The present admission-ceremony in Ceylon appears to be of a simpler character. In fact it differs little from the ancient form. Those boys who are destined for the novitiate usually begin their connexion with the monastery to which they intend to belong by first becoming pupils in the monastery-school. The devotion of the monkhood to the education of mere boys was perhaps one of the best results of the progress and development of Buddhism. In monasteries, all boys may learn to read and write[138]. There also they gain some experience of monastic duties and requirements, so that when the time comes for any pupil to enter the novitiate, his preparedness is taken for granted. He merely makes known his intention to a superior or senior monk. Then having shaved his head, and undergone the ceremony of bathing, the applicant, who has furnished himself with the proper yellow robes, presents them to the superior monk, and requests to be allowed to receive them again that he may become a novice. Next, on his reciting the three-refuge formulary, and the ten prohibitions, he is permitted to take back the monkish garments and to put them on. He is then formally admitted, and his admission announced to the other members of the monastery (Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, p. 23). It may be noted that the monkish garments do not include a head-covering as in Northern countries. As to the ceremony of admission to the full monkhood, it differs so little from the ancient rite (described at p. 79), that no further description need here be given. With regard to the religious services performed in the monastic institutions of modern times, they are, of course, a great advance on the simple formularies used in early days, before the establishment and organization of large monasteries. The earlier and purer Buddhism, as we have seen, had only one religious formula, and that was a simple expression of veneration for the three jewels—the Buddha, his Law, and his Order of Monks (p. 78). Any form of worship was altogether out of place, if not a mere mockery, when there was no supreme Being to worship; when the Buddha himself, who never claimed to be more than a perfected man, had passed away into non-existence, and when all that he left behind was the great ideal of his own memory, to be venerated and imitated. When, however, monastic establishments were organized and the doctrine became developed, a great development of worship took place. To illustrate this I submit a description of daily life in a Burmese monastery, based on the information given by Shway Yoe (p. 307), and often using his words.