Therefore it was deemed best that the missionaries should divide. Lee had purchased a farm recently opened by a Canadian near the Mission premises, with a small house now occupied by Leslie and Perkins with their wives. White and Beers were domiciled in houses of their own, leaving the Mission building in possession of Lee, Shepard, Edwards, Willson, and Whitcomb, the latter at present employed as farm superintendent. In addition to these accommodations, it was decided to erect a hospital, which was accordingly begun.
The amount of labor caused by the addition of so many persons unprovided with the conveniences of living, the transportation of the second ship-load of goods, and the care of the cattle which came in October, retarded the progress of the Indian school, which, notwithstanding sickness and other drawbacks, was in a promising condition. Perhaps because his mind is empty of the loftier civilized conceptions, the savage is a ready scholar in the elements of learning, though he rarely masters more than these. A native lad in the class of Solomon Smith at Port Vancouver learned reading, writing, and the whole of Daboll's arithmetic in eleven months, writing out all the examples for the benefit of the other scholars. Some simple penalty usually kept these primitive pupils in good order, such as being made to wear an old gun-lock suspended round the neck by a string.[1]
The first prejudice of the adult aboriginals against leaving their children at the Mission was not overcome, the school consisting chiefly of those who had no parents, which, if they were to be educated in any sense, was a favorable circumstance. But from pupils, the wards of the Mission were likely to become servants, while so much labor was required to make their teachers comfortable; and as the savage is by nature averse to labor, the demands made upon the children
- ↑ Individual instances of savage intellect are often found which are far superior to the average civilized mind.
