50 HOWARD MALCOLM BALLOU
write as being better qualified to do it than myself & so much of my time being taken up in making Medical calls for the mission. It is now printed & makes a fine adition to our means of instruction, & must supercede the one written by Mr Spalding, as it is much more correct in language & ortho- graphy It contains fifty two pages & an edition of eight hun- dred copies are printed.
Mr. Hall commenced printing it but being in haste to return to the Islands Mr Rogers was employed to finish it.
At Mr Halls advise we have employed him to do the print- ing for the Mission at 30 sterling per anum, & his board His knowledge of the Native language makes him very useful in any department of labour.
Mr Hall was with us at this station six months but has now gone to Vancouver to return to the Islands."
Rev. A. B. Smith, the missionary at Kamiah, in a letter to Mr. Greene dated Kamiah, Oregon Ter'y, Feb. 6th, 1840, writes :
"On pp. 387 of the Herald for 1838, it is mentioned that 'an alphabet in the Nez Perces language' is completed, & three books are mentioned as completed or hoped to be during the year. That alphabet has been thrown away, it being found before the reception of your letter, not only 'unclassical & out- landish' but also attended with such difficulties as to render it entirely impracticable to use it. Respecting the book sent to the Islands to be printed, it came back as it was sent. Mr. Hall came last spring with a press, which was kindly pre- sented to us by the members of Mr. Binghams church, & all the printing that was done during the summer was a small work of 20 pp. prepared by Mr. Spalding. Before it went to press it was sent to me for correction. On examining it, I found scarcely a correct sentence of Nez Perces in the whole of it. I corrected it as well as I was able to at that time & sent it back. Some of the corrections were admitted & some rejected The book was printed. The result is that the book is so incorrect as to be almost entirely useless, & has been used but little. This is all that has appeared of those books. At our meeting in Sept. last, assignments were made for the prep- aration of books as you will see from the minutes of the meet- ing, a copy of which I will send you, among which an ele- mentary reading book was assigned to Dr. Whitman. This of course was the first book to be needed In Dec. Dr. W con- cluded that he was unable to prepare such a work, & applied
