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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 26

Manual Labor in the Common Schools

Manual Labor in the Common Schools.

I am of the opinion that manual labor should be made a part of our system of common school education. There are Government lands lying contiguous to common school houses, now unemployed. In many localities a portion of this could be utilized by the pupils and teachers in raising remunerative crops. I would recommend that an act be passed by your Honorable Body empowering the Board of Education to introduce manual labor into the educational course of the common schools, and setting apart, under certain conditions, portions of the public domain, adjoining the various school houses, which may be fit for cultivation of crops, to the uses of the pupils and teacher, wherever no school lands can be made available for the purpose, and also to lease suitable lands and to arrange for the cultivation of crops on shares or otherwise.

Three or four hours per day of earnest attention to school lessons, and two or three hours of manual labor out of doors, page 18 would promote health and industrious habits; the avails of the labor would add to the income of the teachers and furnish the pupils with means to pay for books, and would, if properly carried out, be an improvement upon the present system.

It is frequently remarked that the rising generation are not as industrious as their ancestors were; that they—and especially those educated in the higher schools and in the English language—have wrong ideas about labor; in short, are lazy and idle, and have much more of pride and conceit than is good for them.

If the general effect of education under our present system, is to destroy or lessen respect for honest industry, or for thrift and independence acquired by manual labor, then is there something wrong or wanting in that system, and it behooves all friends of the race to search for a better one. But if such ideas are exceptional, and proceed from the inexperience of youth, and the lack of proper home instruction and training, then may we hope that their bad influence will be temporary, and that time and necessity will correct them. Hawaiian parents are as a rule over-indulgent with their children, and no schooling which the Government can provide will wholly remedy the damage resulting from neglect of paternal discipline.

It is important that in all of the schools, those for girls as well as those for the boys, a desire to be able to provide for their own wants in an honest way, and respect for the industrious and virtuous, however humble their station and employment may seem to be, should be inculcated. Where else so well as in family schools, or in well-ordered households, can such instruction be given and such ideas imparted?

The school tax of two dollars pays only about thirty-seven per cent, of the whole annual expenditure for education; and though the expenditure has seemed large considering the amount of the entire revenue of the Kingdom, it is confidently hoped that your Honorable Body will not be inclined to reduce the sum asked for in the Budget for the current two years, which is $8,300 less than the appropriation for schools 1872 and 1873.

God Save the King.

Chas. R. Bishop

, President of the Board of Education.