File:Incidents of a whaling voyage - to which are added observations on the scenery manners and customs, and missionary stations of the Sandwich and Society Islands - accompanied by numerous lithographic (14774567621).jpg

Identifier: incidentsofwhali00olms (find matches)
Title: Incidents of a whaling voyage : to which are added observations on the scenery manners and customs, and missionary stations of the Sandwich and Society Islands : accompanied by numerous lithographic plates
Year: 1841 (1840s)
Authors: Olmsted, Francis Allyn, 1819-1844
Subjects: Whaling
Publisher: New-York : Published by D. Appleton and Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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stry and skill, its present high degree ofprosperity is to be attributed. One of the most interesting things at Honolulu, is theInstitute^ a society for the promotion of scientific investi-gation of every kind. Belonging to the society is amuseum of curiosities, and also of specimens of naturalhistory. There is also a library in the same room, con-sisting of several hundred choice books. The objects ofthe society are of a highly interesting character. Forhere in the central point of a vast ocean, studded withnumerous groups of islands, a great variety of curiousand useful information respecting the manners and cus-toms of the difl^erent islanders, the natural history, andthe productions of Polynesia, might be collected. Justbefore our arrival, unfortunately, the society had sus-pended its meetings for a time, so that 1 had not the pleas-ure of attending any of their exercises. The missionaries in their labors at these islands, whilethey have taught the people the way of life, have not
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**a::t.f ^M SCHOOLS. 259 been neglectful of the useful arts. The men have beeninstructed in agriculture, and the women have beentaught to seWj and to make garments for themselves, andthus a people, indolent by nature, have been made indus-trious by those whose perseverance has indicated theirdevotion to the temporal as well as to the spiritual inter-ests of the natives. But the happiest results that haveflowed from the labors of the missionaries, and to whichall the indications of refinement that are to be seen in theseislands are to be attributed, have been owing to the es-tablishment and supremacy of law throughout thenation. Next to religion, and indeed based upon it, wasthe recommendation of the missionaries to establish de-finite laws, by which the nation was to be governed, andamong the first enactments of the government were thosewhich were intimately connected with the observanceof religion ; for in February, 1S23, the government pub-licly acknowledged the Christian Sabbath, a

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