Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/367

 for in a letter to the Home Missionary Society dated March 29, Fisher lists the following needs: a great demand for more school books, a well selected school library, a set of globes, a small portable telescope, and instruments for surveying and trigonometry. He also asks for a well qualified teacher who could preach and whose wife might teach the primary department.

The board of trustees at a meeting at Oregon City decided to erect the first school building on the town lot. It was agreed to construct a two-story building, twenty-two feet by forty-two feet, with two good class rooms on one story; and on the other story, a lecture room twenty-two feet by thirty-two feet; and a library ten feet by twenty-two feet to be used as a laboratory and reading room.

The fall quarter began the middle of September, 1850, with about fifty scholars enrolling and yet more were expected. Fisher reports<refSame, 300. any staunch supporters of the school to leave Oregon City and settle on land they received elsewhere for practically nothing. Also the competition of the other schools in the community was somewhat felt. Even then the enrollment the following February was reported as being about fifty.

That the school was conducted on a strictly religious basis is seen from the statement of Fisher when he says, "We read the scriptures twice a day and I frequently accompany this exercise with a few remarks and, as often as I judge it useful, address the