Conditions varying in some respects, but precisely similiar in others, prevailed in New Mexico. The isolation of the territory, till reached by the railroad in 1879, was so complete that few influences from the outside world had penetrated its seclusion. Types of civilization common in Europe three centuries ago prevailed. The superstitions of the people were dense and their ignorance was profound. They obeyed without questioning teachings which the world long ago outgrew. Most of them retained the habits and feelings of slaves because they had not acquired with their freedom the power of understanding or using it, and every effort to acquire self control was checked by jealous ecclesiastical power. Schools, save of the most rudimentary character, were unknown, and while priests were numerous, teachers were few. There were school laws, but they were so peculiar in their provisions as to give rise to the suspicion that they had been enacted rather in the interest of ignorance than of intelligence, and for the benefit of none but the most favored classes.

The New West Education Commission, therefore, taking these two vast and needy territories as its field, adopted the Christian school as the grand agency of reform and progress. It was evident that the work to be done lay back of all laws, below the reach of courts of justice, and within and beyond all customs and habits. Neither the bayonets, so loudly called for by many, nor public scorn, so fully poured out upon polygamy and kindred evils, could remove the difficulty. The changes demanded were in the very mental and moral condition out of which the evils, which were so apparent and so fatal, grew. The evils, in fact, commenced very near the cradles, and there must they be met. They sprang from both mental dormancy and moral obliquity. An evil heritage of unbalanced faculties and torpid moral natures has cursed tens of thousands of children, who, if never destined. to meet in their path to manhood or womanhood, pure-minded skillful and devoted teachers, would become in a far larger degree than their parents had been, the victims of imposition, and therefore the promoters of contention and disaster in both social and civil affairs. To supply such teachers, and maintain them through a series of years, became the self-imposed task of the New West Commission.

The special type and qualities of the schools to be created would be determined by the peculiar conditions to be met.

Foundations were to be laid, and hence the schools, even if not of high grade, must be of the best quality. They must furnish models and challenge comparison. They must be excellent enough to create surprise and give parents new ideas about the capacities and worth of their children. They must possess such intrinsic value that opposition would be disarmed, and a place would be won in the hearts of the people so secure that no prejudices or fears of priests could possibly dislodge them. Inferior schools would wholly fail to accomplish such ends. They would. win neither attention nor respect. They would neither attract pupils nor create the wholesome respect of those who might be willing, for selfish ends, to perpetuate the reign of ignorance. Schools characterized by intellectual thoroughness, by patient and successful toil on the part of both teachers and pupils, and by rapid progress in knowledge, could alone fulfill the purpose for which the work was planned.

But the schools proposed had a much wider office and purpose. They were to be not alone schools in the natural and common use of the word, but measures of social and religious renovation. They were designed to affect homes, as well as the children coming from them; to use those natural sympathies that are easily aroused in scenes of sorrow and bereavement, for the purpose of removing prejudice and loosening the grip of superstition; and to employ directly and openly religious truth as a means of stimulating the nobler faculties, and bringing into activity a reasonable faith.

Whatever silence on religious subjects common consent may have decreed in public schools sustained by taxation, none need be observed in schools sustained by the benevolent gifts of Christians. Such schools may properly give themselves a wider range, and employ measures directly designed to reach the deeper springs of character. If conducted by teachers who, to rare skill in arousing the intellect, join an active sympathy with suffering in all its forms, and a genuine power to awaken the stronger ethical feelings and the deeper spiritual susceptibilities, such schools may become the most powerful agencies possessed by man for the regeneration of communities.

Respecting the grades of schools to be established, the plan included all grades, from the primary, through the intermediate and the high, to the academic and seminary grades, stopping

short only of the collegiate. Schools limited to the lower grades would not fulfill the purpose in view. Reforms in society always need leaders, and no efforts to elevate communities by the agency of the school will be successful that do not make ample provision for the education of leaders. The old New England Academy furnished the model for the more advanced schools and very early in its history the Commission had seven of these in full operation.

Almost all the lower schools and a portion of the higher, established by the Commission, were started with no previous consultation with the people. Property for school houses was hired or purchased quietly; teachers were sent with very slight previous announcement, and with positively no suggestion of expense. They were ladies, and therefore safe and at once popular. By their friendly manners, and their music and their manifest love for the children, they gathered large numbers as by magic. Generally the school was a surprise and an enigma to both friends and enemies. Whence it came they knew not. What political or sectarian purposes it was designed to serve, the most suspicious and penetrating could not discover. That it was disinterested, no one at first believed. Some secret, even malign, purpose was suspected. In several hamlets in New Mexico it was reported that the teachers carried about with them bags of poison, which would work its fatal mischief upon the little ones while the teachers were pretending to instruct them. In Utah it was often charged that some deep-laid plot against the peace or property of the Mormons was at the bottom of the whole movement. In not a few instances it was reported that the teachers were vile characters, all the more dangerous on account of their intelligence, apparent affection for the people and religious efforts.

One of the most frequent prophecies respecting the schools. related to their speedy termination. "They will not last a year, said many: "If the teachers are after money they will soon fail and leave:" "If they wish to proselyte the children, or weaken the faith of the older people, they will soon see how hopeless is the task, and retire: ""The money of those who send them will not last long; and when they see that they can neither get our property nor drive us from our homes, they will cut off supplies and close up the school houses.

The schools, as a whole, rapidly won their way to positions of

unexpected popularity and influence, performed many invaluable services for the respective communities in which they were located. They introduced new topics of conversation and discussion, and led to open avowal of opinions on free schools, free speech and religious liberty, which had hitherto been largely suppressed. Through various agencies they stimulated inquiry on many subjects not canvassed in the school room or the meeting houses. They aroused in the minds of boys and girls a spirit of intellectual inquiry, which would not be satisfied by the simple assertion that alleged apostles had passed judgment upon an asserted tenet or dogma. They excited ambition among young people, which carried them quite beyond the attainments of local teachers and gave ground for comparisons which greatly impaired the reputation of the schools previously existing. They raised the standard of education, and convinced those who held the reins of power that a new era was coming, for which they must be prepared. They became fountains from which many streams of sympathy and charity went forth to the sick and poverty-stricken. They became religious centres, and gathered about themselves groups of people to whom they became church homes, and the only ones they knew. In short, in their various offices as schools, Sunday schools, preaching places, and rallying points for loyal leagues and temperance bands and reading circles and social gatherings and missionary societies, they have exerted and still exert an influence far wider and deeper than that of simple schools. They have been and are agencies of civilization, affecting directly and powerfully, not only the minds and hearts of children, but the wider relations of families to each other, and society to public law and government. These results would have been quite unattainable had not the teachers occupied a high rank in their profession, and also joined with their skill in teaching the quality of rare heroism and a spirit of profound religious devotion.

While it is easy to overrate the value of statistics in educational work, it is yet quite necessary to employ them in the effort to understand the scope and importance of any special educational

movement.

The New West Commission commenced its work in 1879, with two schools under two teachers. The next year the number of schools had increased to seven, three of which were academies, previously incorporated through the agency of men whose inter

ests in them were at once transferred to the Commission. The following year the number of schools had become ten, six of which were academies, under twenty-one teachers. The next year the number was sixteen, under twenty-nine teachers; the next year nineteen, under thirty-five teachers; and the next year thirty-eight, under sixty-one teachers. The average annual number of schools of all grades during thirteen years has been not far from thirty, under an average number of teachers not far from sixty. The whole number of teachers has exceeded 275, and their average term of service has exceeded two and two-thirds years.

The aggregate of annual enrollments of pupils reaches nearly 33,000. The number of separate pupils exceeds 10,000, one half of whom have been of Mormon antecedents. While much the larger number of pupils have been in the lower grades of study, as is natural, a number very large in the aggregate have passed into the higher, and in not a few instances graduated from the academies and entered Eastern colleges. The reciprocal advantages between the lower and higher schools have been marked, and have fully vindicated the wisdom of establishing both kinds of schools. The academies have been, in most instances, under the partial or entire care of local boards who have become the more deeply interested in their growth.

The entire amount of collections of money received from Eastern givers by the Commission up to July 1, 1892, was $655,546. The whole amount expended for school houses and school furnishings will exceed July 1st, 1893, $160,000. The Commission has carried on its work with no vested funds, and without other resources than the good-will and benevolence of free contributors to its work. It has met with a growing spirit of co-operation on the part of the special classes for whom the work was originally planned. Early suspicions were soon disarmed. The gratitude of many parents whose religious prejudices were at first both hostile and strong, rewarded faithful teachers in many expressive ways; while the changes in public sentiment, springing directly from the new educational life that had grown so rapidly, were in themselves a reward as welcome as it was unexpected.

It would occupy a large space to make adequate statements of the results of the work as intelligent men in both Territories have described them. Making all due allowances for the partiality of friends and the enthusiasm arising in all minds from the over