690 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



marks that modify their value, and shows him, writing on the 

 tablet, how to draw them. 



I have often witnessed these lessons, and have much admired 

 both the calm patience of the master and the readiness with 

 which the little Cambodians learn*. Their memory is extraordi- 

 nary, and they keep what they have learned much better than 

 our children do. I do not mean that they know better what they 

 know, and that they can draw on a larger part of their knowledge 

 than our children. No, the little that they acquire thus so rapidly 

 continues with them nearly always as unemployed means, as 

 material not put to use, as unproductive elements of knowledge. 

 Their intellectual development in other respects stops early, be- 

 tween sixteen and eighteen years, but their memory still remains 

 surprising. By memory I mean the recollection of sounds, of the 

 eyes, of figures, of words, and of facts. But they do not know, or 

 only know imperfectly, and hardly learn after eighteen years, how 

 to use what they know, to co-ordinate it, to deduce, to draw logical 

 consequences, to generalize ; to give their whole mind to a thing. 

 But good sense, delicate discrimination, mingled with some degree 

 of critical judgment regarding all the affairs of current life, are not 

 wanting in them, even in early childhood. 



The first series of characters traced by the teacher includes 

 twenty-four vowels, consonants, and diphthongs, and is called the 

 nomo, from the two characters, no and 'rno, with which it begins, 

 and which together form a Pali word. These two characters are 

 followed by four others, pont, thea, set, and them, which with the 

 first two form the phrase Nomo Buddhaya siddhan ! or, " Glory 

 be given to Buddha ! " — a salutation which resembles that of the 

 Croix de Dieu, or " Cross of God," with which French pupils in 

 the a b c's were formerly accustomed to begin their lessons. The 

 pupil, having learned to read and trace the twenty- four characters 

 of this series, is given the thirty-five characters of the second 

 series, which include various consonants and semi- vowels ; then 

 the vowels are given — eighteen hard and eighteen mollified, al- 

 though the difference is very slight. 



These lessons thoroughly learned, the pupil passes to the six 

 hundred and fifty combinations of consonants and vowels, which 

 are very rapidly learned, for the same rule prevails with the com- 

 binations of each and all the consonants ; so that, when one series 

 is learned, the rest are like it. 



When the pupil, after two or three months at the most, has 

 learned all the characters and their combinations, a little sutra, 

 or manual, or treatise on correct morals is put into his hands, 

 which he reads in the presence of the professor or one of the 

 better learned pupils, who corrects him and drills him in the good 

 reading of th-e work, explaining the meaning if he does not under- 



