Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T03:05:12.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Connection of Samuel Chapman Armstrong as Both Borrower and Architect of Education in Hawai'i

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

C. Kalani Beyer
C. Kalani Beyer*
Affiliation:
School of Education of National Unviersity (La Jolla, California)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Samuel Chapman Armstrong is well known for establishing Hampton Institute, the institution most involved with training black teachers in the South after the Civil War. It is less known that he was born in Hawai'i to the missionary couple Reverend Richard and Clarissa Chapman Armstrong. His parents were members of the Fifth Company of missionaries that arrived in Hawai'i in 1831. Reverend Armstrong withdrew from the mission in 1848 to become the Minister of Public Instruction. Until Reverend Armstrong's death in 1860, he was the major force behind education for Hawaiians in both missionary and public schools

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2007 , pp. 23 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 History of Education Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Missionary Album: Portraits and Bibliographical Sketches of the American Protestant Missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands (Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Children's Society, 1969), 30–31; Stueber, Ralph K., “Hawai'i: A Case Study in Development Education 1778–1960,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1964, 94; Talbot, Edith A., Samuel Chapman Armstrong: A Biographical Study (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1904), 42.Google Scholar

2 Armstrong, Mary F. and Helen Ludlow, W., Hampton and Its Students (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1874), 22–23, 38–39; Peabody, Francis G., Education for Life; the Story of Hampton Institute (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page&Co., 1918), 89, 181–83; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 34–36, 42.Google Scholar

3 See Bennett, Charles A., History of Manual and Industrial Education Up to 1870 (Peoria, IL: Charles A. Bennett Co., 1926).Google Scholar

4 Barlow, Melvin L., History of Industrial Education in the United States (Peoria, IL: Chas. A. Bennett Co., 1967), 106–7; Bennett, , History of Manual and Industrial Education, 106–7; Ham, Charles H., Manual Training: The Solution of Social and Industrial Problems (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), 245; Vaughn, Samuel J. and Arthur Mays, B., Content and Methods of the Industrial Arts (New York: The Century Co.), 22–23.Google Scholar

5 Barlow, , History of Industrial Education, 128; Bennett, , History of Manual and Industrial Education, 106–7; Ham, Manual Training, 245; Vaughn, and Mays, , Content and Methods, 22–23.Google Scholar

6 Bennett relates that manual and industrial education first made its way to the United States in 1809, when the first Pestalozzian school was opened in Philadelphia through the philanthropy of William Maclure. The philanthropist had been in Paris when he met Francis Joseph Nichols Neef, who trained under Pestalozzi. Maclure convinced Neef to come to America and help establish a school. Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education, 23–24, 26–27.Google Scholar

7 The following sources mention that Armstrong was influenced by education in Hawai'i but did not specify what he borrowed: Anderson, James D., The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 38; Armstrong, and Ludlow, , Hampton and Its Students, 1, 22–23, 38–39; Peabody, Education for Life, 181–83; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 34–36, 42; Watkins, William H., The White Architects of Black Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001), 43.Google Scholar

8 See Beyer, Carl Kalani, “Manual and Industrial Education during Hawaiian Sovereignty. Curriculum in the Transculturation of Hawai'i,” PhD diss., University of Illinois at Chicago, 2004.Google Scholar

9 Surprisingly, there is no mention of his connection to Hawaiian schools in any of the issues of the Southern Workman or any of the works done by him or others. See Armstrong, and Ludlow, , Hampton and Its Students. See, also, Armstrong, Samuel C., Armstrong's Ideas on Education for Life (Hampton: Hampton Institute Press, 1940); Education for Life; Ideas on Education Expressed by Samuel Chapman Armstrong (Hampton: Hampton Institute Press, 1908). Finally, see Peabody, Education for Life; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Google Scholar

10 In many ways, the upbringing, education, and experience of second-generation missionaries were very different from their parents. Because of their parents’ fear of contamination from Hawaiian contact during the early years, they were raised separately from Hawaiians, children and adults alike. As a result, most of them did not learn to “love” the Hawaiians as their parents did and some even developed an aversion to the people themselves. Stueber, “Hawai'i,” 157–59.Google Scholar

11 Because the Royal School closed in 1850 (well before Armstrong began to contribute to Hawaiian education) and Punahou School primarily educated haole, neither school appears in this paper.Google Scholar

12 Originally, Hawaiians applied the term haole to all foreigners; over time, it has come to be applied primarily to white people of Anglo Saxon Protestant background. Thus, when Portuguese immigrants began to arrive in Hawai'i, they were not referred to as haole. Generally, the term has a neutral connotation, used to designate the background of a person. It can, however, be used negatively, especially when dominance and subordination are involved in its use.Google Scholar

13 The following sources all deal with the colonization of Hawai'i: Benham, Manette K.P. and Ronald Heck, H., Culture and Educational Policy in Hawai'i: The Silencing of Native Voices (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1998); Coffman, Tom, Nation Within: The Story of America's Annexation of the Nation of Hawai'i (Kaneohe: He Hawai'i Au (I am Hawaiian), 2001); Dougherty, M., To Steal a Kingdom (Waimanalo: Island Style Press, 1992); Kanahele, George H.S., Ku Kanaka Stand Tall: A Search for Hawaiian Values (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1992); Kent, Noel J., Hawai'i: Islands under the Influence (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1993); Linnekin, Joyce, Sacred Queens and Women of Consequence: Rank, Gender, and Colonialism in the Hawaiian Islands (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Merry, Sally E., Colonizing Hawai'i: The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Osorio, Jonathan K., Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002); Trask, Haunani-Kay, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i. Revised Edition (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999); Young, George T.K., Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). Only Benham and Heck's book relates education to colonization; however, they do not connect Armstrong to this process.Google Scholar

14 Wist, Bernard O., A Century of Public Education in Hawai'i (Honolulu: Hawai'i Educational Review, 1940), 32–34.Google Scholar

15 “Unpublished Letters from Members of the Sandwich Island Mission to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Volume I, in Sandwich Island Mission (Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society, 1838), 1854.Google Scholar

16 Lecker, George T., “Lahainaluna” PhD diss., University of Hawai'i, 1938, 41.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 483–85.Google Scholar

18 Anderson, , The Education of Blacks, 38; Armstrong, and Ludlow, , Hampton and Its Students, 22–23, 38–39; Peabody, Education for Life, 89, 181–83; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 34–36, 42; Watkins, , White Architects of Black Education, 43.Google Scholar

19 “Preface,” in Hilo Boarding School for Boys: Seventy Five Years of Progress (Hilo: Hawaiian Historical Society, 1911), 8.Google Scholar

20 Gordon, Mildred O., “A History of the Hilo Boarding School” (MA thesis, University of Hawai'i, 1936), 58–60.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., 61.Google Scholar

22 Lyman, “Hilo Boys',” 25.Google Scholar

23 Lyman, Levi, “Industrial Training,” The Friend LIX (December 1902): 114–15.Google Scholar

24 Minutes of the Meeting of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association for 1855 (Honolulu: Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 1855), 5.Google Scholar

25 “Editorial,” The Polynesian XVI: 43 (1860): 2.Google Scholar

26 Alexander, Samuel T., President's Address before the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society on Hawaiians and Their Educational Needs (Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Children's’ Society 1864), 112.Google Scholar

27 Annual Report and Minutes of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association (Honolulu: Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 1871), 57–64; Hawaiian Mission Children's Society Annual Report (Honolulu: Hawaiian Mission Children's Society, 1871), 12–14.Google Scholar

28 Armstrong, Samuel C., “From the Beginning,” in Twenty-Two Years’ Work of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, Virginia ed. Samuel Armstrong, C. (Hampton: Hampton Normal School Press, 1893), 2; Lyman, “Hilo Boys,” 25; Peabody, Education for Life, 182–83; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 22.Google Scholar

29 Armstrong, , Ideas on Education, 19.Google Scholar

30 Armstrong, , “From the Beginning,” 2; Gordon, “History of the Hilo Boarding School,” 58–60; Lyman, “Hilo Boys,” 25; Peabody, Education for Life, 182–83; Talbot, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, 22.Google Scholar

31 Anderson, , Education of Blacks in the South, 35–36; Gordon, “History of the Hilo Boarding School,” 58–60.Google Scholar

32 Armstrong, , Education for Life, 8; Ideas on Education, 6–8.Google Scholar

33 Anderson, , Education of Blacks in the South, 35–36.Google Scholar

34 Lindsey, Donal F., Indians at Hampton Institute, 1877–1923 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 23.Google Scholar

35 “Female Boarding Schools,” Supplement to The Friend 21, no. 7 (1873): 68; “Hawaiian Female Boarding School.” The Maile Quarterly I, no. 3 (1866): 1–20.Google Scholar

36 Armstrong, , “Lessons from the Hawaiian Islands,” 213.Google Scholar

37 For the sources on Armstrong's accommodationist policies, see Adams, Evelyn C., American Indian Education (Morningside Heights: King's Crown Press, 1946); Anderson, , The Education of Blacks; Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute; Watkins, White Architects of Black Education. For the sources on the missionaries’ goals of preparing Hawaiians to participate in operating their own nation, see Benham, Manette K.P., “Political and Cultural Determinants of Educational Policymaking: Their Effects on Native Hawaiians” PhD diss., University of Hawai'i, Manoa, 1994; Kame'eleihiwa, Lilikala, Native Land and Foreign Desires: Pehea La E Pono Ai? (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1992); Osorio, Jonathan K., “Determining Self: Identity, Nationhood and Constitutional Government in Hawai'i,” PhD diss., University of Hawai'i, Manoa, 1996.Google Scholar

38 Lindsey, , Indians at Hampton Institute, 73.Google Scholar

39 Adams, , American Indian Education, 56; Coleman, Michael C., American Indian Children at School, 1850–1930 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993), 43–44; Lindsey, Indians at Hampton Institute, 44, 52, 77–73; Schall, Keith L., Stony the Road: Chapters in the History of Hampton Institute (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia), 9–12, 17, 27.Google Scholar

40 Woodward, Manual Training, 5.Google Scholar

41 See Barlow, History of Industrial Education; Ham, Manual Training; Vaughan, and Mays, , Content and Methods; Woodward, Manual Training. Google Scholar

42 Reverend Sereno Bishop, a second-generation missionary, confirms this usage of the term missionary. He says “[t]hat was the name for all among the whites who represented the active Protestant Evangelical Christianity planted here [Hawai'i], and by more latitude was applied to all who stood for morality and decorum against prevalent lewdness, obscene hula dances, drunkenness, opium and lottery, as espoused by the Royal court and reckless whites.” Bishop, Sereno E. “Are Missionaries’ Sons Tending to America a Stolen Kingdom?” The Friend 52, no. 1 (1894): 18–20.Google Scholar

43 After Kamehameha V died, there were no more heirs of the Kamehameha family interested in becoming monarch. As a result, an election was held to determine who from among a select few of the high chiefs was to be the next monarch. See Kuykendall, Ralph S., The Hawaiian Kingdom: 1874–1893 (Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 1967).Google Scholar

44 The Americanization of the schools for Hawaiians were reported in each issue of the Biennial Report of the President of the Board of Education to the Legislature after 1870. This process was accomplished by increasing the number of English select schools within the public school system, altering the language in the missionary schools from Hawaiian to English, primarily teaching the curriculum from American textbooks, and importing American teachers. Evidence of the policy of subordinating Hawaiians was found in the writings of second-generation missionaries that proclaimed the need for haole to lead Hawaiians for generations to come. See Alexander, William D., “Early Industrial Teaching of Hawaiians,” in Thrum's Hawaiian Annual (Honolulu: Thomas Thrum Publishing, 1895); Bishop, Sereno E. “Are Missionaries’ Sons Tending to America a Stolen Kingdom?” The Friend 52, no. 1 (1894). “Christianity and the Native Hawaiians.” The Friend 43, (May 1885), 4–5.Google Scholar

45 Peabody, Education for Life, 182.Google Scholar

46 At this time, most of the missionary schools were still teaching a part of the curriculum using books printed in the Hawaiian language.Google Scholar

47 Canevali, Ralph G., “Hilo Boarding School – Hawaii's Experiment in Vocational Education,” The Hawaiian Journal of History IX, (1977): 86–87.Google Scholar

48 Armstrong, Samuel C. to Dr. Smith, 11 September 1890, Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Children's Society.Google Scholar

49 Canevali, “Hilo Boarding School,” 86.Google Scholar

50 Kent, Harold W., Charles Reed Bishop: Man of Hawai'i (Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1965) 68.Google Scholar

51 Although Charles Bishop was not a member of the ABCFM, he was considered by both missionary and anti-missionary factions as a nominal member of the missionary group.Google Scholar

52 Kent, Charles Reed Bishop, 68.Google Scholar

53 Thompson, Uldrich, Reminescences of Kamehameha Schools (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1922), 33.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., 129–130.Google Scholar

55 Thompson, Uldrich, “Argument for Enlarged Studies,” Handicraft IV, no. 9 (1892): 1–4; “On Manual Training and Apprenticeship,” Handicraft V, no. 6 (1893): 1–4.Google Scholar

56 Thompson, Uldrich, “Normal Department,” Handicraft VII, no. 4 (1895): 1–4.Google Scholar

57 Thompson, , Reminescences, 78–80.Google Scholar

58 Richards, Theodore, “Annual Report of the Principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys,” Kamehameha School for Boys, Midkiff Archive Collection (1896).Google Scholar

59 Thompson, Uldrich, “Scholarship,” Handicraft VI: 6 (1894): 2.Google Scholar

60 The Handicraft was a school journal devoted to short editorials on educational matters, letters from former students, and to everyday events of the school. Harry Townsend established the journal and Thompson, Uldrich was the editor during the first twenty-two years of its existence. “First Graduates.” The Handicraft III, no. 6 (1891): 2.Google Scholar

61 Hudson, Loring, “History of the Kamehameha Schools” (MA thesis, University of Hawai'i, 1935), 156–57; “Kamehameha Graduates,” The Friend 59, no. 4 (1901): 145, 145, “New High School,” Independent, 2 July 1895, 4; Richards, Theodore, “Quarter Century Reflection on Kamehameha,” The Friend LXXIV, no. 8 (1916): 176–177.Google Scholar

62 “Statement by Kau'ai Industrial School Board to the President of the Hawaiian Board,” Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection (1900).Google Scholar

63 Smith, Juliette, “Closing Exercises of the Kau'ai Industrial School,” Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection (1891).Google Scholar

64 Although in 1889 only the Kamehameha School for Boys existed, plans were in place to open a separate school for girls in 1891. However, due to political unrest, which led to the overthrow of Hawaiian Sovereignty in 1893, the school did not open until 1894. Armstrong, Samuel C. to Dr. Smith, 16 September 1889, Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection.Google Scholar

65 Smith, , “Closing Exercises,” 2.Google Scholar

66 For the sketch, see “Armstrong, Samuel C. to Jared Smith, 6 January 1888,” Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection. The eventual design of the buildings was altered to one building based on advice given in a letter from Sanford Dole to Jared Smith. Dole was concerned that Armstrong's ideas were too cost prohibitive. Dole, Sanford B. to Jared Smith, 17 September 1889, Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection.Google Scholar

67 “Report of the Kau'ai Industrial School,” Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection (1893).Google Scholar

68 Dole, Sanford B. to Jared Smith, 24 September 1889, Smith Papers, Hawaiian Mission Childrens’ Society Collection.Google Scholar

69 Ibid.Google Scholar

70 Smith, “Closing Exercises,” 4.Google Scholar

71 Annual Report and Minutes of the HEA (Honolulu: HEA, 1891; 1894–1898), 20; 39; 45; 44; 33; 29.Google Scholar

72 HEA replaced the ABCFM in 1863 as the organization that operated the Hawaiian mission and missions to South Sea islands. Annual Report and Minutes of the HEA (Honolulu: HEA, 1898), 29.Google Scholar

73 Armstrong, “From the Beginning,” 1.Google Scholar

74 Ibid.Google Scholar

75 Watkins, William’ important book, The White Architects of Black Education, cites Armstrong as one of the white architects of black education.Google Scholar

76 Watkins, White Architects, 60.Google Scholar

77 Lyman, “Hilo Boys,” 25.Google Scholar

78 Canevali, “Hilo Boarding School,” 92.Google Scholar

79 Gibson, Walter M., Biennial Report of the President of the Board of Education to the Legislature of 1886 (Honolulu: Hawaiian Government, 1886), 17–18.Google Scholar

80 Although the education analysis is my own and my dissertation, “Manual and Industrial Education During Hawaiian Sovereignty” does a more thorough job substantiating this interpretation, other works by Native Hawaiians have contributed to this overall analysis. See Benham, “Political and Cultural Determinants”; Kame'eleihiwa, Native Land; Osorio, “Determining Self.”Google Scholar

81 See Alexander, William D., “Biennial Report of the President of the Board of Education to the Legislature” (Honolulu: Hawaiian Government, 1892–1898); “Report of the Minister of Public Instruction” (Honolulu: Territory of Hawai'i, 1898). See, also, Atkinson, Alatau T., “Report of the President of the Board of Education to Territorial Government,” (Honolulu: Territory of Hawai'i, 1905). Finally, see Bishop, Chares R., “Biennial Report of President of the Board of Education to Legislature” (Honolulu: Hawaiian Government, 1880, 1882, 1888), Castle, William R., “Biennial Report of President of the Board of Education to Legislature” (Honolulu: Republic of Hawai'i, 1894, 1896).Google Scholar

82 Waialua Female Seminary closed in 1882 after financial and staffing problems. “Female Boarding Schools,” Supplement to The Friend 21, no. 7 (1873): 23.Google Scholar

83 Beyer, Carl Kalani, “Female Seminaries in America and Hawai'i During the Nineteenth Century,” The Hawaiian Journal of History 37 (2003): 112–114.Google Scholar

84 Castle, William R., Biennial Report of President of the Board of Education to Legislature of 1894 (Honolulu: Republic of Hawai'i, 1894), 87–90.Google Scholar

85 Alexander, William D., Report of the Minister of Public Instruction of 1898 (Honolulu: Territory of Hawai'i, 1898), 50–52.Google Scholar

86 Alexander, William D., Report of the Minister of Public Instruction of 1899 (Honolulu: Territory of Hawai'i, 1899), 87–89; Atkinson, Alatau T, Report of the President of the Board of Education to Territorial Government (Honolulu: Territory of Hawai'i, 1905), 2–3; Morrow, Alice, “Royal Hawaiian Academy,” in Ka Lama Hawai'i: The Centennial Yearbook of the Lahainaluna Technical School (Lahaina: Lahainaluna Press, 1931), 36–39.Google Scholar

87 Treadway, Thomas, “English Speaking Boarding School,” in Ka Lama Hawai'i: The Centennial Yearbook of the Lahainaluna Technical High School (Lahainaluna: Territory of Hawai'i, 1931), 41–42.Google Scholar

88 “Christianity and the Native Hawaiians,” 6–7.Google Scholar

89 Morrow, Alice C., “Royal Hawaiian Academy,” 38.Google Scholar

90 Gilman, Gorham D., “Address on Hon. Gorham D. Gilman on Hawai'i,” in Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent People (Lake Mohonk: Lake Mohonk Conference, 1904), 103.Google Scholar

91 Hosmer, Frank A., “Civilizing Influences in Hawai'i,” in Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples (Lake Mohonk: Lake Mohonk Conference, 1904), 109.Google Scholar

92 In the twenty-first century, the term Hawaiian is ambiguous in relation to whom it refers, resulting in the use of the phrase Native Hawaiian to indicate those people who are descendents of the original inhabitants of Hawai'i.Google Scholar

93 See Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment Project: 1993 Survey Report (Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, 1993).Google Scholar

94 See “A Compilation of Recommendations from Needs Assessments and Research Reports Pertaining to Native Hawaiians,” (Honolulu: Alu Like, 1989).Google Scholar

95 Benham, and Heck, , Cultural and Educational Policy in Hawai'i, 2.Google Scholar