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be noticed that nearly half of the pupils enrolled are engaged in the first year's work. Special difficulty has been experienced in securing the attendance of Chinese girls. Little has been done in promoting reading among adults by the establishment of libraries. An appropriation of $1,200 was made for a library in Honolulu. Newspapers have attained a measure of excellence and have considerable circulation. Text-books for the schools are prepared on the American plan, and America furnishes the main supply of literature for English readers.

SCHOOL FINANCES.

The schools are sustained by an appropriation made biennially by the Government, supplemented by moneys raised, collected, and expended in the respective districts. The Government appropriated in 1890 $190,000. An industrial and reformatory school received an appropriation of $12,000.

ADMINISTRATION.

The administration of the schools is by law committed to a board of education, composed of five members, whose president makes abiennial report to the legislature. The board employs a secretary to attend to details of office business and keep its records, and an inspector, eminent in pedagogical attainments, to visit the schools and promote their improvement.

Local committees elected by the pcople in each district have immediate charge of the district schools.

About the schools outside of the administration of the board of education many facts of interest might be noted. The first theological school for the education of Hawaiian pastors was opened in 1863, under the auspices of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. It reports ten in the regular course and two special students and has accommodation for sixteen. It is supported in part by funds from America.

OAHU COLLEGE.

Oahu College, founded in 1841, by American missionaries for the education of their own sons and daughters, celebrated its jubilee in 1891. It is a chartered institution and managed by a board resident in Hawaii. It is aided by a small endowment fund invested in America under the care of a board located there. It has an annual attendance of over 50 at the college, and over 150 at the preparatory school. The total number of students since its foundation is 906; male, 535; female, 371; living, 779; resident in the Hawaiian Islands, 488. Its course of study may fit for advanced entrances in New England colleges. No other institution has so efficiently promoted the progress of affairs in the Hawaiian Islands. Its largest benefaction, $65,000, was given by Hon. C. R. Bishop. Gen. S. C. Armstrong, founder of Hampton, fitted here for his advanced entrance at Williams College.

HISTORICAL.

The influence of American missionaries upon education in the Hawaiian Islands is seen not alone in Oahu College. The artisans and traders who preceded them refused to impart a knowledge of their vocations to the natives in fear of losing the profits of their ventures. The missionaries went to give Christianity and all the blessings that follow in its train. Of the first company that sailed from Boston, October 23, 1819, accompanying the two preachers, were two schoolmasters and their wives, and a physician, a farmer, and a printer. They had little to guide them. Kamehameha II was on the throne. They obtained from him permission to reside on the islands and "to teach the people Christianity, literature, and the arts." The King, having a residence near the location of Rev. Asa Thurston, one of the two pioneer missionaries, was reading the English Testament in three months. Five others were reading in Webster's spelling book. The Hawaiian language had not been reduced to writing; this was yet to be accomplished by the missionaries. The King put two of the scholars under instruction that he might judge by personal observation whether education was worth while or not. The head men were among the most eager pupils. It was Charlemagne and the schools of Alcuin repeated. The first schoolhouses were thatched huts like those in which the people lived, with no seats or desks. Teaching was of no very high order, boys of 14 being set to instruct a school where not only children but parents came to be taught. The hours of instruction were from 7 to 9 in the morning and from 3 to 5 in the afternoon. The Hawaiian language began to be reduced to writing, and January 7, 1822, printing commenced.

In 1834 the first newspaper, The Light of Hawaii, was issued. Books stimulated the attendance upon instruction. The primitive schools at the time of the highest prosperity reached the number of 900, attended by 52,000 pupils, mostly adults. The chiefs enforced attendance, and declared that no one could hold office or be married who could not read and write. In addition to these rude efforts, special schools were organized by the missionaries in which more thorough work was undertaken. In 1841 the first school law was enacted by the King and chiefs in council. Parents in each village were to elect a school committee that were to act in conjunction with the school agents appointed for each island, over all of whom a superintendent was appointed by the King and council. In 1843 a department of public instruction was organized and placed in charge of a minister of the crown who was a cabinet officer. This position was first occupied by Mr. W. Richards, who at his death in 1847 was succeeded by Mr. R. Armstrong. In 1855 the department was remodeled and its work intrusted to a board of education, whose president was to discharge the duties of the minister of public instruction but who was not to be a member of the cabinet. Mr. R. Armstrong filled this office from 1855 to 1860.

In the early establishment of the system of public instruction, man

ual labor was made an important part thereof. Pupils were expected to labor two hours a day with their hands. From the first, girls and boys were taken into the mission families and were more or less thoroughly instructed in the ordinary duties and arrangements of domestic life. The missionaries furnished models in all departinents of activity. When the first girls' boarding school was opened on July 6, 1837, Miss Brown was the teacher in spinning and weaving. The six or eight young women under her charge made in the first five months about 90 yards of cloth from cotton of Hawaiian growth. The joining of hand work with mind work in Hawaii succeeded very differently from the experiments tried about the same date in the United States.

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c Too high, owing to duplicate enrollment in elementary and continuation schools. True ratio, 20.

d Incomplete returns.

e 118,480 in primary schools + estimate of Hellenic schools.

752, 890 2, 938, 575

91.4)
97

28,742]

3.6

5, 495

0.6

34,760

0.4

14, 596

2

3,254

0.4

d 4, 535

0.6

92.1

70, 545

2.2

14, 274

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a Incomplete returns.

b Military school only.

c Religious seminaries, presumably private, secondary.

d Including Malta, Cypress, St. Helena, Cape Colony, Natal, Ceylon, Mauretius.

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