The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-03-29
To the Honorable Board of Education.

GENTLEMEN My sole apology for addressing your
honorable body through the public prints is found in
the conviction, that the interests of our common
schools are suffering in a vital point
1t may be already known to you that there exists
n widespread belief. both among Hawaiians and for
eigners, specially interested, that the children and
youth in our public schools have been grossly i'm
posed upon by the recent adoption of the "Buke 40
Heluhelu,'' as a text book therein.
The increasing complaints, particularly from teach
ers, that they were unable to understand the language
used, together with outside suggestions to this effect,
have led me to a careful examination of the book.
And now, without purposing an extended review
of the Reader, l wish, nevertheless, to say q few
words in the way of friendly criticism relative thereto.
The Duke 40 Heluhelu - contains 126 lessons.
Several of these lessons consist of extracts from the
Bible. 4 few more are selections from Hawaiian
History, whilst 4 small fraction Of the remaining
prose lessons are evidently written or translated by a
person or persons familiar with the structure Of the
Hawaiian vernacular. OF these lessons, therefore,
there need nothing be said. And this is true also,
of the larger part of the poetical lessons. OF all the
lessons now enumerated, the authors or translators
use the Hawaiian as those 9 to the manner born
The book commences with tlco pages of Errata, "
a fact by no means creditable either TO compiler or
publishers, since it was designed for the pupils Of
our common schools, and yet the table of errors
might easily have been extended to y or 10 pages,
without exhausting the list of typographical and
literary blunders.
Next in order We have the points and rules for
punctuation, with examples under each, followed by
8 series Of questions designed for the pupil.
These rules for punctuation are taken, l judge,
from the I" 40 Kiko" of former times. with none of
itS Touavar aorracfa1 WbISf tho rnaSt;oDs
are. many of them exceedingly awkward and unidio-
matte in form. No one versed in Hawaiian would
ever have put them into their present shape, surely.
But, having laid down definite rules for punctua-
ton and expression, it cannot but awaken surprise
that the compiler should go on through the book
steadily pouring contempt upon each and everyone
Of these rules. Yet this he does,-and the attempt
at punctuation is so thoroughly and annoyingIy bad,
in many of the lessons, that one is tempted to wish
the method ascribed to " Lord Timothy Dexter - had
been followed, and the characters supplied in a mass
at the end of tue book, for each reader TO use at his
pleasure
And yet. serious as is a defect of this kind in a
text book for our common schools, the constant vio-
latiOn of all the grammatical prophecies is vastly
more reprehensible in such a book. Indeed it is in
excusable. For no one, obviously, who is not critic
ally acquainted with q language, has any right to
attempt the preparation of a school 6o9f therein,
whatever may be his claim and literary q~ualifca-
tions in other directions.
Time and space would fail US TO enumerate in detail
the glaring defects of the d" Buke 40 Heluhelu." A
few of the more prominent blemishes alone can be
attempted.
The lenses are so misused that one finds him
self invOluntarily asking in his perplexity, if usage
in the Hawaiian affords us no precise distinction of