about introducing missionaries. Without doubt, there was a strong desire on the part of the natives to be taught. The mistake their teachers made was in believing it to be a proof of their spiritual susceptibility, when it was, in fact, an evidence of a natural emulation, to put themselves on a footing with the superior race. In this matter both teachers and pupils were deceived; the savage in expecting to acquire in a single life-time the civilization which was the slow growth of unknown ages; the missionary in believing that he could graft on this wild stock a germ whose fruit would not be tinctured with the bitter sap of the uncultivated tree.
Having once entered into relations of teacher and learner, it was not easy to dissolve them, unless by violence. The longer they remained in this position the more difficult it became. And yet in 1847, and for many years before, it had been evident that if a failure of mission usefulness was not certain, success in that direction was doubtful. The reason of the failure sprang in a great measure from the characteristic covetousness of the aboriginal, and his inability to understand why it was that he could not at once become the equal of his teacher. Here his self-love was mortified. He began to suspect that his teachers were governed by selfish and sinister motives in intruding into his country. The more white men he saw the more this conviction grew. They did not all practise what the missionaries taught; and why then should he? Was it not all a scheme to get possession of his country? They were losing faith in everything when the Catholic fathers began to interfere[1] with the Protestant missions, reminding them of the good times when they were all Catholics, and no one had disturbed the old harmony of their lives.
It was difficult to control indolent, impatient, jealous, and overbearing savages, even when they were most
- ↑ I refer here to the visits of the priests several years earlier. There was at this time no Catholic mission in the Walla Walla Valley.
