A compulsory education law obliges parents, under fixed penalties, to send their children to school; and besides the common or primary schools, there are a number of academies, most of which receive some help from the Government, while all are under Government supervision.

The census gives the number of children between six and fifteen years of age at 6931; and there are 324 teachers, or one teacher for every twenty-seven children in the whole group.

Attendance at school is, I suspect, more general here than in any other country in the world.

The last report of W.P.Kamakau, the President of the Board of Education, made in March, 1872, returns 8287 children actually attending upon 245 schools of various grades, 202 being common schools.

Under this system there is scarcely a Hawaiian of proper age who can not both read and write.
Churches they maintain by voluntary effort, and their contributions are very liberal.