Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/367



METHODIST REPORTS WILLAMETTE MISSION 317

are 68 persons connected with the mission, men, women and. children, all supported by this society.

In addition to the labors of the missionaries in preach- ing the Gospel, they have organized schools, in which they and their wives are employed, with the male and female teachers, in instructing the children of these poor natives, not only in letters but in the arts of civilized life. The boys are employed in agricultural labors on the farms, which at every station are cultivated for rais- ing the necessities of life ; while the girls are instructed in sewing, knitting and household work of all kinds. Carpenters are there to build mission houses, chapels, schools in the erection of which the Indians are employed and are taught this trade. A cabinet maker constructs the necessary furniture for the families of the mission- aries, while a blacksmith makes the necessary tools for farming, and the farmers who have been sent out for the purpose superintend the pattern farms at the principal settlements and teach the Indians how to cultivate the soil. The wives of all these working men, by their ex- ample and influence, with the Indian women, are training them in the habits of domestic comfort and economy and preparing them for civilized life, to which the Gospel is destined to introduce them. A saw mill has also been erected, which promises to be a valuable auxiliary to the secular department of the mission, so that, under all these salutary influences, we may look, with the divine blessing, for a nation to be raised up in the Oregon territory from the wretchedness of barbarism to the blessedness of a civilized and Christian people.

Owing to a misapprehension of his obligations to the Board and a disaffection toward the superintendent, Dr. Elijah White has returned with his family to the United States and is no longer in connection with the mission. By the vessel in which he came passenger, the Board have received numerous letters from the several members of the family, together with dispatches from Brother