An article in the Sunday Advertiser called attention to the fact that no fruit shop in Honolulu made a specialty of Hawaiian fruits; and suggested that lauhala baskets filled with choice mangoes, Hawaiian oranges, bananas, strawberry guavas, mountain apples, figs and papaias wrapped in ti leaves, would be acceptable gifts to departing friends. Any plan of this kind, however, would depend on the extermination of the Mediterranean fruit-fly whose depredations have caused an embargo to be laid on all fruits and vegetables from the Island of Oahu.
Hawaiian shop attendants, with Chinese and Japanese girls serving tea, would be added attractions.
These features should furnish material for advertisements to be placed on steamers and in the literature of the promotion committee.
It would be difficult to give the regulation store building the distinctively Hawaiian atmosphere which ought to go far toward making a success of such an enterprise: and an attractive cottage with a certain amount of ground space would furnish a most appropriate setting.
PROPOSED TRADE SCHOOL
The investigation into the condition of working women and girls in Honolulu was made primarily with a view to establishing a trade school and special attention was therefore paid to community needs; for in organizing a school of this kind, it is of first importance to suit the course of training to those needs. The ideal of the present day vocational school is moreover not only to train a worker to become self-supporting in her environment, but to give her training in a sufficient variety of allied occupations to enable her to shift from one to another in case of need. In a large city, for instance, she is taught the use of electric power machine operating, which enables her in their respective seasons to work on women’s underwear, ready-made dresses, straw-sewing of men’s and women’s hats, and a variety of other occupations.
She is taught her right relation to her employer, to her fellow-worker, and to her work; to value health and how to keep it; to make use of whatever previous education she may have had: in general, to develop into a better woman as well as a better worker.
These were the ideals formulated by the founders of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City—the first trade school to be established in America, and with a curriculum applied to local needs, they will serve quite as admirably for Honolulu.
The situation seems to call more than anything else for the tying up of the threads connecting a vocational and employment bureau, a trade school and a place for marketing the product of the workers; and a curriculum which would seem to make for the greatest success along all three lines is about as follows:
1. Courses in the Needle Trades: Dressmaking. Shirtwaists and Underwear. Mosquito Nets. Household articles: Sheets, Pillow Cases, etc. Care of clothing (darning and mending). Handwork: Hemstitching, Embroidery, Lace-making. 2. Fancy articles: Tapas, leis of seeds, shells, etc. 3. Lauhala weaving. 4. Hat weaving. 5. Gardening. 6. Flower cultivation and lei making. 7. Fruit and vegetable gardening. 8. Cooking: Family cooking for girls who wish to enter domestic service. Candy-making. Jellies and Preserves. Cake-making. 9. Housekeeping: Care of bedrooms. Cleaning and exterminating vermin. 10. Cleaning gloves and laces.