FIFTH PERIOD

The fifth period is that commencing in 1898 and is that in which we are now living. Annexation to the United States ended all labor contracts entered into under the old Masters and Servants Act. The sudden and complete change in the status of all laborers then under contract, did not make the upheaval that had been expected.

The labor contract system had been falling into disrepute and disuse and many of the plantation owners and managers were glad to see the end of it. During the last years of the system, deserters were rarely arrested and taken into court, and the law providing for their punishment was rapidly becoming a dead letter. Laborers, while still under contract, had begun to work under profit sharing or piece work system that proved very satisfactory to laborers and employers.

The production of sugar has increased from 222,000 tons in 1898 to 585,000 tons in 1912, and entirely by the use of free labor.

FEW HAWAIIAN LABORERS Now

Statistics kept by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association show that the number of Hawaiians on the sugar plantations has grown less and less with each succeeding year until as a race, they are negligible as a source of supply for general plantation work. They do not like to work in gangs at routine work, and they have never liked to work with men of other nationalities. The only instance in recent years of Hawaiians being willing to do regular plantation work, in large numbers, during the strike at Waipahu and Aiea in 1909, does not prove anything.

The writer wishes to express his own full appreciation of the Hawaiian laborer, in the field, the mill and in other lines of work. There have been no better men employed on the plantations than the Hawaiians, strong, willing and efficient, and their faults, if any, have been easily forgotten when their good qualities have been considered. They have always worked well when properly treated, and have never been quarrelsome, revengeful or treacherous.

Some of the causes of their present condition have been outlined, but references to the diseases and habits of civilization that have caused a decrease in the population of the group have been left out intentionally. They belong to another subject and more especially to the always debatable question as to whether or not contact with the white man must necessarily be injurious to the dark races.

In 1858, Prince Lot, afterwards King Kamehameha V, but at that time minister of the interior, said of his own people:

The elevation of the Hawaiian people to the level of the people in civilized lands is a problem which the pious, the good and the true have endeavored to solve, and with what success let those answer whose spears drank the blood of their enemies on the pali of Nuuanu, whose relatives or friends bled on the altars of Kaili or Kalaipahoa; let those answer who owned nothing, not even the hope of a future, who were slaves in the deepest sense of the word.

But though the change has been great and marvelous, though the steps in the ladder of civilization have been cleared by bounds rather than by the toilsome progress that has characterized the upward career of other nations, yet let us not flatter ourselves that the problem has been solved and the good achieved.

Foreign countenance, foreign aid cannot do that for us which if it is done at all must be done by ourselves.

Much of the work of restoring the people to the position they held, must come and is now coming, from the schools that are teaching the children and fitting the young men and women to take their places in the world, beside, and on even terms with, those of other races.

The old cry of "Hawaii for the Hawaiians" should be abandoned; it was always a sign of weakness. The days of paternal care and of making allowances for weakness of character and lack of a sense of responsibility because of race, have come to an end. It is for the good of the race and of each individual that it is only as a man and as a responsible member of society, that a Hawaiian can now expect to hold his place in the community.

RACE EDUCATION

By J. Howard Stoutemyer, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Baylor University, Waco, Texas

The dictum of Jesus that He came to fulfill is the keynote of the social and educational development of backward races. In the history of missions and government agencies, it is often noted that many maladjustments are due to lack of understanding this principle, that racial characteristics are relatively permanent but that the economic environment is ever changing. Hence their effort should be put forth to facilitate a more adequate adjustment between the people and their environment. Instead of this being seriously put into practice, most agencies have sought to substitute a literary training for a semi-civilized people just as if they were highly developed Occidentals. Reinsch states that the purely literary training for the Egyptians or Hindoos has produced an abnormal perspective, for education is not viewed as a means of development, but solely for the purpose of getting a clerkship.

The defects of a primarily literary training lies in the fact that it detracts from the real intellectual needs of a race. Being indefinite, founded upon suggestion and intuition rather that upon direct observation, it does not constitute that kind of training which the minds of Orientals and Africans especially require, to liberate them from the tyranny of idealogical speculation and supernatural beliefs. It ordinarily leads to a dangerous selfeducation implying a well-trained memory but an under-trained judgment, together with an overweening self-confidence and vanity (49, pp. 49-50).

The greatest danger lies in the aspirations raised, lofty in themselves but unrealizable for the opportunities are too limited for their employment. It creates a disdain for agricultural or industrial work as degrading and among the semi-tropical peoples who are not any too fond of

manual labor, it has created a longing for an easy life in the towns, and has produced social unrest.

In a later volume, Reinsch elaborates this testimony.

Historical facts and names will be remembered not by their logical connections but through some artificial device, aid of numbers, accessories or fortuitous associations. As a result there is a total lack of grasp; the essential is not distinguished from the incidental; there is no scientific analysis and coördination (50, p. 72).

No system could have been more successfully devised for the intellectual emasculation of a race than this introduction of the Eastern mind to the treasures of our literature and philosophy. Instead of developing the power of critical analysis and judgment through observation and social studies, it emphasizes the already supernormal defects of the Indian mind, steeped in centuries of subtle dialectics and abstractions. It has failed to develop ethical and moral aims for the education which they have received has not been related to the life of the Hindu people. It has had the effect of enslaving rather than liberating the Indian mind, of weakening rather than building up the intellectual forces of India. At present its defenders and friends are few, but the effects produced will not be soon obliterated though coming generations be better trained (50, p. 73).

Petrie further states that

our bigoted belief in reading and writing is not the least justified when we look at the mass of mankind. The exquisite art and noble architecture of Mykenae, the undying song of Homer, the extensive trade of the Bronze age, all belong to people who never read or wrote The great essentials of a valuable character-moderation, justice, sympathy, politeness, consideration, quick observation, shrewdness, ability to plan and prearrange, a keen sense of the uses and properties of things such qualities are what should be evolved by any education worthy of the name. No brain however small will be the worse for such education which is hourly in use; while in the practical life of a simple community, the accomplishments of reading and writing are not needed for perhaps a week or a month at a time (46, 597).

He adds that systems of government, social organization and geography may be so taught as to awaken the natives to a larger life without the evil results of the older type of education.

The very grave difficulty of knowing what education is of most worth to a native race is well described by BaringGould in the following extract:

Many changes of opinion must take place upon the subject of the education of natives before it is exhausted and the best way of teaching is found, and such changes of opinion and improvements in methods which follow in their train can only be the results of experience or of conclusions drawn from successful or unsuccessful experiments If he would learn a Sea Dyak could be taught almost anything, but what shall we teach him? A common board school education is of no value to him. He may learn to read and write and gain a little rudimentary knowledge utterly useless to him after leaving school and therefore soon to be forgotten. If he is placed in one of the large schools in Kuching he will there receive impressions and imbibe ideas which may render a return to his wild surroundings distasteful to him and unfit him for the ordinary life and occupations of his people. He will be left with one opportunity of gaining a living— he may become a clerk though the demand for clerks is limited; but if he is successful in obtaining a clerkship, he will be beset with temptations which he will be unable to resist and which will soon cause his ruin; and unfortunately this has been the rule and not the exception. There are some who advocate technical education and who rightfully point out that the Sea Dyak would make an excellent artisan, though the same argument applies equally against the utility of such training. He may become a clever carpenter or smith, but there would be few opportunities for him to benefit himself by his skill for he could never compete with the Chinese artisan into whose hands all of the skilled labor has fallen.

But if elementary and technical education were to meet with all the success one could desire, that success would needs be exceedingly limited, for though some good would be done only a few could be benefited. A broader view must be taken, a view that has regard not to the improvement of the few but to the people generally.

The Sea Dyak has all he wants. He is well off, contented and happy. He is a sober man, and indulges in but few luxuries. He is hard working and he is honest, but he lacks strength of mind and is easily led astray. Therefore the longer he is kept from the influences of civilization the better it wil be for him for the good cannot be introduced without the bad. Perhaps the problem of his future will work out better by a natural process. When his present sources of supply fail him and necessity forces him into other grooves, then and not before will he take up other industries which his natural adaptability will soon enable him to learn (8, pp. 439–440).

In commenting on the South African situation Dudley Kidd writes:

It is, perhaps, useless to go further into details, for what I am contending for is the adoption of rational principles that may be