344 
may use a grammar for reference as they would use a dictionary 
ancl when they reach the eighth grade the study of formal gram- 
mar will be comparatively easy. 
7. The history work does begin at home. We have Hawaiian 
legends, tales from Hawaiian history, national stories adapted, 
Chinese and Japanese stories and myths, old stories of the east 
which describe conditions of a primitive people, stories suitable 
for festivals, as for Kamehameha Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas 
and Easter. In these legends and stories we have the beginning 
of history teaching and it is not until the fifth grade that there is 
any attempt to teach formal history. 
J. C. Boykin, Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Education, 
Dept. of the Interior : ''There appears to be little actually in the 
course that can be seriously criticized with substantial reason. The 
characteristics are such as may be expected in view of the con- 
ditions described in the accompanying letter, namely, the emphasis 
laid upon language and the prominence of manual work. 
'Tt may be doubted if it is advisable to begin the study of the 
structure of the languaee as early as the first grade, as the refer- 
ence to 'nominative and objective cases' seems to indicate. It is 
not clear how such instruction is given, however, and it is prob- 
able that those who prepared the course did not intend that an 
attempt should be made to teach formal grammar to such young 
children. The amount of memory work and the unusual stress 
laid UDon the correction of errors of speech are noticeable, and 
for schools under ordinary conditions might be open to criticism, 
but under the circumstances such methods are probably justifiable. 
"The amount of manual work in the Hawaiian schools seems 
to be greater than is generally required in the schools of the 
States, but such instruction appears to be well suited to the con- 
ditions of the people of the Islands, and the specimens exhibited 
at the several expositions have been distinctly creditable. 
"The fault of the course seems to be less in what it contains than 
in what it omits. There is nothing to indicate relative values ; 
to show how much time should be given to each branch ; or to 
emphasize essentials. All is put upon the same basis, and a word 
or a phrase is as much as is given to any topic, whether it be 
'Pioneer period of American history from 1492 to 1850,' which 
might well occupy 40 weeks, or 'how waste matter goes off,' for 
which 40 minutes might be sufficient. 
"The course is meagre to a degree. It is difficult to understand 
how such a brief list of topics can produce desirable uniformity 
of instruction in the schools of the territory, or even how it can 
be considered a 'course of study' in the usual sense. Perhaps it is 
not so intended, for on page 19 it is directed that 'each teacher, 
with the assistance of the principal, must prepare and place on 
file at the beginning of the term a daily program, an outline of 
the term's work,' etc. In other words, each teacher must make 
his own course of study, presumably observing as far as may be 
the hints in the published course. In general these are so few as 
