also be able to write nicely and know something of arithmetic.
A teacher of a Siamese school need have little trouble with its government if it were not so impossible ever to be sure of the truth. When a boy gets into mischief he always plans to lie about it; and he can do it with such an air of candor that he will make the teacher almost disbelieve his own senses. But this fault is doubtless largely owing to the early training in heathen homes and in the old-fashioned "wat-schools" of the country.
The prevailing religion and the education of a country usually stand side by side, and aid each other. Their united influence is sometimes to spread sunshine and prosperity over the land, and sometimes to fasten the chains of superstition and blight the moral feelings of the entire nation.
Siam is no exception to the general rule. For centuries the Buddhist temples have been the only "temples of learning," and the men who shave their heads, dress in yellow robes and beg their food have performed the double office of pedagogue and priest. It would seem as if Siam ought to be a highly-educated country when these mendicant teachers form one-thirtieth part of the entire population, and when the custom of the country is such that parents usually require their sons to spend all the years of boyhood and youth
