"O Ke Kumumua Hou" - Hawaiian Primer - American Tract Society - 1863

"O Ke Kumumua Hou" [The New First Primer]

American Tract Society, Nassau Street, New York

-[1863]

-80 pages (complete)

-Bound in modern boards. Crude repairs to closed tears of first 10 leaves.

This is an early Hawaiian Primer, published in New York in 1863.

Primers were designed to teach children literacy, and were often a student’s first book. Pictures helped the reader learn the meaning of words, often with strong religious meaning.

Well read, primers often survive in small numbers and this early edition is recorded in 7 institutions on OCLC.

Hawaiians took quickly to reading and writing, becoming one of the most literate societies in the world by the late 19th century

References: "Hawaiian Language Imprints 1822-1899" - Judd. Number 402. Stating 3000 copies printed.