mediate and remote, of the mission
system in California. The widely divergent conclusions on this subject
registered by the historians will, on investigation, be found, as
in most such cases, to depend quite as much upon bias of mind and
preconceived ideals, as upon the bare facts presented, concerning which,
one would imagine, there can hardly be much difference of opinion. To
decide upon the value of a given social experiment, we must, to begin
with, wake up our minds as to what we should wish to see achieved; and
where there is no unanimity concerning the object to be reached, there
will scarcely be any in respect of the means employed. It is not to
be wondered at, therefore, that critical judgment upon the Franciscan
missionaries and their work has been given here in terms of unqualified
laudation, and there in the form of severest disapproval, and that
everyone who touches the topic afresh is expected to take sides. In
their favor it must, I think, be universally admitted that they wrought
always with the highest motives and the noblest intentions, and that
their labours were really fruitful of much good among the native
tribes. On the other hand, when regarded from the standpoint of secular
progress, it seems equally certain that their work was sadly hampered
by narrowness of outlook and understanding, and an utter want of
appreciation of the demands and conditions of the modern world. Thus
while we give them the fullest credit for all that they accomplished by
their teachings and example, we have still frankly to acknowledge
their failure in the most important and most difficult part of their
undertaking--in the task of transforming many thousands of ignorant and
degraded savages into self-respecting men and women, fit for the duties
and responsibilities of civilization. Yet to put it in this way is to
show sharply enough that such failure is not hastily to be set down to
their discredit. It is often said, indeed, that they went altogether the
wrong way to work for the achievement of the much-desired result; and
it is unquestionably true, as La Perouse long ago pointed out, that they
made the fundamental, but with them inevitable mistake, of sacrificing
the temporal and material welfare of the natives to the consideration of
so-called "heavenly interests." Yet in common fairness we must remember
the stuff with which they had to deal. The Indian was by nature a child
and a slave; and if, out of children and slaves t