A CAMBODIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL. 691 



stand it. The first sutra is the " Custom of Youth," and is repeated 

 every day till it is read without hesitation and without mistakes, 

 and till the pupil knows it by heart and can recite it from 

 memory. Then a second sutra is given him the advice of a 

 grandfather to his grandson, or the " Groups of Customs " 

 counsels to be followed every day ; or the " Customs of Wom- 

 en" and this book is read till it is as thoroughly learned as 

 the other. 



Nothing can be more curious than to attend one of these read- 

 ings. The pupils are all seated on mats near the door or the 

 windows, each with a different sutra in his hand. They read 

 all at once, as loudly as they can, so that they can hear themselves 

 better, without any concern for their neighbors, and without stop- 

 ping to breathe. It is deafening, and we can hardly understand 

 how the poor little fellows manage to isolate themselves from the 

 uproar of noisy readers that can be heard a thousand feet from 

 the monastery. 



Between times the pupil copies extracts from the things he 

 reads ; practices in writing a letter, or drawing up a brief, or in 

 setting forth some claim in a good, clear style. When so far ad- 

 vanced that he can give up his wooden slate 'and the tracing of 

 large characters, he is given some folding books. He polishes the 

 pages of pasteboard or felt with sand; then holding an iron- 

 pointed stylus, with his hand resting on a cushion, steadying the 

 stylus with the thumb of his left hand, he draws it carefully over 

 the page, so as to cut the fiber without tearing it. When he has 

 written on both sides of his long sheet eight or ten perpendicular 

 lines in this manner, he takes some ink made of soot scraped 

 from the bottom of the pot and moistened, rubs it with a cloth 

 across the leaf, and then wipes it with a clean dry cloth. The 

 ink remains in the hollows, and the characters come plainly 

 out, as black as our printed characters. The number of those, 

 however, who succeed in learning the more delicate art of writ- 

 ing on palm leaves is comparatively small. After the pupil 

 has learned to write, he is taught such arithmetic as he is sup- 

 posed to need, including the multiplication table and the four 

 rules. Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the 

 Revue Scientifique. 



Mr. Walter B. Harris, in his travels in the region of the Atlas- 

 Mountains, observed a peculiar native taste or talent for sculpture 

 among the Berbers. ''At Dads," he says, "I saw children modeling 

 in clay little figures of men on horseback, . . . which no Arab or Moor 

 either could or would do. Excellently modeled they were too. I asked 

 a native, and he laughingly replied, 'We all did that when we were 

 small.' " 



