proportional to that in other lines. Absorption in the pursuit of material interests, shifting of population, thin distribution over a wide area, independence from the restraining influences of the older communities, are influences to be met and overcome in the evolution of religious and moral life. A church membership for Oregon considerable below the average of that for the United States, and a crime rate a little above, are indications of a condition that should render the serious mind thoughtful and alert to seek for every stimulus to a development at least equal if not greater than that of the industrial and political life.[1]
With the educational institutions, our brief study of the evolution of the community may fitly end. In the schools of any locality are the centers of influence that are most effective in producing social progress in things that pertain to the higher life. Beginning with the institutions established by the missionaries, the growth has been steady though slow; beginning with the schools for the native races and the children of the settlers, academies and colleges were added generally in advance of the needs rather than in response to a demand. First of the higher schools was the Oregon Institute, which was created in the cabin of "Lausanne" before the missionaries had touched the shore of Oregon.[2] In the following year an academy was founded upon the plains of the Tualatin, and earliest among the acts of the territorial legislature was the establishment of the public schools. From these beginnings other institutions have been started both by the different denominations and the state. Each in turn has been a center of influence in the evolution of the community, and from facilities, in
