Part 2

The land on which the buildings stand has an excellent and valuable spring of water, sufficient to irrigate it. There are one hundred acres in this lot, all enclosed by a good stone wall, and in part under cultivation. Another hundred acres adjoining, is also enclosed with a stone wall, and is devoted to pasturage. Another hundred acres of woodland lies about two miles distant. The buildings will suffice for the present.

An observer, familiar with the college edifices of the United States, may hardly be able to recognize a College in what he sees at Punahou. But what there is surpasses what were the visible beginnings of either Harvard, or Yale. Until the present time, moreover, there has been only a preparatory school. The first college class, and that a small one, commences the present year. A number of young men, once at Punahou, who would perhaps have been in the College had there been one, are at Williams, Yale, or some other of our American Colleges. Some have completed their preparations for life's business, and are preachers, missionaries, merchants, or connected with the government of the Islands.

The Endowment.

The cost of living at the Sandwich Islands has been materially increased by the settlement and mines of California. Just at present, it may not be easy to bring the expenses of a family at Punahou within the bounds recommended for the salaries of the officers of College. The arrangement for salaries should be based, however, on what we know to be the general course of things in the world. Fifteen hundred dollars, with the use of a house, is thought not to be too large a salary for the President of the Oahu College; and twelve hundred dollars, with the use of a house, for a Professor. The American Board will pay these two salaries for the years 1856 and 1857.

The Trustees propose to raise the sum of fifty thousand dollars. This is not too large a beginning. Of this sum the Hawaiian government engages to give ten thousand dollars, or one fifth part; on condition that the remaining forty thousand dollars be raised before July 6, 1858, and that the King have the right of nominating two of the twelve trustees of the College. The Prudential Committee have voted to subscribe five thousand dollars towards the endowment, on behalf of the American Board, payable in the year 1858.

It should be understood that, excepting the duty of approval or disapproval in respect to the election of members on the Board of Trustees, laid upon the American Board by the Charter for the space of twenty years, that Board has no connection whatever with the College, or control of its proceedings. The College is an independent institution, sustaining no other relation to the Board, than it does to every other benefactor.

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The Colleges of New England had generally some benevolent patron provided for them by Divine Providence;--a Harvard, a Yale, a Dartmouth, a Brown, a Bowdoin, a Williams; and the Colleges very properly took and embalmed their names in memory of an enlightened and refined Christian community. These provided the general endowment. Many liberal men also funded particular professorships; or gave funds for the education of young men of talents and character, without the means of obtaining a liberal education. May the Lord raise up such benefactors for the Oahu College. That has grown, as the New England Colleges did, out of a great religious movement and the wonderful blessing of God on that movement. It has a religious object, and is controlled by a religious influence. The funds have every practicable guard from perversion. The permanent necessity for such an institution is apparent in the certainty of a permanent, rising, influential community on those admirably situated Islands. The independence of the Hawaiian Nation,--which, under present circumstances, is most favorable to its development,--is guaranteed by the United States, Great Britain and France; and the presumption of its falling under the dominion of a power foreign to us, is too small to deserve notice; and the influence of the College itself, as already described, will be one of the most effectual guards against such a result. There is not a finer climate in all the world. Were it true, that the native population is still wasting away, the effect of corrupt commerce in old heathen times, still greater would be the need of such an institution. A flourishing community of some kind at the Sandwich Islands, then certainly will be; and the religious influences now at the Islands will be as available for that community, as hereafter developed, with whatever elements, as it will be for the one now existing.

A number of gentlemen have kindly consented, at the request of the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, acting for the Trustees of the College, to take charge of the funds contributed in this country for the Oahu College, (where the donors do not direct them to be remitted directly to the Trustees at the Islands;) and they will invest such funds in the United States, and cause the interest to be remitted annually to the officer of the corporation legally authorized to receive it. The Trustees for the Fund, appointed in the first instance by the Prudential Committee, will fill the vacancies occurring in their own number; and they will be authorized to transfer the investment of the funds to the Sandwich Islands whenever they and the Trustees of the College concur in the opinion, that this can be safely and advantageously effected.

The following gentlemen compose the Trustees for the Funds to be invested in the United States; namely,--

HENRY HILL, Esq., of Boston, Mass. PELATIAH PERIT, Esq., of New York city. Gen. WILLIAM WILLIAMS, of Norwich, Conn. Hon. THOMAS W. WILLIAMS, of New London, Conn. HENRY P. HAVEN, Esq., of New London, Conn. JAMES HUNNEWELL, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass. WILLIAM E. DODGE, Esq., of New York city. ABNER KINGMAN, Esq., of Boston, Mass.

Boston, August 1856.

At a meeting of the Trustees of Oahu College, held at Honolulu, Oct. 27, 1856, the following resolutions were adopted with reference to the appointment of the Trustees for the Funds:

Resolved, 1. That the following gentlemen be and are hereby appointed Trustees, to receive, take charge of, and invest any funds that may have been, or hereafter may be contributed, in the United States, for the endowment of Oahu College; viz.,

HENRY HILL, Esq., of Boston, Mass. PELATIAH PERIT, Esq., of New York city. Gen. WILLIAM WILLIAMS, of Norwich, Conn. Hon. THOMAS W. WILLIAMS, of New London, Conn. HENRY P. HAVEN, Esq., of New London, Conn. JAMES HUNNEWELL, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass. WILLIAM E. DODGE, Esq., of New York city. ABNER KINGMAN, Esq., of Boston, Mass.

Resolved, 2. That the Trustees appointed by the foregoing resolution be and are hereby authorized to fill all vacancies occurring in their own number; and that they be and are also further authorized to transfer the investment of any funds that may be received by them for the endowment of Oahu College, to the Sandwich Islands, whenever they and the Trustees of the said College concur in the opinion, that this can be safely and advantageously done.

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The President of the College is now in this country to act for the Board of Trustees, under the following commission:

Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, Feb. 26, 1857.

Know all persons to whom these presents may come, that the Rev. Edward Griffin Beckwith, President of Oahu College, is duly appointed and authorized by the Board of Trustees of this Institution to act as their agent in procuring funds, instructors, and books for the same; and to promote its general interests in all such ways as may be in his power, during his contemplated visit to the United States.

To this end, the Trustees of the College hereby bespeak for him the kind regards and co-operation of all the friends of education and religion with whom he may meet during his mission.

R. ARMSTRONG,

Sec'y of Board of Trustees.

At a meeting of the Trustees for the Fund, held in Boston, May 28, 1857, it was

Resolved, That the Rev. E. G. Beckwith, President of Oahu College, now in this country for the purpose of obtaining an endowment for that now and important Institution at the Sandwich Islands, be earnestly commended, by the Trustees for the Fund it is proposed to raise for the College in this country, to the liberal patronage of those who would promote the cause of education at the Islands, and thus give stability and perpetuity to the civil and Christian institutions which have been so successfully introduced into that part of the world; with the understanding, that the investment of the Fund be made under the direction of the aforesaid Trustees residing in the United States.

ABNER KINGMAN, Clerk.

The following is the form of subscription, which it is proposed to circulate among the friends of this enterprise:

We, the undersigned, subscribe the several sums set to our respective names, towards a Fund for the endowment of the Oahu College, in the Sandwich Islands, which Fund is to be invested under the direction of a Board of Trustees in the United States appointed for this purpose by the Trustees of the College; and the income arising therefrom to be annually appropriated to the support of said institution. Provided always, that no portion of said subscriptions, or any of the income arising therefrom, shall be used for the promotion of any system or course of education not in accordance with the Sixth Article of the present Charter of the said College.