COST AND WORTH OF THE SEMINARY. 205 In 1842, of one hundred and fifty-eight persons then living, who had been members of the Seminary, thirtyfive were officers of Government, one hundred and five teachers of the public schools. By general consent, the influence of the Seminary has been highly beneficial to the Hawaiian people; and it has a claim upon the national treasury which will not be any longer overlooked, provided only it be replenished by the indemnity asked of Great Britain, and by the twenty thousand dollars so ingloriously extorted by the French, and other damages sustained in the outrages under Admiral Tromelin. The usual yearly appropriation from the treasury of the Mission has been two thousand five hundred dollars. To the Boarding-schools at Hilo and Wailuku, eight hundred dollars each. In its early days, when this Institution was struggling for existence, its pupils were nearly all adults with families, and they had to support themselves while getting an education. The perseverance and stability of character, which was both a prerequisite to, and an effect of such a discipline, made them trusty and able men, whose services have been of great value to the nation and the cause of Christ. All those that have graduated younger and unmarried of late years, have not turned out so well. Nor is it to be expected that youth just set free from the close restraints and vigilant keeping of a life in school, should behave themselves always so properly as sedate men, who had sown their wild oats years before, and who went out to places of usefulness with charac ters tried and established, and their domestic relations fixed. It would be strange, indeed, if the spirit of the young colt should not sometimes break out with newly enjoyed liberty; and stranger still, if young men taught the value of property by an apprenticeship of seven or eight years, should not be sometimes found covetous and greedy. But these are evils necessarily incident to the working of a good system, and tell nothing against it, any more than do the infirmities and faults of Christians against Christianity, which yet are the husks that swinish men do eat. If the nation is to be permanently elevated and enlightened, some of its youth must be educated and disciplined in such an Institution as this is meant to be. If some, upon whom pains and expense are bestowed, prove worthless, it is only what experienced men expect, and does not blind their eyes to the good that has been done, or quench their hopes for days to come. There have been some painful disclosures of immorality at Lahainaluna, that have resulted in the dismission of eight or ten of the students, and the purging out of some of the old leaven. But their offences, though flagrant, were such as (if we are not mistaken) would hardly have caused expulsion from a New England College. In a community like that at these Islands, where the laws are so much ahead of the morals, and where the religious teachers are endeavoring to form a public sentiment of abhorrence towards vice, it is perhaps neces LAWS IN ADVANCE OF MORALS. 207 sary that offences against purity should be punished more rigidly than they would be, were there more of positive virtue and less of vice. But we cannot help saying with the Roman poet, "Quid leges, (and, we might add, quid pœnæ,) sine moribus?" Of what avail are laws and penalties, The faculty would be much relieved and aided in the guardianship and discipline of the Seminary, and a great deal of moral mischief would doubtless be prevented, if they had a suitable man to be entirely devoted to its secular interests, and to inspect the youth in their hours of relaxation, labor, and rest. But either the right man has been always wanting, or to the ruling Missionary Board in America it has not seemed proper to send one, Wisdom eighteen thousand miles off, and legislating like a mother-country over her colonies at the Antipodes, is necessarily far from being perfect. It has all the disadvantage of a lever of the third power, the fulcrum at one end, the weight to be raised at the other, and the power to be applied between the fulcrum and resistance; so that the weight being so much further from the centre of motion than the power, the difficulty of raising it is increased rather than diminished. Thus, the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is the fulcrum, like the ground to a man trying to raise a long ladder; the missionaries the other side of Cape Horn are the man's arms lifting, and the poor people of Hawaii, the long and heavy arm of the ladder to be raised. Now, if the fulcrum could be moved nearer to the weight, and the lever turned into one of the first power, it would work to much greater advantage. This is in fact practically being done in the present movement towards independency of the Hawaiian churches; for the lapse of time, and the extraordinary blessing of God upon missionary operations at the. Sandwich Islands, are now bringing to pass a revolution, which is seen in the late separation of a number of missionaries from their pecuniary relation to the Board, and their consequent independency, and in the adoption by Government of the College at Lahainaluna. This will both relieve the treasury of the Board, and supersede the necessity of much cis-Atlantic management and counselling on the part of the Secretaries of the Board, who will soon be able to forego or renounce all other relations to the Pacific Mission churches, except such as the American Home Missionary Society sustains to its churches in the West. In the language of the Committee, "they seek to facilitate the independent settlement of the members of the Sandwich Island Mission, as pastors and teachers at the Islands, and to place those who cannot yet obtain a living on the same footing with our home missionaries. And they expect by this means to enable and induce the missionaries generally to remain at the Isl THE FUTURE BASIS OF HAWAIIAN SOCIETY. 209 ands with their families, and thus insure, through the divine blessing, a Puritan basis for the community, whatever it shall be, which is to exist on those Islands." In the event of an American Protectorate, at the request of the Hawaiian government, or of annexation to the United States, (one of which measures would seem to be almost indispensable for the protection of these Islands against the insults and aggressions of the French,) the future Sandwich Island community must be substantially an American community, moulded to a great degree by American missionaries. It is therefore a matter of congratulation to the philanthropist who looks to the future good of the human race, and to the patriot who would rear an intelligent and Christian nation in the Heart of the Pacific, that the foremost men at the Sandwich Islands are, or have been, missionaries, actuated by one prevalent desire, the perpetuation and improvement of the Island race, whether pure or mixed. In this the missionaries all agree. But familiar intercourse with the different members of the Hawaiian Mission, while it has made known an excellent spirit of concord and fraternal esteem between its members, has also caused me to be acquainted with some natural differences of opinion on things pertaining to the conduct of missionary operations, and the enlargement and discipline of native churches. Some are of opinion that it is best to keep one door of the church always open, and make sure of admitting |