Convinced of the importance of this undertaking, I consented to address you to-day. I should not however, have done so, had I not been fearful that a refusal on my part might have induced others of more information and better acquainted with the particular object we have united to foster, to decline in like manner. At the same time I cannot help thinking and hoping that my few remarks will be eclipsed by the weight and breadth of those of other speakers who are to stand before you on the closing day of this month and other specified days, according to a resolution passed at our last meeting. We also caught the following sentence, which, although it may appear a little disjointed here, was neatly introduced, and bore upon the argument then being used: One of the greatest prospective advantages that we see in the assiduous pursuit of agriculture, is the reformation it would work amongst the people. It is not in the ranks of modern farmers that you must look for the most ignorant or the most immoral men. We all know that when an individual enters upon an undertaking of the mode to accomplish which he is ignorant, he applies for information where it may be found, having learnt that a man unqualified for his task must fail in it. Having acquired this much experience, and being solicitous for the prosperity and happiness of his children, he will on no account omit sending them to school, so that they may not be trammelled in after years by ignorance as their father was. Thus the rising generation is prepared for its work. The children find themselves on starting in life possessed of the information necessary to success, whereas their father had to struggle on his way in the midst of darkness and misapprehension. Suppose a step similar to the one I have described were made by the young people from one end of the islands to the other. Would not ignorance give way to intelligence? Would not darkness become light? Would not inexpertness succumb to proficiency? The general result could only be a largely increased sum of individual and national prosperity. The King, who has of late been residing a few miles from Honolulu superintending some agricultural operations of his own, we believe upon the very spot which his great predecessor, Kamehameha I., cultivated before him, spoke with animation of our natural advantages: