107 



"A meeting of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society was 

 held last evening. The date for the Stock Fair and Horticul- 

 tural Show was fixed for next May. The desirability of estab- 

 lishing an 'Arbor Day' here was discussed at some length and it 

 was arranged to communicate at once with the president of the 

 board of education on the subject with the view of having a gen- 

 eral holiday for school children established for this excellent pur- 

 pose." 



If recollection serves truly, the present editor of the Forester 

 was one who agitated the institution of "Arbor Day" in Hawaii, 

 if not the first one, having in the East before coming here taken 

 an active part in "Arbor Day" exercises. As a representative of 

 a press organization he assisted in planting a "press tree" on 

 Montreal city hall square, upon an "Arbor Day" about thirty 

 years ago. 



TEACHING OF ENGLISH. 



Professor M. M. Scott, principal of McKinley High School, de- 

 livered an address before the teachers' meeting, at that institu- 

 tion recently, on "Essential Points to be Emphasized in the Teach- 

 ing of English." 



After a few preliminary remarks on China and Japan and a 

 comparison of the Chinese and Japanese languages with the 

 English language, Professor Scott showed that these people failed 

 to grasp the English language by not mastering the tenses of 

 verbs, the plural of nouns, the sounding of the aspirate "th," final 

 "t" and final "ed." He said that the problem in this country was 

 the English problem and that if anything was to be accomplished 

 in this mixed nationality the teachers must exert themselves to 

 make the pupils speak good English and write good English. He 

 suggested that the foundation be drilled into the pupils in the third 

 and fourth grades of the primary ; emphasized more in the fifth 

 and sixth grades of the grammar and then smoothed ofif in the 

 seventh and eighth grades so that when they entered the high 

 school, the English language would be "jack-planed" for the high 

 school teachers. "Teach them at the beginning when they get a 

 little vocabulary to write and talk correctly. Children should not 

 be taught from books alone. Have them write a sentence every 

 day and then a paragraph. ^lark the errors and put them on the 

 board. First, pronunciation ; second, tenses. Have them think 

 what they wish to say and then speak it or write it." 



Prof. Scott said that the teachers in the lower grades should 

 insist on these points and the student would improve and then 

 these difficulties would not be met with to so great an extent in 

 the high school. The deficiency of so many of the students en- 

 tering the high school this last year necessitated having a special 



