On every head a little tuft of hair is allowed to grow in the centre of a shaven crown. This is removed at a certain period, with an imposing and important ritual.
They make excellent scholars, for they are very bright and intelligent. Only a mere handful of the population attend any school regularly, but all those who hope to obtain any Government employment must at least learn to read and write. Those that do attend the schools learn to draw accurately and neatly after very little practice. They need no teaching with regard to modelling in clay, their representations of elephants in particular being beyond criticism. All ordinary school subjects are rapidly acquired by them, and they are adepts in the acquisition of a foreign language. They learn to read, write, and speak English in the Anglo-Vernacular schools in about three years, with great ease and fluency. Many boys will speak in English concerning the common events of their daily lives after a few months' tuition. They are helped in this matter by their wonderfully retentive memories which enable them to remember a large number of words and idioms.
There is no "esprit de corps" in any school, unless it is cultivated by the master in charge. It can be easily developed up to a certain point for just the same reason that the adoption can be ensured of certain rules and maxims in the schoolboy's code of honour, not so much on account of the intrinsic value of the maxim or the rule itself, as because it has been put before them as a European custom. It is therefore to be imitated if they wish to appear "up to date." In speaking to their teachers, no matter what their relative ranks in life may be, they invariably use that form of the pronoun "I" which signifies that they consider themselves as occupying a lower position than the person spoken to. They abhor long holidays, but like to take odd days by fits and starts whenever they feel so inclined. Unpunctuality is a common fault unless firmly opposed. Cricket and football have been introduced at one of the schools and have become fairly popular, but the climate is really too hot for such vigorous forms of athletic activity ever to flourish except amongst a few enthusiasts.
Inquisitiveness is politeness, and it is rather bewildering to the English teacher new to his work, especially when he is constantly questioned as to his age, the price of his watch, the amount of his salary, or the date when he last had his hair cut. The school satchel does not seem to have become popular, most scholars carrying their belongings tied up in a Manchester-made handkerchief. Boys of the higher classes are attended by their servants, who carry these articles for them, and at times, even carry the owners also. In the intervals of playtime they smoke. Each boy carries his own tobacco-pouch, matches, and tobacco, and is an adept at rolling cigarettes. They are thoroughly unselfish as regards the disposal of their smoking material, and a cigarette will be circulated amongst a group of friends, each one taking a whiff or two and then handing it on to his neighbour. If the weed is unfinished when the school bell rings, they calmly extinguish it, stick it behind the ear, penholder fashion, and return to class.
They are affectionate, cheerful, respectful, delightful fellows to play with or work with, and offering to the observant master many interesting examples of the gradual development of mind and character under a rational system of teaching.
MOTHER AND CHILD.
In a land where superstitious practices abound, the children are sure to have more than an ordinary belief in goblins and ghosts. The belief in divers supernatural beings of evil or good intent is powerfully implanted in every adult mind. In the case of the children every natural phenomenon, every event of their lives is to them under the control of some invisible spirit. They have a profound belief in their marvellous fairy tales, and many of them never grow out of this extreme condition of credibility during the whole of their existence. They cling to their mystic interpretations of natural phenomena, with such force, that in the schools that have been recently founded, the attempts to teach the elements of natural science have been made under rather disheartening circumstances. The children are perfectly certain that thunder is exactly what their name for it denotes, "the sky crying." There is a horrible giant of great strength and furious temper who leads a very quarrelsome life with a cantankerous wife, and when he grumbles and growls at her various iniquities, the echo of his voice comes in cries from the sky. When in fits of violent anger he hurls his ponderous hatchet at his spouse, it strikes the floor of heaven, and a thunderbolt falls. When the broad flashes of lightning play at hide-and-seek amongst the dense black masses of cloud during the wet months of the rainy season, they say a woman is flashing a mirror in the air, or according to another interpretation, the angels are amusing themselves by striking fire with bricks. The falling stars are produced when frolicsome spirits in their sportive moods pitch torches at each other. When the giant crab comes up out of his hole in the deep parts of the sea, he bears up the waters on his back, and the tide flows; when he retires again, it ebbs. Sometimes the angels in heaven all take it into their heads to have a bath at the same time, and as a consequence they splash the water over the sides of the bath, and the rain falls. Another theory states, however, that the rain is caused by a huge fish a thousand miles long, who with his mighty tail furiously lashes the waters of the deep. The most poetical of all these superstitions is that which ascribes the origin of the winds to the voices of the babies who have departed this life.