Chief's Children's School

The Royal School is a historic school founded in 1839 in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, as the Chiefs' Children's School. The school was renamed as the Royal School in 1846. After the boarding closed in 1850, it became a day school for children. It later became a public elementary school, and moved to its present campus in 1967.

The present Royal Elementary School continues to educate children from kindergarten to Grade 5 and has been named a Blue Ribbon School several times.

The Chiefs' Children's School was founded by King Kamehameha III of the Kingdom of Hawaii as a boarding school to educate the children of the Hawaiian royalty (aliʻi). The school was first located where the ʻIolani Barracks stand now. The need for the school was agreed upon during the general meeting of the mission in June 1839. The buildings were ready by 1840, and two more students were added in 1842.

An 1844 article in the Polynesian listed all children with the exception of Kīnaʻu, who had just enrolled, as "princes and chiefs eligible to rulers."

The main goal of this school was to educate the next generation of Hawaiian royalty to govern. Seven families that were eligible under succession laws stated in the 1840 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii and that had converted to Christianity, who were Kamehameha's closest relatives, made up the majority of the school. They were:

It was run by Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It was a long, two story frame building with a large dining room and separate sleeping quarters for the children and for the Cooke family. There was also the New England parlor, furnished with handmade and treasured furniture sent from home, and with much brought from China. It resembled nothing Hawaiian in its appearance nor its atmosphere. The royal children were taught how to act like Americans and to speak like Americans. The Hawaiian kahu (traditional caretaker of children) John Papa ʻĪʻī was selected as assistant teacher.

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