As soon as boys are able to read, religious books are put into their hands. During all the time they remain at school they go over books that have a direct reference to religion. Without even being aware of it, they imbibe religious notions, and become acquainted with some parts of the religious creed, particularly with what relates to Gaudama’s preceding and last existence. When they grow up to manhood, if they happen to read, they have, as a general practice, no other books but such as have a reference to religion. When people assemble together, either in the dzeats on the occasion of festival days, or at home on other public occasions, particularly in the days following the death of some relatives, one or several elders read some passage of their scriptures, and thereby supply topics for conversation of a religious turn. This state of things originates almost entirely in the early education received in the monasteries at the hands of their masters, the Phongyies. It powerfully contributes to popularise and foster religious notions, whilst it indirectly heightens and brightens in the eyes of the people the position of the religious. Moreover, the early intercourse between the youth and their masters tends to bring into closer contact and union both the religious and the laity. It draws nearer the ties that bind together these two fractions of the Buddhist society. The relation thus established between the teachers and the taught is further strengthened by the fact that the greatest number of the male portion of the community become affiliated, during a longer or shorter period, to the society, and subjected to its rules and regulations; they are cast in the mould of religious, and retain during the remainder of their life some of the features that have been at an early period stamped on their young minds. Their memory remains loaded with all that they learned by heart during the days they spent in the monasteries as students or members of the society.