'The school is the real work. Teaching adults to read a strange
tongue is hard work; I have little doubt but that the Bishop is right
in saying they must be taught English; but it is so very difficult a
language, not spelt a bit as pronounced; and their language is all
vocalic and so easy to put into writing.

'But if you like I will scatter anecdotes about--of how the Bishop
and his chaplain took headers hand in hand off the schooner and
roundhouse; and how the Bishop got knocked over at Leper's Island by
a big wave; and how I borrowed a canoe at Tariko and paddled out yams
as fast as the Bishop brought them to our boat, &c.--but this is
rubbish.'

This letter is an instance of the reserve and reticence which Mr.
Patteson felt so strongly with regard to his adventures and pupils.
He could not endure stories of them to become, as it were, stock for
exciting interest at home. There was something in his nature that
shrank from publishing accounts of individual pupils as a breach of
confidence, as much, or perhaps even more, than if they had been
English people, likely to know what had been done. Moreover,
instances had come to his knowledge in which harm had been done to
both teachers and taught by their becoming aware that they were shown
off to the public in print. Such things had happened even where they
would have seemed not only unlikely, but impossible; and this
rendered him particularly cautious in writing of his work, so that
his reports were often dry, while he insisted strongly on his letters
to his family being kept private.

The actual undertakings of the Mission did not exceed its resources,
so that there was no need for those urgent appeals which call for