Dr. Hyde and Mr. Stevenson. Harold Winfield Kent

he espoused. One looked to the reorganization of Christian work in the islands. Still another came out of the Committee on Evangelization. His comment on this was a bit ingenuous: "The Committee on Hawaiian Evangelization have met and organized as you will be duly informed. That I should be chosen chairman of the Committee was an idea that had never occurred to me. I did not like to oppose the suggestion lest I should seem churlish and ungracious in relation to this new work, which you well know has never been my attitude. The additional burden of responsibility involved makes me shrink from accepting the position; but for the present it seems best."²² At this time he was a member of several standing committees of the Hawaiian Board, including foreign missions, home missions, education, appropriations from ABCFM, and he was chairman of the publications committee. He could have enjoyed a full life just being a committee man!

      Had he not made a career of the ministry he would have gone down in history as an educator. He was an astute organizer, programmer and teacher. Despite the channels of ocean separating the islands, despite the lava coasts and the tangled vegetation and rough mountains, he worked up an educational landscape which encompassed the island chain. His interests extended from boys' and girls' boarding schools on Hawaii island through schools on Maui and Oahu to a seminary on Kauai. Most of these enrolled and housed native children. His mission to the natives was perhaps more effectual through the medium of the schools than the churches.