276 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



men have gained in some measure the character of priests, 

 furnish better evidence. We have the case of the Tew Zea- 

 landers, among whom, according to Thomson, one of the 

 duties of the priests is to instruct children &quot; in the songs and 

 traditions of the people &quot; to instruct them, that is, in the 

 sacred lore of the tribe. Then in Africa, where the social 

 organization is more developed, we meet with a more defi 

 nite form of priestly tuition. Bastian tells us that in Congo 

 the fetich-priest yearly collects the boys who have arrived 

 at puberty, and leads them into the forest, where they re 

 main six months, forming a sort of colony under the control 

 of the priest. During this time they undergo circumcision. 

 Then in Abyssinia and in Madagascar we find the teaching 

 function of the priest shared in by a non-priestly class a 

 step in differentiation. 



701. Peoples, past and present, in sundry parts of the 

 world, who have reached higher stages of civilization, yield 

 fragments of evidence which I string together in as orderly 

 a way as is practicable. Writing of the Mexicans, Torque- 

 mada says that the whole education was in connexion with 

 the temples. Very many boys were sent there to be edu 

 cated from the fourth year of their age until their marriage. 

 Clavigero tells us the same thing. Of the priests of Yucatan 

 we read in Landa : 



&quot;They instructed the sons of other priests, and also the younger sons 

 of the lords, who were given to them from childhood when they 

 appeared to be inclined to that office. The sciences which they taught 

 were the computation of years, months and days, festivals and cere 

 monies, the administration of their sacraments, &c., &c.&quot; 



Of existing peoples the Japanese may be first named as 

 supplying us with a relevant fact. 



The secular teacher s vocation can scarcely be said to have existed 

 prior to the days of the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty. . . . The 

 bonzes [priests] of Japan are to be credited with being mainly instru 

 mental in spreading a knowledge of the rudiments of education 

 throughout the length and breadth of the Empire.&quot; 



