TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
115 
example of the skill of the English in converting 
the base into the precious metals.* 
A smattering of education is very common 
amongst the Burmans; perhaps more so than 
among any people of the East. This is chiefly 
owing to the institution of monasteries, and it 
being considered a kind of religious duty in the 
priests to instruct youth. Boys begin to go to 
school from eight to ten years of age, but gene¬ 
rally at the latter. The monasteries are the only 
schools, and the priests generally the only teachers. 
Education is entirely eleemosynary, and the chil¬ 
dren even live at the Kyaongs, the parents only 
making occasional presents to the priests. In re¬ 
turn for education, the children serve their tutors 
in a menial capacity, which, whatever their rank, is 
considered no discredit, but the contrary. They 
are instructed for about six hours in the day. 
Education consists in reading, writing, and a slight 
knowledge of the four common rules of arithmetic. 
A little reading is so frequent, that there is not 
one man in ten who is not possessed of it. Writ¬ 
ing is less common, but this also is pretty general. 
The nuns, or female priestesses, instruct girls in 
* When the Burmese perceived us collecting minerals and 
fossils, they pronounced at once, both chiefs and people, that our 
certain object was to convert them into gold and silver. That 
our object was nothing more than the gratification of a rational 
curiosity, was a notion so strange and foreign to their own habits 
and ideas, that no reasoning could convince them of the sincerity 
of our assurances. 
I 2 
