The Oahu College at the Sandwich Islands | Page 2

and merging its members in the
newly created Christian community. The first problem stated came first
in the order of time, and 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