Dr. H. J. Minthorne, superintendent of the Indian Training School at
Forest Grove, Oregon, once remarked to me, “that, in the civilization of
Indians, they often went forward and then backward; but that each time
they went backward it was not quite so far as the previous time, and
that each time they went forward it was an advance on any previous
effort.” I have found the same to be true. They seem to rise much as the
tide does when the waves are rolling--a surge upward and then back; but
careful observation shows that the tide is rising.
There is much of human nature in them. In many respects--as in their
habits of neatness and industry, their visions, superstitions, and the
like--I have often been reminded of what I have read about ignorant
whites in the Southern and Western States fifty years ago, and of what I
have seen among the same class of people in Oregon thirty years ago.
Soon after I came here, an old missionary said to me: “Keep on with the
work; the fruits of Christian labor among the Indians have been as great
or greater than among the whites.” I have found it to be in some measure
true. Something has, I trust, been done; but the Bible and experience
both agree in saying that “God has done it all.” I sometimes think I
have learned a little of the meaning of the verse, “Without me ye can do
nothing,” and I would also record that I have proved the truth of that
other one, “I am with you alway,"--for the work has paid.
I went to Boise City, in Idaho, in 1871, with the intention of staying
indefinitely, perhaps a lifetime, but Providence indicated plainly that
I ought to leave in two and a half years. When I came here, it was only
with the intention of remaining two or three months on a visit. The same
Providence has kept me here ten years and I am now satisfied that his
plans were far wiser than mine. So “man proposes and God disposes.” The
Christians’ future and the Indians’ future are wisely in the same hands.