There is in man a natural disposition and inclination to admire individuals who, actuated by religious feelings, are induced to leave the world and separate from society in order to devote themselves more freely to the practice of religious duties. The more society is corrupted, the more its members value those persons who have the moral courage to estrange themselves from the centre of vice, that they may preserve themselves from contamination. In fact, religious are esteemed in proportion to the extent of the contempt they have for this world. The Phongyies occupy precisely this position in the eyes of their co-religionists. Their order stands in bold relief over the society they belong to. Their dress, their mode of life, their voluntary denial of all gratification of sensual appetites, centre upon them the admiring eyes of all. They are looked upon as the imitators and followers of Buddha; they hold ostensibly before ordinary believers the pattern of that perfection they have been taught so fondly to revere. The Phongyies are as living mementoes, reminding the people of all that is most sacred and perfect in practical religion. No one will deny that the view of a body of religious existing in a community, keeping an intercourse with its members, must ever have a powerful tendency to foster religious feelings in the mind of a half-civilised people as the Burmese are. It is in this manner that the Phongyies command the respect and veneration of the people, and exercise a considerable amount of religious influence over the masses. But in the capacity of instructors of the people, the members of the order act as yet more directly and actively upon the people. In Burmah there are no schools but those kept by the religious. The monasteries are as so many little seminaries where male children receive elementary instruction. The knowledge that is imparted to them by their masters is not secular, but purely religious. It is a point upon which the undivided attention of a keen observer must be centred in order to understand the full meaning of the following remarks. We do not mean to say that the instructor has always present to his mind, as a professor, the direct teaching of religious tenets; but the fact is that no information is conveyed to the pupils except that which comes from religious books. No other books are ever used in schools.