kamanawa Kamehameha V KDYX King Kamehameha Golf Clubhouse Kona Field System Kukaniloko Kuleana Lehi IV Lunalilo Home Mao Mayor Mekia Kealakai Merchant Street Meteor Muolaulani Na Pali Picture Bride Press Resolution Samuel Damon thevoyageofthethaddeus Ulysses Grant William Bradford William Reed William Twigg-Smith

Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

Info@Hookuleana.com

Copyright © 2012-2021 Peter T Young, Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Loading Comments...