Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 207, 3 June 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

KA LEO.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1891.

NOTICE.

            Copies of the KA LEO O KA LAHUI can be found every morning at both the New Agencies in town. Price 5 cents a copy.

 

THE STATE OF OUR SCHOOL.

            Perhaps there is nothing in Hawaii as often pointed out to strangers and referred to at home with pride and satisfaction as our system of public schools. It is true we have many excellent educational institutions and the results attainted bear comparison favorably with the best work of other countries.

            Our plan of having a central Board of Education is very superior to the local trustee system that prevails in the states. In general we believe in local self-government, and in keeping the political power near the people, but the education of the masses forms a very important exception to the principle. To give a local committee of parents control of their neighborhood school is practically and actually making the children masters over their teacher. No teacher can do good or honest work when his position and reputation depend upon pleasing a lot of fond and foolish, ignorant and bigoted papas and mamas, anxious to show their authority and deriving their knowledge of the school and its working solely from the ingenuous reports of their dear, offspring, and of schools and education in general from the vague remembrance of their own youth. The results as seen in American schools are far from satisfactory.

            Therefore we believe in leaving the management of the schools in the hands of one Board of Education. But the present constitution of our Board falls far short of what it should be. The matter should not be left in the hands of an unpaid and unskilled Board who leave everything to a hired secretary. The Board should consist of experienced educators who should receive a fair compensation for their services. The Board might consist of a president, a secretary, and inspector-general, all elected by the people, from our experienced educators.

            The action of the present Board in importing foreign teachers has been much criticised, in a mistaken spirit, we think. The object of education is to elevate the growing generation above the level of their fathers. As we said above parents should not have the supervision of the schools which their children attend, because the object is to lift them by better methods above the level of the parents. Hawaiians more especially require the best and the most advanced of foreign methods and men to lift them out of the old and into a better and more active life. If older Hawaiians are to educate the children, where can we hope for progress? The result must be a standstill or retrogression.

            Experience shows that Hawaiian teachers are too kind and lenient: they fail in discipline, they are too much given to singing and concert recitations. There is no doubt that many Hawaians can and do make excellent primary teachers, but there will never be enough to supply our schools until we have a good normal school. Hawaiians cannot be expected to pick up the art of teaching.

            Last year the Board replied to the inquiries of the legislature in a way that showed gross ignorance and insincerity. They said they would stop the importation of teachers as soon as they could find enough competent Hawaiians, and that they would pay better wages if they had more money at their disposal. But they have never recommended any measure or taken any steps to make Hawaiians competent, nor have they raised the wages to make the profession respectable and attractive to our intelligent young people.

            The legislature appropriated a large sum in excess of the amount asked by the Board, and recommended an increase of teachers’ wages; but $25 a month is still the standard wages paid to the native teachers.

            Through foreign teachers are treated and paid much better, very few of them continue at the work more than a year or two, and constant importations of inexperienced raw material must be made to fill up the vacancies. The pay is less than that for petty clerks and book keepers, or skilled mechanics, and socially they occupy an anomalous position of shoddy semirespectability hard to define and hard to occupy.

 

LAWYERS.

            It is a sign of the times that many women are turning their attention from millinery and baby culture to the less natural profession of business. Of course a woman whose occupation is typewriting, clerking, law or medicine may still occasionally functionate in the female capacity for amusement. This may be one of the signs of the coming millennium, and we refer the discussion of it as such till another time, to give an example of what a lady may accomplish in the legal profession.

            We never attack a lady even in our most playful moments. But there is an ex-lady down in Hilo who by entering upon a career as a lawyer and performing in a business-like manner the duties of deputy-sheriff, jailor & c. has in a measure abandoned the armor of modesty and weakness that all gentlemen respect. When a woman courts notoriety in masculine attitudes we cannot withhold it because we consider it unbecoming.

            Miss Alma Hitchcock of Hilo, Hawaii, is a member of the bar, and frequently deputy sheriff and other things official. It is said that she can arrest a Chinaman as sheriff, and take a fee from him as a lawyer, and release him as sheriff again, all quite in the family manner. It is whispered that she can knock down a hand-cuffed prisoner and kick him in the ribs with her small foot in just her uncle’s style.

            While in Hilo we occasionally met Miss Alma in the legal arena. The judge would send word that we must be very careful how we talked that day or go to jail for contempt of court. With his friendly warning we were prepared for what followed.

            A large muscular policeman stood behind us to prevent our interrupting the lady and instantly execute any order given by the sheriff, who also sat within easy reach of the opposing lawyer’s throat. Then after consulting with her father and the judge, she rose with a smile of withering scorn and addressed the helpless attorney with stinging invective and biting sarcasm. In the pauses of the discourse we were reminded by the sheriff and the judge that jail was the place for a wretch who insulted a lady.

            After a exercising her jaw an hour or so while her kind and the rabble behind laughed gleefully, the court rendered its decision in favor of the official party. Then the story went round town that Miss Alma was too smart for the new lawyer. Which we admitted to be true. Miss Alma was one of the most active members of the family in running us out of Hilo. We do not feel as bad about it as if it were a solitary case; we know of five other lawyers who have suffered the same fate.                   D.L.H.

 

ON DIT.

            That the number of suicides committed by men and women from unfulfilled promises made in the sweet mahope, has increased since the southerly weather has set in.

 

            That there is a leper at the Insane Asylum, who was declared by the Board of Health a non-leper since his insanity, probably to avoid expense and trouble.

 

            That Hon. G.B. Palohau died at Kalawao, of la grippe, from want of medical attention.

 

            That over one hundred have died of la grippe at the Leper Settlement, Molokai, proving the unwholesomeness of the place for sick people.

 

            That an attempt was made, by emissaries of ex-ministers, to induce Lieut. Kaaha of the Househole Guards to allow the guns and ammunitions to be taken away from the Barracks. Now is the time for every Hawaiian to prove himself.

 

            That it is a good thing that arch traitors to principle and country, like such things in human shape as Messrs. Kawainui and Poepoe are, were not in a position of honor and trust as that held by Lieut. Kaaha, otherwise there would have been a possible show for some of the decapitated office holders to get into trouble.

 

            That is cowardly to blame Wilcox for somebody’s conspiracy. The same dirty little farce was tried before, at the expense of the public, headed by the present parties, during the Damon and Thurston administration.

 

            That is wonderful how well Honolulu gets along without a queen, a premier, or a marshal; it is harder to get along without water and without lights.

 

            That to such an extent has the “war scare” affected some of our soft-brained haole politicians that a number of native parsons coming in to town from the Palama direction were mistaken for conspirators marching in to attack the police station.

 

            That our exhibit at Chicago should include at least one native of Hawaii, who should go as commissioner in charge to demonstrate to the world that we are not savages still in the breach clout state of development.

 

            That the outside whiskey dealers say they have permission from the Marshal. How can that be?

 

            That the hula is growing in favor of the patronage of an ex-minister.

 

            That six people read every copy of KA LEO. Come up and subscribe and help the good cause. People ought to consider it a duty to support the only live and fearless paper in the Kingdom

 

            That the Captain of the Royal Guards attended the suspicious meeting of the Thurston faction. That brave officer will probably prevent any bloodshed.

 

            That the police station is garrisoned and guarded nightly now. We would be sorry to see a fight between the missionaries and the Queen’s soldiers; but we could look on with as much concern as at the burning of somebody else’s property. We are not in it, you will distinctly understand.

 

            That the arrival of so many parsons from the other islands has to some of our feather-weight politicians assumed the aspect of an army of Egytian locusts, ready to overthrow Cleopatra, murder Mark Anthony, and make Hawaii tributary to the great Republic! Holy Caesar!

 

A ROMANCE

THE PARADISE OF THE PACIFIC, OR THE DEVIL’S KULEANA.

(CONTINUED.)

            Decaying vegetation and the filth dropped by the hundreds of pack animals add to the disgusting nature of the compound.

            Through this mixture our Japanese excursionists were driven. They could not get much of the view of the Paradise of the Pacific because of the rain and the high cane on each side; but what they did see was not what they had expected when they had started from their homes to enjoy a picnic in Bowowee. Distance lends enchantment but it requires a commercial imagination to make Bowowee the Paradise of the Pacific.

            For a long time they trudged slowly along lifting their feet laboriously out of clinging mud at each step. Then looking ahead they noticed that at a point some rods in advance the line of toiling travelers disappear as if swallowed up by the earth. Approaching they beheld a immense cleft or crevice, abreak in the continuity of the country, a great notch as if a clean slice had been carved out of the body of the island. It seemed a quarter o a mile wide, and deep-away down, down, two thousand feed or more, a dizzy abyss to look into. The sides were clothed with a feathery growth of ferns and occasional shrubs, and steep,-so that any man or animal falling over would have little chance of stopping short of the rocky bottom, strewn with great, smooth, round boulders, dry and bare, like monstrous eggs, among which a thing stream of water would its way almost invisible from the edge of the country.

            The road led slanting down, looking like a gray sear on the face of the green wall. Down this steep and narrow path the Japanese made their way, over slippery rocks, loose stones and mud holes. At the bottom they found a small grassy flat, very pretty to see, with its slender graceful cocoanut trees, and two or three natives houses surrounded with banana plants. The straggling line filed past, waded the stream and began the ascent of the other side. They began to find the heat oppressive. The rain had ceased to fall and the influence of the sun was felt through a thin layer of misty cloud.

            A sultry, enervating beat pervaded the saturated atmosphere. When the excursionists puffing and steaming emerged from the gulch they saw before them another long slough of mud and slush winding away between the green banks of weed that bordered the cane fields. Again the long column churned up afresh the vile mixture that lay stagnant in the way. It seemed endless. But again they came unexpectedly upon a deep gulch very like the other, but perhaps deeper, and down which the carved out path took a zig zag course. Down they went, slipping and grasping frantically at the over-hanging vegetation. It was surprising to see how the policemen’s little, scrawny horses slid down with their four legs braced and how they climbed the opposite ascent, clambering up over the wet stones, frequently on their knees, but never quite falling.

            When after incredible labor they reached the general level of the country only the everlasting vista of swamp and thin mud was before them. Faza was dragging heavily on Nyama’s arm. He was a stout young fellow and tramped bravely on. They must reach some place. It was impossible to rest in the mud and rain. Three or four guards could be heard shouting and swearing at the stragglers in the rear. It really began to seen that they could go no further; they were exhausted by the heat and exertion. Still they dragged their weary feet through the deep slime, thinking they could walk no further, but still moving. Minute by minute another hour passed while the wretched dupes trailed along. Then again they came to a gulch wider and deeper than either of the others, so wide and so deep that it seemed as if they were looking from a mountain into the sea. The sea entered this great cleft and running in as into a funnel dashed with a great booming report against the broken lava rocks, that in the course of long time had been worn into curious top-heavy forms. Above the cove was a lovely little meadow of fresh green, and grouped around it and each half hidden in its individual walls of foliage, were half-a-dozen pretty white cottages. Into this enchanted vale our travellers descended. It was easier going down. They crossed the open ground and the cottages, looking hungrily at the great bunches of bananas and the trees bending under the weight of green mangoes looking as if they were tied on with long strings. Turning up they crossed where the salt water met the small stream from the gulch, when the stream and the sea see-sawed back and forth incessently night and day for ever.

            On the other side the path started up the precipice, steep as a stairway, and disappearing away up toward the zenith. There at the bottom of the ascent a little group of bedraggled and exhausted men and women had dropped down under the shade of a Hibiscus tree. Nyama and Faza sank down on the thick soft mat of wet grass. Once down it seemed impossible to move again. But the majority trudged on stoically. It is true that the Japanese are the sturdiest and most indefatigable race on earth. In their own country they perform feats of strength and endurance that appear incredible to those who have never seen what they can endure. It may not be a great feat to walk ten miles; but under the circumstances no European could have stood it. But most of the Japanese did, and even managed to make a few jokes about it being a Bowoweran picnic as they filed past the little group of tired-out unfortunates.

            (To be Continued.)