Evening Bulletin

SAYS COUNTY SCHOOL
PEOPLE ARE POLITICIANS
Editor Evening Bulletin:-

Being more of a reader than a writer, I find myself handicapped when attempting to express my somewhat tangled views and opinion. Nevertheless, being interested in the school question, and relying on your impartiality, I feel positive that you will consider my brief words.

The school question has created abundant excitement, and its animated argument, both pro and con, have been rather amusing.

Being at present employed by the centralized school Board, and being familiar with its efforts to advance education in these islands, I most emphatically favor the present school system.

The Kau politicians, no doubt aspirants to the will-be-created offices, took the initiative in bucking against the School Board, claiming that its administration is defective. Now, I will say, that though we are living in the 20th century nothing yet invented has attained perfection, and therefore to slight the conscientious efforts of our School Board is a grave injustice, for at its head we have men who are, and have been, most ardent and sincere promoters of education for the last generation. Have they spent so many years in studying our educational needs for naught?

I can safely state that the Kau kickers, advocates of county control of schools, are unfamiliar with both the needs and methods of our schools. This assertion, based on the fact that very few or none of the parents ever visit at school, can be sustained by any country teacher. Now, I may ask, How do these politicians know that the schools need and must have a change? They will answer, that out of so many children leaving school every year, none have a decent vocabulary of English.

Well said, but we must first consider the disadvantages under which our children are laboring. They have to master a foreign language, and even before being taught the rudiments of same, their parents take them out of school to work in the cane fields.

The few Kau party leaders, who unfortunately control the opinions of the local voters, are posing as smart alecks when they assert that the present teachers are all a pack of ignorant, incompetent fools, who were scared to sign the petitions circulated by the Board.

Do these same kickers conscientiously feel inclined to serve the schools as honorary officers, or is it their pocketbooks?

Let them examine the School Boards of the different counties in the States to convince themselves of the rotten work carried on.

Can men who have never shown any interest in their district schools benefit our methods of education?

They can gratify their personal desires, by employing their own political friends.

A CITIZEN.
North Hilo, March 12, 1903.