There are more than ten thousand monks of different orders in Chile. During the summer months they go about the country in pairs or in trios, holding mission services, which they conduct without price or reference to money. The expenses of these itinerant clergymen are paid from the funds of the order they represent. They do much good in the way of instructing the poor country and village people in the rudiments of civilized life, cleanliness, and how to rear their children. These mission services usually continue for a week or ten days in one place, during which time many of the women and children of the community remain about the church, sleeping upon the ground at night. These mission fathers in no way clash with the regular priests, everything being understood and prearranged. Medallions and colored prints of their patron saints are freely distributed, and never fail to create a pleasing effect upon the women and children. The children are gathered into classes and turned over to the more intelligent of the women of the church, who teach them the catechism, and to sing the chants. If the children appear indifferent, or especially stupid in these first instructions and church discipline, their minds are brightened and their memories sharpened by whacks with a stick in the hands of the monks. But alas, these poor children only memorize the printed prayers, no explanations of their true meaning being made, and so through life they go on repeating prayers without knowing the significance of the words. Not infrequently this smattering of an education, gained through the mission teachings of the traveling monks, is all that many of them receive. It is through these methods of early instruction that the prolific growth of superstition prevalent in Chile is cultivated and kept alive. Children are taught that the several saints on the calendar, the anniversary of each of which is celebrated with a religious feast, are all powerful, and that the good offices of the saints can be secured through the intermediary of the priests. FEAST DAYS. The chief national feast in Chile is September 18th, the anniversary of the independence of the Republic, known as “El Diez y ocho.” There are, however, numerous other anniversary celebrations, commemorating victorious battles and historic events, which are observed with much demonstration in the cities and thickly populated districts. All other holidays, of which there are something like seventy in the year, are called religious festivals. Every saint has his or her feast day, known as church feasts, except the patron saint of the local church, in which event the festival lasts for a week or more.