CONDITION OF THE MISSIONS ON THE MANITOULIN. 189 



" The school returns show twenty children as receiving 

 instruction ; but the greatest number of days during the 

 last quarter, on which any one child attended the school, 

 was fourteen, and ten of the children do not appear to have 

 been present for a single day." The Eev. Mr. Jacobs 

 stated in 1857, that the number of Indians at his station 

 belonging to his congregation was forty-two. 



The Commissioners report his settlement to be "in a 

 much more prosperous condition than Manitouaning, both 

 houses and farms being tidy and kept in better order." 



The Eoman Catholic Mission is next described by the 

 Commissioners.* Wikwemikong contains a population of 

 580 all belonging to the Eoman Catholic Church. " Al- 

 though not so well situated as Manitouaning, prosperity 

 smiles upon the settlement. 



" The Indians appear respectable in their dress, indus- 

 trious in their habits, healthy and contented ; the services 

 of the church are reported to be numerously attended ; 

 the schools were crowded with clean, healthy, intelligent 

 children of both sexes, numbering 125 in the school 

 register. We satisfied ourselves by examination, that 

 the average attendance has been of late for the boys 

 45 days in the quarter and 56 days for the girls. 



* It will be a subject of deep regret to members of the Church of Eng- 

 land that the Canadian Commissioners felt it their duty to recommend that 

 a year's gratuity should be given to the resident Protestant missionary at 

 Manitouaning, and that he should be placed on the retired list ; also, that the 

 Protestant English school should be abandoned as "practically useless/' 

 and simultaneously with this negative evidence of inefficiency and failure, 

 they should feel themselves compelled to recommend that a schoolmaster 

 should be appointed in the Roman Catholic Mission at Wikwemikong. No 

 doubt the recommendation was just, and conveyed an appropriate acknow- 

 ledgment of the untiring zeal, and unfailing energies of the Roman 

 Catholic Missionaries. With respect to the other villages on the Manitoulin 

 Island, the Commissioners say : — " Notwithstanding that Christianity is 

 making slow and painful progress among them, they must still be considered 

 as almost at the bottom of the scale of civilization." 



