as they cannot be expected to be contented with plantation labour, when their ambitions are awakened through modern education.

And yet one thing seems certain, namely, that the two vital races in the Sandwich Islands will be Portuguese and Japanese. The native Hawaiians are either afflicted by contagious disease or addicted to alcoholism, enervating themselves by consanguinary marriage or destroying themselves by practices born of superstition and ignorance. The Chinese are mostly old men, while the native-born Chinese, whether pure-blooded or infused with Hawaiian blood, are not very fecund. On the other hand, the Portuguese are a remarkably thriving race. While in the islands I heard of many Portuguese families blessed with more than ten children. On the whole, the birth-rate among the Portuguese may be even higher than that among the Japanese.

This suggests the question: "Will the two races, the Japanese and the Portuguese, be friendly towards each other as both grow in number and influence?" The question is not easy to answer. But judged from present indications their future relations do not seem to justify pessimism. Either on plantations or in cities there has never been any trouble between the two races. True, there have been but few cases of intermarriage, but this is mainly because women, whether Japanese or Portuguese, have been comparatively few. As the children of both races are now taught in the same schools and in the common language, the future relations between the Portuguese and Japanese promise to be far more intimate. When the present school children come of age intermarriage between the two races will be more frequent.

The most interesting subject of study relating to

Hawaii is its educational institutions, public and private. Until one visits one of these schools and observes boys and girls of all races studying together in classrooms, one cannot fully understand why Hawaii is the "melting pot of the races." Of school children of various races the Japanese are most numerous, numbering, in 1911, 8,368; the Portuguese come second with 4,214, to be followed by Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian, and Chinese children in the order named. Including other ingredients in the "melting pot" of public instruction we obtain the following figures:

It is indeed inspiring to see children of all these different races freely mingling with one another either in study or in play, with no knowledge of race hatred or prejudice. Here in these small isles God's invisible hands seem to be moulding a harmonious human society out of the divergent races which He created. But the study of school children does not reveal the full meaning of His work, for a glance at the personnel of the teaching force is even more interesting. Here is an army of teachers commanded by Americans but consisting of members of many races-Americans, Hawaiians, Chi

nese, Portuguese, part-Hawaiians, and Japanese. Of Chinese and Japanese teachers there are about twenty, divided equally between them. All the Japanese teachers are girls born and educated in Hawaii. If the assimilability of the Japanese needs substantiation, no finer example can be found than these thoroughly Americanized Japanese school teachers in Hawaii. In manner, in bearing, in deportment, there is in them nothing that suggests their sisters in the Mikado's land. In no country where race prejudice prevents sympathetic and equitable treatment of aliens is such complete assimilation of an Oriental race possible. With this fact in view the following passage from an essay by President Griffiths of Oahu College is of special interest:

"The picture of industrious contentment has made many a visitor from California exclaim over the contrast between the Chinese in Hawaii and the kind that has settled in California. But the man is the same, often coming from the same village and district, and even from the same family; the difference is that the best has been drawn out in Hawaii, while the sister Commonwealth, by repression and cruelty, has developed his baser qualities. While he has been subject to revilings and physical abuse in California, in Hawaii he has had opportunities for labour and self-improvement, spiritually and intellectually, as well as materially and financially. The generous treatment given him by missionaries in private schools was continued in the public schools under conditions favourable to his best development. He has lived on terms of pleasant amity, both receiving and giving in return."

The good example set by the missionaries in the field of education cannot be too highly appreciated. By the advice of the early missionaries and through their or

ganizing power, the King and Legislature, under the old régime, made provision for the establishment of public schools, which formed the foundation of the present system of education in the Territory. Besides assisting in the inauguration of public schools, the missionaries established private schools based upon the Christian principle of love and fraternity. Of this enterprise Oahu College and the Mid-Pacific Institute, both at Honolulu, are noble monuments. The Normal and Training School at Hilo, though not a missionary enterprise, is also animated with Christian ideals. The Mid-Pacific Institute, through the efforts of its treasurer, Mr. Theodore Richards, brought several young men from Japan and conferred upon them scholarships provided for the specific object of promoting peaceful and friendly relationship between Japan and the United States.

With all the educational facilities afforded in the islands, there is much room for improvement in the equipment of schools. The Territorial college is far from what it should be, while the rural schools are not well appointed. In some villages public schools are housed in such small buildings that some of the classes have to meet in buildings belonging to Japanese Christian or Buddhist missions. Most village or plantation schools maintained by the Territory are not as attractive in appearance as the schools maintained by the Japanese. Such a state of things is extremely deplorable. In every village where schools are needed the Territorial Government should build respectable, even imposing, schoolhouses, which should, in the eyes of immigrants and their children, stand symbols of the advanced civilization of the American nation. They should be shrines where children of aliens enter with a sense of reverence. In such villages as those in Hawaii schools are almost the

only institution which suggest anything of civilization; the rest consists of plantation camps and cane fields. Are the existing rural schools adequate to fulfil the missions peculiar to Hawaii? Flattery itself will have to hesitate to answer this question in the affirmative. What impressions of American civilization would the guileless children of Japanese plantation labourers derive from the public schools whose buildings are no better, if not worse, than the Buddhist temples or the private schools maintained by their parents?

There seems to be a certain force, and a very powerful one, arrayed against the promotion of education among the children of plantation hands. When I was in Hilo a plantation manager naïvely said to me: "It should be the duty of learned men like you to urge the sons of workmen to stay on the plantation after they are through schools." This straightforward remark perhaps indicates the nature of the force which is opposed to providing better educational facilities in the islands. view of the situation is sustained by the following passage found in the report of a special educational commission appointed by the Governor a few years ago:

My

"In the Territory there is a very powerful element both openly and covertly declaring that too much education is being given the children of lowly birth."

The report also points out the following defects in the existing educational system of Hawaii:

I. The number of available teachers has been far below the need. Salaries of teachers have been always inadequate and at times distressingly low.

2. Uncertificated teachers of deficient qualifications have been employed in large numbers.

3. Overcrowding of buildings has been perennial. 4. Per capita cost of education has been kept below