Old School Spirit
More
than three decades after being abandoned to the elements, vandals and
arson, Maui’s first public high school is kindling a passion for
renewal.
Yet
deep within the souls of many Island leaders were values they had
received from their missionary ancestors, whose earliest efforts in
Hawai‘i had included creating schools for the native population. And
Hawai‘i was a U.S. territory, perhaps someday to become a state. If
this were to be an American community, a free education should be open
to all.
From the beginning, it was a case of “build it and they will come.” The
Kahului Railroad added a train route especially for Maui High students
that started in Wailuku and picked up passengers from towns and
plantation camps along the way. The train dropped off Central Maui
students at Hamakuapoko and then continued east to collect those in the
villages at Ha‘iku, Pauwela and Kuiaha. Others arrived by buggy or on
horseback or walked barefoot from the closest plantation camps.
Soon
the first seven-room wooden structure was crowded with students. In the
beginning, probably none of them, whether the children of fieldworkers
or of plantation owners, had much of an idea what high school was
supposed to be like. Yet within a few years, a typical American high
school had sprung into existence in the midst of the cane fields,
complete with student government, athletic teams, pep rallies, a
yearbook and a school song.
The credit for
this must go to the teachers and their principals, well-trained,
progressive educators recruited from the Mainland, who initially taught
a curriculum that included Latin, French, English, history, business
and domestic science. These educators continued to set high academic
standards as the curriculum expanded, exposing youngsters to
Shakespeare and algebra, teaching them to write poems and to type a
perfect business letter. They helped children who had entered school
speaking only pidgin or Japanese to communicate in perfect English.
And, cognizant of the community’s primary industry, they trained young
farmers in a first-rate agricultural program.
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