68 RteAD BAIN
ceived; five died before the winter was over; five ran away; two died within the next two years, leaving two of the original fourteen to have their souls saved and their lives civilized.
The missionaries themselves all had been sick. Daniel Lee nearly died. Dr. McLoughlin sent him to the Islands in the winter of 1835, where he remained till August, 1836. Poison oak, malaria or intermittent fever, a throat affection similar to diphtheria, syphilis, consumption and scrofula were some of the diseases with which they had to contend.
There is little wonder that the romantic ideas of the noble red man seeking the "White Man's Book of Life" which the missionaries had obtained back east in the fervor of the emo- tional revival meetings, began to fade away into a cold gray image of very unprepossessing reality. Jason Lee began to lose his hope of rapid evangelization of the Indians and to look toward the founding of an American state in Oregon. 8
The methods of instruction were very crude. There were no text books and in most cases the Indians did not understand any English. The first thing was to teach them the language. This was done by the usual method of pointing to objects and calling their names, by saying words and phrases and having the learners repeat. Later, more formal methods were em- ployed. The best account I could find of the difficulties en- countered, is in the work of the American Board Missions at Lapwai, Waiilatpu, and Chemekane.
Gushing Eells, writing in the "Missionary Herald," Feb. 25, 1840, says, "I cannot learn that they have any realizing sense of the odiousness of sin." This corresponds very well with Lee's general attitude. Eells goes on to say that "they do not lack ability to learn, but rather the inclination." He says the apparent interest and pleasure in the school work is due largely to the novelty of it. He thinks the reports of their anxious reception of the gospel largely exaggerated, thinks the Indians were just deceiving the missionaries.
Eells opened his school in Nov., 1839, with about 30 in
8 On July 1, 1844, testifying before the Missionary Board, Jason Lee spoke the following words: "And indeed, the Indians have no life or energy and are a melancholy doomed race. I think this is in part true: the Indians on the Wil- lamette will become, as a distinct race, extinct. But I think there will be more Indian blood, thru amalgamation, running in the veins of white men 100 years hence, than would have been running in the veins of the Indians if they had been left to themselves." A good commentary on the social conditions in the Wil- lamette valley in 1840!
