20 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
This conclusion has been abundantly confirmed 
since the establishment of schools, and the introduc¬ 
tion of letters. Not only have the children and 
young persons learned to read, write, cipher, and com¬ 
mit their lessons to memory with a facility and quick¬ 
ness not exceeded by individuals of the same age in 
any civilized country ^ but the education of adults, 
and even persons advanced in years—which in England 
with every advantage is so difficult an undertaking, that 
nothing but the use of the best means and the most 
untiring application ever accomplished it—has been 
effected here with comparative ease. Multitudes, who 
were upwards of thirty or forty years of age when 
they commenced with the alphabet, have, in the course 
of twelve months, learned to read distinctly in the 
New Testament, large portions, and even whole books 
of which, some of them have in a short period com¬ 
mitted to memory. 
They acquired the first rules of arithmetic with equal 
facility, and have readily received the different kinds of 
instruction hitherto furnished, as fast as their teachers 
could prepare lessons in the native language. It is 
probable that not less than ten thousand persons have 
learned to read the sacred Scriptures, and that nearly an 
equal number are either capable of writing, or are under 
instruction. In the several stations and branch stations, 
many thousands are still receiving daily instruction in 
the first principles of human knowledge and Divine 
truth. 
The following extract from the journal of a Tahitian, 
now a native Missionary in the Sandwich group, is not 
only most interesting from the intelligence it conveys, 
but creditable to the writer’s talents. It was published 
