The state and progress of Education among my people during the past year, you will learn from the Report of the President of the Board of Education. The change in that Department, by an Act of the last Legislature, has proved, thus far, to be beneficial. It is particularly gratifying to know that instruction in the English language is prosecuted with so much success among my native subjects. I recommend you to make as liberal a provision for the support of this class of schools as the state of my Treasury will admit. I feel so keenly the necessity of some new stimulus to agriculture, in all its branches, that I very seriously call your attention to that point, and shall be happy if in your wisdom you can devise any measures to promote so important an object. The Native Hawaiian Agricultural Society, lately instituted, needs your fostering care in the form in which you have manifested it towards the sister Association. The decrease of our population, and the means of staying it, occupy many of my thoughts; and a subject so important cannot fail to receive your serious consideration. Intimately connected with the subject last alluded to, is the still unaccomplished wish of all the true friends of the nation to see a Hospital established, and I sincerely hope that those who have foretold difficulties opposed to the success of such an institution, will at last allow the experiment to be made. Fearful, as we all must be, of the introduction of any new diseases to decimate us again, I beg of you to consider by what means, under Providence, such a calamity may be averted. I sincerely trust that the Ruler of all will guide your deliberations to a result beneficial to the nation. MAY 24, 1856. _Reply by His Majesty to the Congratulations offered by the House of Representatives upon His approaching Marriage._ It is with much pleasure that I receive the congratulations of the Representatives of my People, upon the contemplated event of my marriage. Your voice is that of the Nation speaking through its Representatives, and it is a great satisfaction to me to have your approval of the important step I am about to take. You express the hope that the union may be the means of perpetuating our Sovereignty and promoting the welfare of the nation, and I sincerely unite with you in that hope. In conclusion, I thank you, Representatives, for the kind, prompt and unanimous manner in which you have responded to my Message. JUNE 11, 1856. _His Majesty's Speech upon Proroguing the Session of the Legislature of 1856._