The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands | Page 2

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