Page:Oregon, her history, her great men, her literature.djvu/16

12 Upon their arrival in Oregon, they found themselves among Indians whose language was strange and whose habits were devilish. But despite the atrocities committed by the natives, the forests were converted into homes, school houses, churches and cities; the prairies, unscathed by plow since creation's morn, were transformed into fields, gardens and orchards; and the treacherous Indian was taught to worship the God of our fathers. Under the white man's touch the hunting ground became the scene of a harvest home, the tepee a college, and the battlefield a sanctuary.

As the result of changes ordained by the sterling men and women who had come on the serious business of home making. Oregon produced more standard literature in fifty years than the original Thirteen Colonies produced in the same length of time; and according to area and population there can scarce be found in the Union, more universities, colleges, academies, high schools, churches and other refining forces than there are withm the 1 30 miles lying between Eugene and Portland.

As Massachusetts is the mother of New England, so is Oregon the mother of the Pacific Northwest. But while Massachusetts requires her historic achievements thoroughly taught in schools, Oregon has not yet made a similar demand regarding her own. It has, therefore, become the patriotic duty of the schools, the press, the pulpit, and social and literary clubs insistently to encourage and actively to promote historical research concerning Oregon until the long neglected story of her development is taught with the same enthusiasm, skill and interest as is the history of Massachusetts or that of any other State in the Union.