296 REVEREND EZRA FISHER
thus abate my ministerial labors. But the time has evidently come when we, as a denomination, must act in reference to securing a site and putting into operation a school or we lose an important kind of influence with the rising generation, and even with the present acting community.
The public are asking for schools and will have them. If then we select our site and leave the schools to spring up hereafter, the public will repose no confidence in our enter- prise and other denominations will educate not only the chil- dren generally, but even those of our Baptist families. And then we need, very much need, some benevolent object around which we may rally the denomination, and I know of no one benevolent object in which they will so readily be brought to harmonize and which will serve as a precursor to all the benevolent enterprises of the gospel as an institu- tion of learning under the control and instruction of Baptist men and dependent on the denomination for support. If we undertook the work, I felt fully assured that I must give a portion of my time at least to the work till such time as we could secure the labors of a professional teacher from the States. Again, should the Lord of all hearts convert our children and they look to the work of the ministry, they must either enter upon that work uneducated, or we must provide the means of education for them in Oregon. We cannot expect to send our sons back across the Rocky Moun- tains or by way of the ocean to the States to be educated, and they are fast growing up around us. With these and many other considerations rushing upon my mind, I was led to the conviction that it was my duty for the time being to enter upon the work of teacher as well as preacher till we can be supplied from other sources. Perhaps Br. John- son and myself will be enabled to perform nearly as much ministerial labor and sustain the school, if it is continued in this place, as we should if I had continued at Clatsop, al- though I left that place at last with great reluctance. We shall probably finally fix upon a site for our institution im- mediately adjoining this city plat, about half a mile from the
