which he affirms only what he well knows. Conclusions may be mistaken, but facts are fixed and reliable. From the facts carefully given throughout these pages, let our readers draw their own conclusions as to the civilizing power of the Gospel, the relative values of the Merchant and the Missionary, the results of their united labors, and the prospects of humanity for time to come in the HEART OF THE PACIFIC.

* Several laws have been recently passed by the Hawaiian Government, to promote the cause of Education; among them, one giving the proceeds of certain lands for educational purposes; an annual tax of two dollars, on each male subject, has been imposed, for the same general purpose; and a fine of one dollar is exacted of every child who absents himself from school, and a fine of five dollars, if the absence is the parents' fault. Under the fostering care of Government, and the encouragement of the missionaries, school districts are now formed all over the Islands, and school-houses have been erected even in the most remote and inaccessible places.

WORK OF MISSIONARIES IN THE BOOK LINE. 221

CHAPTER X.

SANDWICH ISLANDS LITERATURE AND LETTER-WRITERS.

As there are two wants connatural to man, so there are two main directions of human activity pervading, in modern times, the whole civilized world; constituting and sustaining that NATIONALITY, which yet it is their tendency, and more or less their effect, to transcend and to moderatc-namely, TRADE and Literature.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

Number of printed works in the Hawaiian tongue-Literary contributions of natives-Newspapers in the vernacular-An original work on Hawaiian historyInstallation of native ministers-A collection of old meles-Translation of an original song on the creation-Specimens of Cupid's epistolography-Letter from a damsel of Lahaina-Others from students of the Seminary-Samples of the Hawaiian madrigal-A letter from the Hilo school-girls-Others from teachers in Kohala-Curious vernacular idioms-Letters from men of Hawaii to a society of ladies in America-Comments and correspondencies-Unique epistle from a native teacher-Ingenuous working of regenerated minds-A study for the philosopher-A trophy of triumph for the Christian-Other specimens of Hawaiian literatureCheering proofs of progress.

Ir is natural, while at the spring-head of Hawaiian learning, at Lahainaluna, to say something upon the subject of Hawaiian literature. This, indeed, has yet but little to boast of as purely its own. But, aside from the entire Scriptures, there have been translated and compiled by the missionaries, within a period of less than thirty years, upwards of eighty different works.*

* M. Barrot, a French Catholic writer, having taken occasion to censure the missionaries at the Sandwich Islands for not printing more books in the Hawaiian language, upon "the progress of industry or science,” and a less number upon "religious subjects, such as commentaries

Those are now serving for reading, reference, and classbooks, from the primer of A-B-C-darians, up to the text-book of students in theology.

on the Bible, catechisms for the use of the natives, and hymn-books,” the editor of the Honolulu Friend thus replies:

Whether the American Missionaries have been particularly censurable in this respect, we leave our readers to infer by perusing the following catalogue of publications issued from the American Mission press previous to 1845:

Elementary Lessons.

Decalogue and Lord's Prayer.
Scripture Doctrines.

Thoughts of the Chiefs.

Sermon on the Mount.

Hawaiian Hymns.

First Book for Children.
Universal Geography.

New Testament.

Fowle's Child's Arithmetic.

Animals of the Earth.

Catechism on Genesis.

Geometry for Children.
Tract on Marriage.
Sacred Geography.
Geographical Questions.
Bible-class Book.
Colburn's Arithmetic.
History of Beasts.

Lama Hawaii, newspaper.
Hawaiian Almanac.
Vocabulary.

Compend of Ancient History.
Union Questions.
Colburn's Sequel.

History of Beasts for Children.
Hawaiian Teacher.

Child's Teacher.

Daily Food..

Hawaiian Grammar.

First Reading Book for Children.
Tract on the Sabbath.

Maps of U. Geography.

Scripture Chronology and History.
Hymns, revised and enlarged.
Hymns, with Tunes.

Linear Drawing.

Little Philosopher.

English and Hawaiian Grammar.

LITERARY CONTRIBUTIONS OF NATIVES.

223

A good many of them have been prepared by the teachers of the Lahainaluna Seminary; one of the objects of which is declared to be to disseminate sound knowledge throughout the Islands, embracing general literature and the sciences, and whatever may help to elevate the people from their present ignorance and degradation, and cause them to become a thinking, enlightened, and virtuous nation.

Another object of kindred consequence, is to educate young men of piety and promising talents, with a view to their becoming assistant teachers of religion, or fellow-laborers with the missionaries, in propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ among their destitute and dying countrymen, and throughout all the islands of Polynesia.

These objects are being steadily accomplished. In fulfilment of the first end, besides acting as teachers and filling important places in the government, the graduates are doing something towards making books and forming a national literature. They have had not a little to do in framing the present Hawaiian code of laws, and their communications to the Kumu Hawaii, Nonanona, and Elele, three native newspapers, have been numerous and often pithy.

It was members of the Seminary, also, who furnished the written matter from which Mr. Dibble compiled the

We regret our inability to place beside this catalogue the list of publications issued from the Catholic press. We have never met with but two or three small publications printed at that press, and they were most strictly confined to the peculiar tenets of the Romish Church.

volume called Moolelo Hawaii, or Hawaiian Annals, which has been the groundwork of two of the Histories since written in English. A valuable article on the Decrease of Population was furnished by the intelligent native, David Malo, now a licensed preacher of the Gospel. Several of the Lahainaluna graduates have been licensed also from time to time as Evangelists. And in December of 1849, there was seen the first instance of the ordination and installing of a native minister, as the independent pastor of the Congregational Church at Kahuka, island of Oahu. This was in the person of Rev. James Kekela, a graduate of the Seminary, at which he was for several years a beneficiary of James Hunewell, Esq., of Charlestown, Massachusetts.

The first teacher at Lahainaluna, Rev. L. Andrews, has in his possession a mass of old Hawaiian meles (songs) which he gathered and wrote down with much care from the mouths of natives. They are somewhat after the style of the old Greek Rhapsodists, and they are said, by competent judges who have seen them in manuscript, to be good specimens of the decent sort of · unwritten Hawaiian Literature, containing the curious jumble of Hawaiian mythology, and all the Norse-like fables of their giant kings and gods. But like the talk of Gratiano in the play, it is all an infinite deal of confused nonsense and nothing. All that's worth preserving is as two grains of wheat in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

A later mele, on the creation, by Ke-Kupuohi, an old