The large native seminary at Lahainaluna, upon which the Missions place
great hopes of future usefulness, was under the superintendence of
Messrs. Andrews and Alexander, gentlemen attached to the Presbyterian
board, who impressed us very forcibly with their intelligence, by the
liberal views they entertained in relation to their charge, and fitness
for the office.
It is intended as the high school for the sons of chiefs of the group,
and such other youth whose aptness for instruction make them worthy of
being educated. The buildings belonging to the institution are capable
of accommodating more than one hundred pupils. Six hours are devoted to
study and recitation: they cook their own food, and a portion of time
intended for relaxation is occupied in practical utility--chiefly
agricultural pursuits, or as the mission report of the young ladies'
school under Miss Ogden, at the east end of Maui, states, "the time from
four to five they devote to exercise with the hoe."
About eighty of the pupils visited the frigate, by special
invitation--they appeared between the ages of twelve and twenty--attired
in curiously devised European garments, but clean in their apparel,
orderly and well-behaved, although awkward and uncouth in movements. I
was not struck with many intelligent faces, and their instructors gave
no very flattering ideas of their aptitude for the acquisition of
learning. Not more than one in twenty could be termed a bright boy; they
experience the greatest difficulty in gaining a knowledge of the English
language, and it is a question if it would not be advisable, even at
this late day, to do away entirely with the native dialect, pen up the
children, and substitute some other idiom having fewer words to express
vice, and more, the higher attributes of morality and virtue.
Physically speaking, the students were well formed, robust, and active,
but all more or less tinged with scurfy, cutaneous disorders,
transmitted to them through their progenitors as an indelible mark of
esteem by the first discoverers of the islands. Our visitors remained on
board an hour, and everything was done to make it a happy one: they
climbed the rigging, went all through the ship, fired cannons shotted,
and were loud in their admiration of the band. Upon leaving, they seemed
highly delighted, kindly greeted us with the usual expression of
good-will--_aloha!_--and very generally offered to shake hands, but we
pleasantly declined, I trust without wounding their feelings, for we
were ungloved, and a long way from the sulphur banks of Kilauea.
Institutions for female scholars are numerous in the group, but there is
not one on the same scale of magnitude as that of Lahainaluna, nor are
the girls themselves worthy of the benevolence and solicitude extended
to them by their excellent teachers. A school at Hilo, under the
direction of a missionary lady, highly distinguished for ability and
perseverance, had lately been relinquished on account of the abandoned
character of the pupils.
These instances must indeed dampen the ardor of the most sanguine
philanthropists, who have been so many years striving to emancipate
these Indian races from the depths of vice and ignorance. The whites
themselves, to their shame, be it said, are far from lessening the
evil, and I heard Mr. Cohen feelingly and truthfully remark, in
connection with the difficulties encountered in their labors, that the
missionaries' voices were but a breath in stemming the torrent of bad
examples, caused by hundreds of loud voices from every merchant vessel
and ship-of-war touching at the group. Assuredly much has been
accomplished in the outer crust of civilization, by an association for
so long a period with the whites, but notwithstanding the almost
unparalleled efforts of the missions, they have gained little in true
morality, though everything, perhaps, in decency, contrasted with the
native state in former times.
The Hawaiians are naturally indolent, voluptuous and deceitful, more
imbecile than vicious, destitute of morality, preserving of late years,
the form, not from principle, but fear of exposure, and subsequent
punishment. Infanticide, always prevalent in the Polynesian tribes, is
here more alarmingly frequent than even during their darkest days of
sacrifice and idolatry, caused, no doubt, in a great degree, by
unnecessarily severe laws against illegitimacy. There are no government
hospitals, and the disease brought by Cook is sweeping still, with the
deadly strides of a pestilence. These causes serve to check and diminish
the population to an extent hitherto unprecedented, and not unless their
very existence as a nation becomes obliterated, does there appear to be
any reasonable prospect of reform.[5] And now, it can be asked, if, with
all these evils entailed upon them by strangers, does it not seem
problematical, if in their days of superstition and ignorance they were
not morally better? Happier they certainly were! Then, their very
indolence, induced by an equable and delicious climate, where Nature so
bountifully scatters her fruits in their path, produced an enervating
languor, where neither cares nor sorrows surrounded them! Now, their
natural sense and experience teach, that they cannot cope with the skill
or energy of the foreigner, and hopelessly and inevitably they must look
forward to the rapid future, when their lands will be in strange hands,
and the few remnants of their race the slaves or puppets of their white
masters. Although sad the picture, the results bear no comparison to the
world at large, in the benefits accruing to civilization by acquiring a
foothold on these islands, which, from their position and resources, are
shortly destined to become of vast importance to commercial enterprise
in the Pacific.
The Board of Presbyterian Missions, first in the grand work of
redemption, have done all that philanthropy could suggest, in earnest
and unceasing efforts towards reclaiming the race from barbarism--in a
spirit of the greatest liberality, expending nearly a million of
dollars, distributed through a period of thirty years--wherein, if
naught else had been adduced than the beneficial results resting upon
the simple fact, that out of a population of about a hundred thousand,
which compose the Hawaiian cluster, more than half have been taught to
read and write, instructed in the rudiments of education, and generally
conversant with the Scriptures--this is of itself sufficient to claim
the lasting gratitude of all who have the progress of civilization at
heart. But what is still more surprising, this has been begun and
completed within the space of but thirty years--a point of time
inconceivably brief in the history of a nation, even in the age of rapid
advancement in which we live.
The groundwork of Christianity has also been firmly planted, and so
long as the Hawaiians do exist, it will go on slowly but steadily to
increase. Yet the reports from the Board, detailing such immense numbers
of conversions made so miraculously of late years, under missionary
auspices, should be received _cum grano salis_. Surely they cannot be
intended purposely to mislead--but still it has the semblance of a sort
of paid-up imaginary capital, to swell and exaggerate the amount of
their labors. On all sides it was universally believed, that there are
not five hundred true converts in the group, instead of over thirty
thousand, as these reports would make out! Then why these incorrect
statements? And again, a retired missionary quoting the Honorable J. P.
Judd, another gentleman formerly attached to the Board and now at the
head of the Hawaiian government, says: "The moral condition of the
Islands may compare favorably with that of any other country."[6] Such
glaring mendacity is beneath the contempt of any visitor to the group
blessed with eyes; and as a slight proof of the estimate, at this late
day, in which this morality is held, the missionaries, themselves, who
have young families, never permit them to acquire the native dialect,
and most carefully guard them from any intercourse with the natives,
fearing probably the contaminating influences of an association, so
deplorably exhibited in the children of the English Mission in one of
the groups of Southern Polynesia.
Furthermore, the violent ravings of the retired missionary I have
already quoted, against what he terms "papacy, prelacy, papists,
abomination of the Church of Rome," and the like balderdash, are enough
to induce the belief, that were it not for the great conservative Law
and Order party, which now rules the world--wherein the virtues of hemp
are duly set forth--these deluded enthusiasts, so blinded by their
fanatical zeal, would be cutting one another's throats, with the same
malignant ferocity as in the bitter wars of the Huguenots.
The missionaries fully deserve all the love and influence they possess
with the native population, for the toil and labor of very many weary
years, passed away from homes and kindred; and so long as they
sedulously abstain from secular affairs, and resolutely confine
themselves to the field of their good work, the very piety and blameless
purity of their lives will shield them from the smallest reproach. But
human passions are ever the same. This very influence induces them to
take part in the political contentions of the government; and whatever
may be said to the contrary, it is evidently by their direct means, or
connivance, that almost every public measure emanates. Nor is this the
most innocent charge laid at their doors. Behold the illiberality and
want of true Christian charity, evinced not only here, but with equal
hostility by English missionaries in the Society Islands, in unremitting
persecutions and expulsion of the Catholics. Whether directly urged by
the Protestants, or at their instigation through the native chiefs,
matters not--they were driven like dogs from these inhospitable shores,
and never dared to return until backed by the cannon of their King.
It may well be doubted, if the Catholics had been the first to have
raised the banner of the Cross on the Islands of Polynesia, whether they
would quietly have submitted to any foreign innovations upon their creed
or forms. History gives no instances where an acquisition has been
relinquished without a deadly struggle; but in these days of
enlightenment, when the field is so ample, why not throw wide open the
gate to all laborers in the cause of philanthropy, where no harm can
arise, and great good may follow?
The Catholics lead as pure and irreproachable lives as their Protestant
brethren--without perhaps the comforts--and are rapidly making
proselytes; their religion teaching forgiveness and absolution, being
more in accordance with the backsliding sins of the natives, who meet
with no appeal from the more austere puritanism of the Protestants.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Vide Report to the Hawaiian Legislature of 1848, by R. C. Wyllie,
Minister of Foreign Relations.
[6] Bingham, page 609.