In 1843 a number of young men from Oberlin entered upon a mission among the Ojibway Indians in the northern part of what is now Minnesota, under the auspices of the Western Evangelical Missionary Society, which was soon afterward transferred to the American Missionary Association. Of the inaccessibility of this field, a competent authority has said: "There is probably no missionary field to-day on the face of the earth more difficult to reach than this was at that time."
Among this group of missionaries was Rev. S.G. Wright. As a part of his experience it is said that after a short visit at home, Mr. Wright returned to the mission taking his young wife with him—their wedding tour. It was a journey of over a month made in a canoe. They were both compelled to walk at intervals twenty-two miles in the swamps along the side of the stream until they reached Mr. Barnard's station. These walks were varied by sickness; Mr. Wright sometimes had chills every day, but at Mr. Barnard's station he recovered. There remained yet twenty miles of their journey, and this was undertaken on foot, but soon a storm brought five inches of snow. Mr. Wright says: "My wife was very lame, and what woman would not be after walking twenty long miles through mire and water, over high hills and through gullies, in snow from four to five inches deep?"
The change wrought by these missionaries can be indicated in a sentence: When they went there the Indians cultivated almost no land and their only domestic animals were dogs. They maintained a precarious [pg 94] existence by hunting and fishing, and the gathering of wild rice, with starvation as no uncommon experience. In a few years these Indians raised their own supplies of corn and potatoes, with some to sell to procure other necessaries; they began to build houses for themselves; had the benefit of a saw mill and a grist mill, with the blessings of a church and boarding school.
The Association withdrew from the mission in 1859, but Mr. Wright returned under other auspices, and spent several years in effective and useful work. He still lives and is active in Christian labors as a member of the church in Oberlin.
A SOUTHERN JOURNEY.
BY SECRETARY A.F. BEARD.
It included every Southern State in extent from Virginia to Texas, and from Texas to Florida. It was a study of schools, their methods and attainments; it was the acquaintance of new teachers and their work, the greeting of those who have become old friends, the look into the eyes of more colored youth in schools than usually falls to one person. It was a comparative study of classes of all grades in schools of the same grade, and of schools in different States and environments. It was an examination of industries in agriculture, industries in mechanics, of schools, normal and collegiate. It was an inspection of properties; an inquiry as to the prices of paints and brick and lime and wall papers.
It was a visit to churches, a handshake with pastors and deacons, a gathering of congregations to "make their wants and wishes known" to "the Association." One soon learns that the correct use of the definite article to designate the A.M.A. is not confined to those who have studied grammar. There is only one Association for these people. They never call it "American" nor even "Missionary." "The" is all sufficient, and it does one good to hear his society thus alphabetically abbreviated, as it does to meet these warm-hearted brethren of the colored churches which have been nourished with life by "The" Association. If anyone is suffering from iciness in the cardiac region, there is no better place for him to get the cockles of his heart well warmed up than in some of the colored congregations' churches which I visited. I said some. Alas! there is a difference in churches—in the South.
I find the schools full of interest, and that in the higher institutions the girls and young women are side by side in nearly equal numbers with lads and young men in climbing up the steep hills of education. It is, indeed, climbing. It takes more time, more patience and more resolution than most white students with happier conditions can realize.