Title: The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands
Author: Oahu College, Trustees of the Punahou School
Language: English
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THE

OAHU COLLEGE

AT THE

SANDWICH ISLANDS.



BOSTON:
PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET.
1856.



THE OAHU COLLEGE.


In the year 1841, a school was commenced, for the children of
missionaries, at Punahou, near Honolulu, Sandwich Islands. Five year
ago, it was opened to others besides the children of missionaries. The
number of pupils has varied from thirty to sixty, and the whole number
of pupils, up to September, 1854, was one hundred and twenty-two. In
May, 1853, the Hawaiian Government incorporated twelve persons, all of
them except one either then or formerly connected with the mission, as a
corporate body by the name of "_The Trustees of the Punahou School and
Oahu College_." It is probable that the legal name of the institution
will be shortened, and that it will be called simply the "_Oahu
College_."

The charter recognizes the design of the institution to be "the training
of youth in the various branches of a Christian education, teaching them
sound and useful knowledge." It further states, that, "as it is
reasonable that the Christian education should be in conformity to the
general views of the founders and patrons of the institution, no course
of instruction shall be deemed lawful in said institution, which is not
accordant with the principles of Protestant Evangelical Christianity, as
held by that body of Protestant Christians in the United States of
America, which originated the Christian mission to the Islands, and to
whose labors and benevolent contributions the people of these Islands
are so greatly indebted." There is also an additional security for the
institution in the following article, namely,--"Whenever a vacancy shall
occur in said corporation, it shall be the duty of the Trustees to fill
the same with all reasonable and convenient dispatch. And every new
election shall be immediately made known to the Prudential Committee of
the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and be subject
to their approval or rejection, and this power of revision shall be
continued to the American Board for twenty years from the date of this
charter."


_The Sandwich Islands Christianized._

The effort to christianize the Sandwich Islands was begun in the year
1820, and has succeeded beyond any similar efforts recorded in history.
In the year 1853, a little more than thirty years from the commencement
of the mission, the Board was able to make proclamation in the Annual
Report, that the people of the Sandwich Islands had become a Christian
nation. The proofs then adduced of this fact were beyond all
controversy; such as entitled the Hawaiian nation to the Christian name,
if any people on earth might claim it; though without that intellectual
development and social culture, which enter so deeply into the modern
idea of civilization. But even in respect to these things a vast work
had been accomplished.

It was evident to the Prudential Committee, as early as the year 1848,
that the time had come for a change of some sort in the relations of the
missionaries to the people of the Islands and to the Board. They saw
that new and additional motives must be presented to induce the married
missionaries to remain at the Islands, or the greater part of them might
feel constrained to return to this country within a few years, to make
provision for their children. This was not owing simply, nor chiefly,
to the number and age of their children, (for such a result was nowhere
seen in the older missions elsewhere,) but to the novel and remarkable
relations, at that time, of the mission to the people of the Sandwich
Islands.

The problem, as then presented, was, how to give scope to the parental
feelings in missionaries, without increasing burdens and expenses that
could not be borne; though it soon appeared that there was really a
higher problem to be solved, and one that was novel in missions,
namely, how to bring the mission itself, as such, to a termination,
dissolving its relations to the Board, and merging its members in the
newly created Christian community. The first problem stated came first
in the order of time, and it involved the solution of the other. It was,
how to convert the Islands into the home of the missionaries, (which the
peculiar relation of the Islands to the commercial world then rendered
possible,) and the missionaries into citizens and pastors. This was
effected, so far as the action of the Prudential Committee was
concerned, by a series of resolutions made public in the Report of the
Board for the year 1849. The response of the missionaries was in general
favorable, though it required five years was complete the arrangement.
The case was unprecedented; there was no experience; every step had to
be considered in its principles, its equity, and its expediency. The
transition was at length effected, and the mission was merged in the
general Christian community of the Islands. The meeting of the mission
in May, 1853, was its last meeting in its associated, corporate
character as a mission,--responsible, as such, to the Board,
controlling, as such, the operations of its members. The relations of
the ministry and churches of the Sandwich Islands towards the Board and
its patrons, and towards other foreign missions and the Christian
church at large, then became those of an independent Christian
community. The salaries of the native pastors, the cost of church
buildings, and the greater part of the cost of schools, were to be met
(as in fact they have been) by the natives. So was the support of
Hawaiian missionaries, whether sent to Micronesia, or to the Marquesas
Islands. It was only in _part_, however, that the natives could support
their _foreign_ pastors. The Board, in this new relation of things,
would have to sustain to the new Christian community a relation like
that, which the Home Missionary Society sustains to the Christian
community in Oregon or California; and it might be necessary to continue
this relation for some time.


_Native College at Lahainaluna._

The first important step taken at the Islands after the mission had
responded, in the year 1849, to the proposals of the Prudential
Committee, was the transfer, by the Board, of the native Seminary or
College at Lahainaluna to the Hawaiian Government. This is wholly for
natives. The transfer was made on the condition, that the institution
should continue to cultivate sound literature and science, and not allow
to be taught religious doctrines contrary to those heretofore inculcated
by the mission. In case of the non-fulfillment of the conditions, the
whole property, with any additions and improvements made upon the
premises, was to revert to the Board. The government have since
sustained two clerical professors obtained from the company of
missionaries, and the institution answers the purpose of a College for
the native community. It is not adapted, however, nor can it be, to the
wants of the foreign community.


_Necessity for the College at Punahou._

The Oahu College is open to natives speaking the English language; but
it is especially designed for pupils from that increasing and important
portion of the Hawaiian community, which is of foreign origin. This of
course includes those who have heretofore constituted the mission.
These, with their families, must be regarded as in the highest degree
essential to the religious welfare of the Islands. Their children, now
at the Islands in a course of education, not including those too young
for school, nor those in the colleges and schools of the United States,
number one hundred and forty-five. To remove even a considerable portion
of these for education to the United States, would be at great expense
and inconvenience, and there is a growing conviction among the parents,
that their children must be chiefly educated there. "They can there,"
says one of the most experienced of the parents, "be under parental
guardianship and home influences; and this will help to retain both
parents and children in the field. The education will be less perfect
than in the United States, but it will fit them better, in some
respects, to labor in the land of their birth, than an education in a
foreign country. The parents will seek an education for their children
elsewhere, if it be not provided for them at the Islands; but it is
believed that most of them will retain their children there, if a
college be there provided."

The number of foreign residents and their descendants is increasing at
the Sandwich Islands. An intelligent glance at the future will show,
that this enterprising community is destined to exert a very commanding
influence in that increasingly important part of the world, and that the
necessity of its being well educated cannot be over-estimated. The
foreign community now springing up at the Sandwich Islands will
inevitably shape the character and destiny of the whole northern
Pacific. The missionary part of this community has now the vantage
ground as regards all good influences, and with the divine blessing is
able to mould the literary and religious institutions of the Hawaiian
nation. Religion, just now, has a strong hold on those Islands. The
present is, therefore, a favorable time to institute a College, and put
it into a working condition.

The necessity for an institution, such as it is proposed to make of the
_Oahu College_, is one of the most obvious and interesting facts now
presented to our view in that part of the world.

1. The College is essential to the development and continued existence
of the Hawaiian nation. It is so because the missionary portion is
really the _palladium_ of the nation, and because a College is essential
to that part of the community. The religious foreign community cannot
otherwise long continue to perform its functions. It must have the means
of liberally educating its children on the ground. Without a College,
its moral, social and civil influence will tend constantly to decay.
This most precious Christian influence, now rooted on the Islands, now
no longer exotic, needs only the proper culture to perpetuate itself.
The cheapest thing we can do for the Islands and for that part of the
world, is to furnish this culture. It is better to educate our ministry
there, than to send it thither from these remote shores. Indeed we are
shut up to this, as our main policy. The providential indications are
perfectly clear. Through the grace of God and the gospel of his Son, all
the means, excepting such as are pecuniary, for perpetuating
Christianity at the Islands, are already there. Mr. Armstrong, the
Minister of Instruction at the Islands, writing to one of the
Secretaries of the American Board under date of January 2, 1856, bears
this remarkable testimony:--

"During the year 1855, just closed," he says, "I visited all the
Islands, and every missionary station, in the course of my official
duty, and had good opportunities for seeing how the brethren conduct
the affairs of their respective stations, and the success that has
crowned their labors. I found them all at their posts, hard at work,
watching for souls, and promoting the welfare of their people in various
ways. As a class, they are very laborious and self-denying, and the
advancement of their people in knowledge, industry, civilization and
religion, is the best evidence of their success. I have lived for weeks
on weeks among the natives, lodging with them in their huts, partaking
of their homely fare and sleeping on their mats; and the more I see of
them, the more I bless God for what he has done for them. I do not
believe there is a community on earth, of the same number, more entirely
pervaded by the blessed gospel. In the remotest corners of the land, I
find a Bible and Hymn-book in nearly every house, if there was nothing
else."

We may say of the faithful men, who, ceasing to be missionaries in the
technical sense, are now laboring as pastors of churches,
superintendents of education, or professors in the native College, or as
physicians, teachers, editors, or Christian merchants:--"Except these
abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." Had the great body of these men
left the Islands in the year 1848, the native government could not long
have survived the catastrophe; and now, and for years to come, they will
be, under God, the most effectual safeguard the Hawaiian Government and
people can possibly have. Remaining there, with their numerous and
healthy families of children, and furnished with facilities for
educating those children, the government, the nation, the Islands will
continue, with the ordinary blessing of Heaven, to be Christian,
evangelical, a glorious monument of the triumphs of the gospel, a light
enlightening the benighted groups lying far to the westward, and a cause
for admiring gratitude to the whole Christian world!

Surely results like these are worth a great outlay for their
preservation; but this cannot be effectually done without the speedy
institution of a _College at the Islands_, where a portion of the
children of foreign parents, and some of the more promising of the
native youth, may receive that liberal education which is deemed so
important in this country.

2. There is another and highly interesting view of the subject. This
Christian community at the Sandwich Islands,--mixed in blood, but one in
Christ,--should be regarded as a centre of light and influence for the
large number of inhabited but benighted Islands scattered over the far
and vast WEST of the Pacific Ocean. This missionary enterprise in the
insular world beyond, besides its intrinsic importance, is among the
necessary means, by its reacting influence, of raising the Hawaiian
churches to the point of self-support and self-control; and its value,
in this view, is already delightfully evident. The pecuniary means for
supporting missionaries in Micronesia who are sent from the United
States, must of course come in great measure from this country; but the
support of missionaries and native assistants drawn from the Hawaiian
churches, (as well as much of the labor connected with the details of
the business,) may be thrown upon the 'Hawaiian Missionary Society,'
which is independent of the American Board; and no small portion of the
missionaries may at length be obtained from among the _alumni_ of the
_Oahu College_. Dr. Gulick, one of the first missionaries to Micronesia,
is the son of a missionary at the Sandwich Islands, though educated in
the United States; and the missionary children at the Islands are
associated together to provide among themselves the means for his
support. When the missionary ship, to be called the 'Morning Star,'
which has been requested for the mission in Micronesia, is actually in
those seas, the proposed institution for educating missionaries inured
to the people and climate, will become a still more valuable auxiliary.


Thus we see, that the reasonable endowment of the Oahu College will be a
good use of money for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom at the Sandwich
Islands, and for extending that kingdom through the islands of the great
ocean beyond.


_Funds and Buildings of the College._

The value of the property now belonging to the Oahu College, derived
chiefly through the American Board, is estimated as follows:

     Three hundred acres of land,       $9,000
     College building, two stories,      7,000
     Two dwelling houses,                6,000
     Twelve lodging rooms,               2,000
     Dining room, kitchen, etc.,         1,000
     Out-houses,                           500
     Farming implements, herds, etc.,    1,500
                                       -------
     Total,                            $27,000

The land on which the buildings stand has an excellent and valuable
spring of water, sufficient to irrigate it. There are one hundred acres
in this lot, all enclosed by a good stone wall, and in part under
cultivation. Another hundred acres adjoining, is also enclosed with a
stone wall, and is devoted to pasturage. Another hundred acres of
woodland lies about two miles distant. The buildings will suffice for
the present.

An observer, familiar with the college edifices of the United States,
may hardly be able to recognize a _College_ in what he sees at Punahou.
But what there is surpasses what were the _visible beginnings_ of either
Harvard, or Yale. Until the present time, moreover, there has been only
a preparatory school. The first college class, and that a small one,
commences the present year. A number of young men, once at Punahou, who
would perhaps have been in the College had there been one, are at
Williams, Yale, or some other of our American Colleges. Some have
completed their preparations for life's business, and are preachers,
missionaries, merchants, or connected with the government of the
Islands.


_The Endowment._

The cost of living at the Sandwich Islands has been materially increased
by the settlement and mines of California. Just at present, it may not
be easy to bring the expenses of a family at Punahou within the bounds
recommended for the salaries of the officers of College. The arrangement
for salaries should be based, however, on what we know to be the general
course of things in the world. Fifteen hundred dollars, with the use of
a house, is thought not to be too large a salary for the President of
the Oahu College; and twelve hundred dollars, with the use of a house,
for a Professor. The American Board will pay these two salaries for the
years 1856 and 1857.

The Trustees propose to raise the sum of _fifty thousand dollars_. This
is not too large a beginning. Of this sum the Hawaiian government
engages to give ten thousand dollars, or one fifth part; on condition
that the remaining forty thousand dollars be raised before July 6, 1858,
and that the King have the right of nominating two of the twelve
trustees of the College. The Prudential Committee have voted to
subscribe five thousand dollars towards the endowment, on behalf of the
American Board, payable in the year 1858.

It should be understood that, excepting the duty of approval or
disapproval in respect to the election of members on the Board of
Trustees, laid upon the American Board by the Charter for the space of
twenty years, that Board has no connection whatever with the College,
or control of its proceedings. The College is an independent
institution, sustaining no other relation to the Board, than it does to
every other benefactor.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Colleges of New England had generally some benevolent patron
provided for them by Divine Providence;--a Harvard, a Yale, a Dartmouth,
a Brown, a Bowdoin, a Williams; and the Colleges very properly took and
embalmed their names in memory of an enlightened and refined Christian
community. These provided the general endowment. Many liberal men also
funded particular professorships; or gave funds for the education of
young men of talents and character, without the means of obtaining a
liberal education. May the Lord raise up such benefactors for the Oahu
College. That has grown, as the New England Colleges did, out of a great
religious movement and the wonderful blessing of God on that movement.
It has a religious object, and is controlled by a religious influence.
The funds have every practicable guard from perversion. The permanent
necessity for such an institution is apparent in the certainty of a
permanent, rising, influential community on those admirably situated
Islands. The independence of the Hawaiian Nation,--which, under present
circumstances, is most favorable to its development,--is guaranteed by
the United States, Great Britain and France; and the presumption of its
falling under the dominion of a power foreign to us, is too small to
deserve notice; and the influence of the College itself, as already
described, will be one of the most effectual guards against such a
result. There is not a finer climate in all the world. Were it true,
that the native population is still wasting away, the effect of corrupt
commerce in old heathen times, still greater would be the need of such
an institution. A flourishing community of some kind at the Sandwich
Islands, then certainly will be; and the religious influences now at the
Islands will be as available for that community, as hereafter developed,
with whatever elements, as it will be for the one now existing.

A number of gentlemen have kindly consented, at the request of the
Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
Missions, acting for the Trustees of the College, to take charge of the
funds contributed in this country for the Oahu College, (where the
donors do not direct them to be remitted directly to the Trustees at the
Islands;) and they will invest such funds in the United States, and
cause the interest to be remitted annually to the officer of the
corporation legally authorized to receive it. The Trustees for the Fund,
appointed in the first instance by the Prudential Committee, will fill
the vacancies occurring in their own number; and they will be authorized
to transfer the investment of the funds to the Sandwich Islands whenever
they and the Trustees of the College concur in the opinion, that this
can be safely and advantageously effected.

The following gentlemen compose the Trustees for the Funds to be
invested in the United States; namely,--


     HENRY HILL, Esq., of Boston, Mass.
     PELATIAH PERIT, Esq., of New York city.
     Gen. WILLIAM WILLIAMS, of Norwich, Conn.
     Hon. THOMAS W. WILLIAMS, of New London, Conn.
     HENRY P. HAVEN, Esq., of New London, Conn.
     JAMES HUNNEWELL, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass.
     WILLIAM E. DODGE, Esq., of New York city.
     ABNER KINGMAN, Esq., of Boston, Mass.


_Boston, August_ 1856.


At a meeting of the Trustees of Oahu College, held at Honolulu, Oct. 27,
1856, the following resolutions were adopted with reference to the
appointment of the Trustees for the Funds:

_Resolved_, 1. That the following gentlemen be and are hereby appointed
Trustees, to receive, take charge of, and invest any funds that may have
been, or hereafter may be contributed, in the United States, for the
endowment of Oahu College; viz.,


     HENRY HILL, Esq., of Boston, Mass.
     PELATIAH PERIT, Esq., of New York city.
     Gen. WILLIAM WILLIAMS, of Norwich, Conn.
     Hon. THOMAS W. WILLIAMS, of New London, Conn.
     HENRY P. HAVEN, Esq., of New London, Conn.
     JAMES HUNNEWELL, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass.
     WILLIAM E. DODGE, Esq., of New York city.
     ABNER KINGMAN, Esq., of Boston, Mass.


_Resolved_, 2. That the Trustees appointed by the foregoing resolution
be and are hereby authorized to fill all vacancies occurring in their
own number; and that they be and are also further authorized to transfer
the investment of any funds that may be received by them for the
endowment of Oahu College, to the Sandwich Islands, whenever they and
the Trustees of the said College concur in the opinion, that this can be
safely and advantageously done.

       *       *       *       *       *

The President of the College is now in this country
to act for the Board of Trustees, under the following
commission:


                         _Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, Feb_. 26, 1857.

Know all persons to whom these presents may come, that the Rev. Edward
Griffin Beckwith, President of Oahu College, is duly appointed and
authorized by the Board of Trustees of this Institution to act as their
agent in procuring funds, instructors, and books for the same; and to
promote its general interests in all such ways as may be in his power,
during his contemplated visit to the United States.

To this end, the Trustees of the College hereby bespeak for him the kind
regards and co-operation of all the friends of education and religion
with whom he may meet during his mission.

                                  R. ARMSTRONG,

                                          _Sec'y of Board of Trustees_.


At a meeting of the Trustees for the Fund, held in Boston, May 28, 1857,
it was

_Resolved_, That the Rev. E. G. Beckwith, President of Oahu College, now
in this country for the purpose of obtaining an endowment for that now
and important Institution at the Sandwich Islands, be earnestly
commended, by the Trustees for the Fund it is proposed to raise for the
College in this country, to the liberal patronage of those who would
promote the cause of education at the Islands, and thus give stability
and perpetuity to the civil and Christian institutions which have been
so successfully introduced into that part of the world; with the
understanding, that the investment of the Fund be made under the
direction of the aforesaid Trustees residing in the United States.

                                ABNER KINGMAN, _Clerk_.


The following is the form of subscription, which it is proposed to
circulate among the friends of this enterprise:

We, the undersigned, subscribe the several sums set to our respective
names, towards a Fund for the endowment of the Oahu College, in the
Sandwich Islands, which Fund is to be invested under the direction of a
Board of Trustees in the United States appointed for this purpose by the
Trustees of the College; and the income arising therefrom to be annually
appropriated to the support of said institution. Provided always, that
no portion of said subscriptions, or any of the income arising
therefrom, shall be used for the promotion of any system or course of
education not in accordance with the Sixth Article of the present
Charter of the said College.

       *       *       *       *       *

Article Sixth of the Charter, reads as follows:

"Be it hereby further known, that, as the object of the Institution is
the training of youth in the various branches of a Christian education,
and, as it is reasonable that the Christian education should be in
conformity to the general views of the founders and patrons of the
Institution, no course of instruction shall be deemed lawful in said
Institution, which is not accordant with the principles of Protestant
Evangelical Christianity, as held by that body of Protestant Christians,
in the United States of America, which originated the Christian Mission
to these Islands, and to whose labors and benevolent contributions the
people of these Islands are so greatly indebted."

       *       *       *       *       *

HENRY HILL, Esq., of Boston, Mass., Chairman of the Trustees for the
Fund, is Treasurer of said Board of Trustees, and all remittances for
the College can be made to him, at his office, 118 Milk St.


_Boston, June_ 1, 1857.





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