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By Root 4221 0

and take their children with them. The minutes of the government on this matter are explicit: 'June, 1851, the missionaries who have received and applied for lands have neither received nor applied for them without offering what they considered a fair compensation for them. So far as their applications have been granted, your Majesty's government have dealt with them precisely as they have dealt with other applications for land. It will not be contended that missionaries, because they are missionaries, have not the same right to buy land in the same quantities and at the same prices as those who are not missionaries. But, besides what is strictly due to them, in justice and in gratitude for large benefits conferred by them on your people, every consideration of sound policy, under the rapid decrease of the native population, is in favor of holding out inducements for them not to withdraw their children from these islands. We propose a formal resolution declaring the gratitude of this nation to the missionaries for the services they have performed, and making some provision to insure that their children remain in these islands.'"

At this point Hoxworth looked directly at his professor and continued: "Dr. Albers, the provisions of this resolution were carried out, and the investigating committee found that the missionaries who had worked so long in Hawaii had acquired so little that the community as a whole applauded when the government provided that any missionary who had served in the islands for eight years be allowed to buy 560 acres of government lands at a price of fifty cents an acre lower than what the average white newcomer would have to pay. Since the average price at that time was $1.45 an acre, this represents a reduction of exactly 34.5 per cent, or one per cent per year for arduous and faithful service. So far as I can find, the missionaries acquired land in absolutely no other way, and even so, most of them were then too poor to take advantage of the government's offer.

"Hawaii desperately wanted the mission families to stay in the islands, and it has been justly said that the most significant crop grown by the missionaries was not sugar, but their sons. Now, if you want to argue that the brilliant young mission sons who left Hawaii, studied here at Yale and then returned to the islands, usurped a disproportionate number of important jobs in medicine, law, government and management, you would be on good grounds, but if you do so argue, don't blame the missionaries. Blame Yale.

"I conclude that it is neither fair nor accurate to accuse these families of stealing land which they never came into possession of. It was the non-mission families, the New England sea rovers, who got the land. Then, the land having been obtained by these men, it is true that mission sons managed it, for a fee, but would you have it lie fallow? The facts you cite apply to Tahiti. They simply do not apply to Hawaii."

He sat down, flushed with excitement, and expected the applause of his classmates for having dared argue with the arrogant professor, but what Hoxworth had said was not popular. It ran against the grain of the age and was not believed. Jokes about missionaries continued, and Hale saw that whereas he had gained nothing with his contemporaries he had placed himself at a serious disadvantage with the faculty. But what grieved him most was that his Punahou associates, Hewlett Janders and the others, felt rather ashamed that a subject which would have died with only momentary embarrassment had now been so thoroughly ventilated as to force all members of the class to be either anti-missionary or pro, and nearly everyone fell into the first category, and the Punahou men were infuriated that one of their own number had stirred up the mess.

So Hoxworth Kale's first venture into public argument backfired rather badly, but his studies had disclosed to him his ancestors, so that no matter how witty the gibes against missionaries became, he knew what the facts were, and this knowledge, in the subtle way that knowledge has, fortified