Prof, Rebec On Hawaii

PROF, REBEC ON HAWAII

Impressions Gathered from His Recent Trip

The Various People

Who Go to Make up the Inhabitants and Their Various Traits

Prof. George Rebec who was the teacher from the mainland imported this year by the superintendent of  public instruction this year by the superintendent of public instruction of Hawaii, to deliver a series of lectures to the teachers of the lslands at Honolulu, has returned from his mission and has brought back with him some sane and wholesome estiinates of the people with whom he spent the summer, and the scenic beauty of the country through which he passed.

   The Pacific, says Dr. Rebec, before you approach the lslands, has a strange witchery. It is vast and gentle, and in coloring exquisite and delicate. What is soft and refined is characteristic likewise of the scenery of the lowlands of the islands, with their tropical paradise of flowers, without the blight of the serpent where the only pest is the horde of mosquitoes that inhabit the land.

   The mountains stand out austere and wonderfully effective in abrupt contrast with the serenity of scenery, and the landscape like the climate and the weather, is had in samples, for you get something different with every turn. Diamond Head is dry and parched, white in the Manoa valley, a few miles away the rains descend, and between the two is transition.     

   Of the people, said Dr. Rebec, it is a human panorama of a most interesting variety of elements. Whites, Hawaiians, Portuguese, dark and light, with every degree of negro admixture, Porto Ricans, half Hawaiians and half white, half Hawaiians and half Chinese, pure Chinese and most numerous of all the Japanese, abound there in all degrees of fusion and confusion as to blood and transitions toward American civilization.

   The Japanese, when he lands, is likely to come in a komona. The first trace of civilization is a pair of trousers and later a straw hat. This works up to a house like yours, then a house like yours which is next to yours -and then the American begins to object.

   The Chinese are diminishing in numbers said Dr. Rebec, because of the forbidden immigration. They are the favorite laboring class of the ruling whites because they are the most machinelike and steady and the least unclined to form labor unions and go on strikes.

   The Chinese are intermarrying with the native Hawaiians and the racial product is a distinctly strong one, each element supplementing the other, the Chinaman having stamina and the native, sentiment and idealism.

   As regards the natives, they are physically large in stature, exceeced the Americans themeselves, and in their younger years are often times handsome.     

     The women as they get older, get so exceedingly corpulent as to become almost monstrosities and the contour of figure is not improved by the fact that a "mother hubbard" under another name is their national dress.

   The native failings are primitive sensuality, an acquired tendency to drink, and an indisposition to steady work.

   Living in a climate where for centuries, he and his ancestors have been able to find their simple wants supplied, he has never had the habit of work ground into him. When he does work, be it said to his honor, he does manful work,  for instance, in manning the ship's boats, whereas the mental personal service is loft to be performed by the Chinese and the Japs. They are the boot-blacks and the stewards, while the native is the man before the mast.

   The native's virtues are distinct and very attractive. There runs through the race a deep strain of idealism, a musical instinct and a refined taste. And they have a passion for flowers such as we Americans are strangers to. Even the most ignorant and besotted Hawaiian will be found with a hat garlanded with flowers, and the beautiful custom is prevalent on the islands of wreathing with chains of flowers or "leis" upon all festive occasions.

   The native is free from the lower instincts of malice and revengefulness and though he may flare up for an instant the resentment does not last, and the impulse of affection and generosity is strong within him. As regards this latter, an Hawalian hardly known what it is not to share his goods or his poverty with those about him.

   Relatives and orphans or even improverished neighbors, take it as a matter of course that they shall move in upon the more fortunate one who never thinks of any other manner of procedure than to share his food. Money with the Hawaiian is for spending purposes.

  The Porto Rican is Anathema with the people of Hawiia because when attempts were made to get Porto Rican immigrants, the first offers to the agenta were accepted and shipped to the islands. Of course, the most easily accessible materials were those in the gutters, so that the Hawalian Islands received several thousand of the most hopeless element of Porto Rico, and the saloons the jails and the courts have been busied with the results.

   The white population of the lslands is made up of American- the largest and wealthlest element being islandborn descendants of the missionaries who converted the islands- Englishmen, Germans, Scandinavians and a sprinkling of others. The Portuguuese are commonly not spoken of as white, owing to the heavy negro admixture among them. The white men, being a minority which at times has felt itself in danger of other rule, might be characterlzed as clannish. Nowhere, perhaps, is there a society where they so commonly address each other by their given names. Like the members of a family, they know each other; like the members of a family, they have thelr disputes, their gossips and their wranglings and seem inharmonious, till some moment of danger arrives and draws them together.

   The white sons of the missionaries in many ways put one in mind of the ruling classes of the South previous to the war. They have boundless hospitality and generosity, and are every whit as attractive a people as the southern whites and every whit as aristocratic a people as the old South Oarolinians. They themselves hardly realize the import of their own sentiments and utterances, and would not like to be called undemocratic, but the idea advocated among them is that of a white leading and governing class with a class ander them of docile, humble laborers. The planter wants to be the man on horseba ek and he doean't want the other fellow to insist on any rights.     There is little race feeling, says Dr. Rebec. The greatest cordiality exists between them. Intermarriage is prevalent everywhere, the whites marrying the native women for their property and- so long as the monarchy existed -their social status. Social divisions are not based upon color, but upon the wealth, industry and former native standing. In the schools the results of the mixture of the races is very apparent and side by side may be seen all shades of colorings and no question is raised because of one's color.

   Prof. Rebec says he will always a have a warm spot for Honolulu, for the continuous hospitality and genuine kindness shown him. Of himself he will say nothing. The reporter is pledged to 'do no crowing" and to turn on no "blue lights," but Dr. Rebec is not without honor, even in his own country.