ting) foolish and impossible. The missions too, with their honest
wealth and industry were California's first centers of enlightenment and
refinement. The Spanish missionaries were scholars as well as religious,
and their institutions were California's cradles of literature, music
and learning hand in hand with religion. To these early fathers we owe
the first paintings and statues brought to California, while their well
equipped missions, even contained medicine chests and medical books, to
them we also owe the first architecture in the building of the missions,
the first agricultural implements, even the first system of irrigation,
in the state; to these we may add the first stock of sheep, cattle,
horses, the first fruits, vineyards and teeming grain fields, yes, even
the first roses of California were brought here by them, and it was
from the missions that Dr. Robert Semple borrowed the printing type,
wherewith he printed the first newspaper in California, which appeared
in Monterey in 1846, making the letter "w" by joining two vs as the
Spanish alphabet contains twenty-five letters, "w" excepted.

And if the Spanish missionaries did so much what did the Spanish civil
and military authorities and settlers do? To Spanish explorers we
owe the discovery and exploration of California, as well as of South
America, Mexico and other portions of the New World, including the
Pacific Ocean; indeed is it not to Spain and her good Queen Isabella the
Catholic, to whom we really owe the discovery of America by Columbus?
But not to deviate from Spain's work in California, it was the early
Spanish governors who first framed laws and drew up a constitution in
California, and it was they who made the first land grants, it was by
Spanish explorers too that the first maps of California were drawn,
under Spanish rule were many of the present towns and cities founded,
from Spain came the first dawn of refinement and civilization, the first
army and navy, the first artists, musicians, physicians and skilled
workmen, in fine the first white child born in California was born of
Spanish parents settled in Monterey. And what was the record of Spain's
dominion in California? Setting aside unfounded calumnies as absurd as
the one which claims that Philip II passed a law sentencing to death any
foreigner who set foot on Spain's dominions in the New World,
relegating such lies to where they belong, Spain's rule in her New World
possessions, includ