believed, without
equivocation or reserve, the doctrines of the Church. As one reads his
diary, his thought on this matter is transparent. In one place he thus
naively writes: "It seemed to me that they (the Indians) would fall
shortly into the apostolic and evangelic net."

This accomplished, the Indians must be kept Christians, educated and
civilized. Here is the crucial point. In reading criticisms upon the
Mission system of dealing with the Indians, one constantly meets with
such passages as the following: "The fatal defect of this whole Spanish
system was that no effort was made to educate the Indians, or teach them
to read, and think, and act for themselves."

To me this kind of criticism is both unjust and puerile. What is
education? What is civilization?

Expert opinions as to these matters vary considerably, and it is in the
very nature of men that they should vary. The Catholics had their ideas
and they sought to carry them out with care and fidelity. How far they
succeeded it is for the unprejudiced historians and philosophers of the
future to determine. Personally, I regard the education given by the
padres as eminently practical, even though I materially differ from them
as to some of the things they regarded as religious essentials. Yet in
honor it must be said that if I, or the Church to which I belong, or you
and the Church to which you belong, reader, had been in California in
those early days, your religious teaching or mine would have been
entitled, justly, to as much criticism and censure as have ever been
visited upon that of the padres. They did the best they knew, and, as I
shall soon show, they did wonderfully well, far better than the
enlightened government to which we belong has ever done. Certain
essentials stood out before them. These were, to see that the Indians
were baptized, taught the ritual of the Church, lived as nearly as
possible according to the rules laid down for them, attended the
services regularly, did their proper quota of work, were faithful
husbands and wives and dutiful children. Feeling that they were indeed
fathers of a race of children, the priests required obedience and work,
as the father of any well-regulated American household does. And as a
rule these "children," though occasionally rebellious, were
willingly obedient.

Under this regime it is unquestionably true that the lot of the Indians
was immeasurably improved from that of their aboriginal condition. They