298 REVEREND EZRA FISHER
have lately resolved to strike off 200 copies of Webster's ele- mentary spelling-book somewhat abridged. You can form some estimate of our poverty and want. Probably not one family in three in the territory has a spelling-book. I have no doubt men would gladly have paid one dollar per copy for spelling-books for their children in the school which I taught last summer, but there was not a spelling-book at any price. We have a few Sunday-school books sent out from New York . . . which have been of great value to the children and youth as far as enjoyed; and we have a few volumes of the publications of the American Tract Society and some tracts sent to Rev. Mr. Griffen, a Congregationalist. 114
Our Methodist brethren are doing something towards sup- plying some of the children with juvenile books, and their Sunday School Advocate, with their hymn books, and some Bibles and Testaments; but all this is a very small fraction of what is greatly needed. I have not seen a Baptist periodical from the States for more than 20 months I have omitted to mention that the country is almost destitute of all suitable elementary school-books and juvenile reading. It would do your heart good to see the eagerness with which a periodical, a tract or Sunday school book is seized upon and read by a large portion of our citizens. For example, when our eldest daughter of fifteen years was sent for to teach a school quarter, 115 and a request came for hymn-books and any other suitable books so that they could have a Sunday school during her stay, I had nothing but a few copies of the Divine Songs and a few tracts to send. Cannot our request be responded to so that as missionaries we may be supplied with suitable tracts and juvenile books of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society, with a fair proportion of the former exposing the evils of Romanism, and others vindicating our denomina- tional peculiarities ; also some Bibles and Testaments. I know
1 14 This was probably Rev. J. S. Griffin, who came to Oregon in 1839 (Ban- croft, Hist, of Ore. 1:238), sent by the North Litchfield Association of Connecticut.
115 This school was at Skipanon, near Warrenton, in Clatsop County. Geo. H. Himes.