Part 6

Before working papers are issued, moreover, a position must be obtained, a signed card from the prospective employer being the basis on which permission to work is given. Each time a position is changed these papers are re-issued, and no employer is permitted by law to engage a boy or girl under eighteen on papers issued to any other employer. A physical examination is made each time the working papers are re-issued in order that it may be noted what effect if any an occupation is having on a child’s health.

A careful record is kept of the child’s family history, as well as of the occupation in which he is engaged; and his working history if more than one position is held. This latter gives the reason for changing, and helps in the study of a child’s capabilities.

At the time of graduation parents of each child are sent a circular by the Board of Education in which are described the further educational advantages offered by the city or state—high schools, trade schools, etc.—and the time necessary to be spent in each; also the probable advantages accruing from each course. The parents are asked to consult with the vocational bureau, which receives also the report of the teacher in charge of vocational matters in each school.

With the help of such a bureau boys and girls have been prevented from entering occupations offering no chance for advancement, and have been placed in line to earn an adequate livelihood. Where mental equipment justifies it, children who would otherwise be obliged to become wage-earners are granted scholarships enabling them either to take training in a trade school or to continue their studies in high school. This aid is given in Cincinnati in the form of a loan granted by the Charlotte Schmidlapp Foundation. In New York the scholarships are supported by a philanthropic committee, connected with the Henry Street Settlement.

Dean Herman Schneider, of the School of Engineering in the University of Cincinnati, has been working out a continuation school plan whereby instead of a trade school with expensive equipment the students in the School of Engineering are given their shop training in the factories, their instructors giving part time to factory work and part time in the University. In this way not the least valuable lesson learned is the knowledge gained by the University itself of what methods of instruction are actually of value as applied to business practice.

Mr. Schneider is also giving much attention to the question of temperaments suited to various occupations. A highly organized nervous temperament cannot permanently engage in enervating work—i.e. work done over and over again by each worker in the smallest number of cubic feet of space—without making for the breakdown of the individual unless the period of work is shortened sufficiently to permit this worker to engage in some other form of activity which will counteract the effect of his daily occupation. This prescription of vocation and avocation Mr. Schneider conceives to be the real function of vocational guidance; and he freely confesses that he is as yet far from a solution of the problem.

In his analysis of work he says: “It is fundamental that mankind must do stimulating work or retrogress. This is the bed-rock upon which our constructive programs of education, industry, sociology—of living, must rest.... One may safely propose as a thesis that only that civilization will prevail whose laws and life conform most nearly of Natural Law. The worth of our education, our laws, our scientific management will be determined by the extent to which they will make clear, conform with and supplement the laws of work. Their test will lie in the degree to which they are useful in leading us safely forward to better, brighter condition of work and their basic idea must be service to the mass.”

PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS

The questionnaire sent to the public schools, asking how many pupils in the classes belong to clubs or other groups for recreational purposes, in the settlements and elsewhere, brings out the fact that, with only one school report missing, 597 children out of the 6,031 attending school in Honolulu this year are in such ways provided with socializing influence once a week. Of course many have home surroundings which make outside influence unnecessary. The public playground, however, has an attendance of over two hundred a day, an indication of what might be expected in attendance if the school yards were equipped with playground apparatus and placed under supervision.

No social activities are reported by the public schools themselves excepting a picnic given annually or semi-annually.

On the other hand, a similar questionnaire sent to the private schools, including those philanthropically supported brought forth the following list of activities for boys and girls:

Athletic Teams, Baseball Teams, Basketball Teams, Tennis, Tramps, Picnics, House and Table Games, Piano Recitals, Glee Club, Orchestra under Trained Leader, Society to Develop Thoughtfulness for other peoples (races), Oratory Society, Debating Society, Private Theatricals, Travel Talks, illustrated, Dances, Thanksgiving Offering to Poor, Flowers for Decorating Soldiers’ Graves, Christian Endeavor Societies, Junior Auxiliary to Board of Missions, Student’s Council, School Magazine.

This very full and comprehensive program throws into strong relief the barrenness of the lives of the students after they graduate or leave these institutions, as well as the lack of any like opportunity for development offered by the community to its young people not in private schools. These programs will, it is hoped, be used by any committee taking up the question of public recreation.

I have talked with graduates of Kamehameha, who fortunately have an alumnae association, and with Normal and Punahou girls, who found no substitute for their basketball, tennis, and social life generally as they lived it while at school. It is true that Palama and Kalihi Settlements have basketball, dancing and gymnasium classes; but these institutions owe a duty to the economically handicapped portion of the community which they are taxed to their capacity in discharging. I question very strongly if it is advisable to call on philanthropy for the provision of cultural and social activities for wage-earners. Is it not rather philanthropy’s best service to stimulate those who are as yet unawakened to the possibilities of life, and then pass them on to the normal community for the development of those possibilities?

An inquiry made by the sub-committee on public and quasi-public amusements—settlements, churches, benevolent societies, lodges, etc.—brought out the usual social equipment of a city of this size. But there is an element which finds its social expression rather in independent groups made up of congenial persons; and where these groups can be brought into the public school recreation center with its library, gymnasium, piano and other activities, all under intelligent guidance, a broad social development is possible. The church clubs, settlement clubs and benevolent societies have their normal membership; but it is more difficult than can be realized by those who have never tried, to bring the other group into this environment. It is a group that needs to be provided for in the community social scheme, and other communities have found that the schoolhouse recreation center best cares for it.

Evening recreation centers for adults have been established in other cities at little expense. Once the work of organizing and equipping them is accomplished, their work goes on almost of itself.

Wherever evening schools, recreation centers, playgrounds, vacation schools and other activities connected with the public school system have been established it is becoming more and more apparent that measures making for social betterment are nowhere else so effectively applied as in the public schools. Here is the most democratic of all our institutions—the place where, with a compulsory education law carefully enforced, 100 per cent. of the coming generation of citizens may be reached.

The result of the sub-committee’s investigation of parks showed that all were inadequately lighted, with an occasional concert forming the only entertainment offered. Open pavilions in the parks, with public dances under proper supervision ought to be an ideal means of fighting the dance hall evil in Honolulu. Since the recent passing of an ordinance regulating dance halls there has been little activity among them, the most notorious remaining closed. It is thought that they will soon reopen, and the volunteer supervisors which the ordinance provides will, it is to be feared, find themselves faced with a difficult problem. A dance hall ordinance cannot be made really effective unless an argus-eyed person is on the premises continuously every night until it is learned which managers are to be trusted to abide by the law. This has been the invariable experience elsewhere.

The Settlements, Missions and other organizations are assisting several hundred men and a few women to learn English in classes conducted for the most part in crowded quarters, and taught by workers who have many other duties which are in consequence neglected.

The large number in attendance at these classes, the fact that several Japanese classes are self-supporting and that Hawaiians are attending a class intended for Chinese only, proves a healthy demand for instruction.

Hawaii owes a peculiar debt to its foreign element—to its Portuguese, Spanish, Porto Rican and Filipino population especially, who are brought from their native land to perform the work of the country, but have no opportunity to learn its language. Their children sometimes grow up to working age with only the slightest knowledge of English.

If it is necessary for private philanthropy to aid in establishing night classes in English, there are surely few better ways in which money could be expended. In New York the first classes in English for immigrants were started on the lower East Side thirteen years ago, by private philanthropy, and six years later were taken over by the Board of Education. Day classes were also maintained for immigrant children, who were thus enabled to enter school with a working knowledge of English.

Afternoon classes which household servants might be able to attend, and to which could also be sent the children who were backward in their studies because of lack of English, should prove valuable in Honolulu.

The Department of Education should not, however, be urged to undertake any of this work until every child in the Territory has been provided with school accommodations.

A study made under the auspices of the Bureau of Municipal Research in the recent New York School Inquiry of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of that city, brought out the fact that there were 76 agencies offering “direct, continuous and gratuitous co-operation” to the public schools. These agencies included the Public Schools Athletic League, teaching the folk-dancing to the children at the recreation centers; visiting-teachers—the friendly visitor from the school to the home—supplied by the Public Education Association, church societies, etc.; vacation schools for backward children started by the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and later taken over by the Board of Education; and numerous other activities, supported by independent agencies.

“Helping School Children,” by Miss Elsa Denison, published by Harper & Brother, and Perry’s “Wider Use of the School Plant” published by the Russell Sage Foundation, describes the successful ways in which communities have used the school plant, and in this manner filled their needs without erecting expensive and unnecessary buildings.

IWILEI AND THE WORKERS

(Observations made at visits during the lunch hour and in the evening, to the stockades immediately adjoining the canneries, where the social evil has its generally recognized being in Honolulu.)