Siam is no exception to the general rule. For centuries the Buddhist temples have been the only “temples of learning,” and the men who shave their heads, dress in yellow robes and beg their food have performed the double office of pedagogue and priest. It would seem as if Siam ought to be a highly-educated country when these mendicant teachers form one-thirtieth part of the entire population, and when the custom of the country is such that parents usually require their sons to spend all the years of boyhood and youth under the care of these teachers in the temples. So universal is this custom that work for boys is something that has not yet been invented in this country.
As soon as a little boy is out of his babyhood his parents at once begin to look around for a desirable teacher for him. A priest is selected: usually he is a friend or relative of the parents, and one whom they think they can trust to care for and educate their boy. The child is then taken to the temple, or wat, as it is called, and given to the priest. In doing this the parent gives up all claim, authority and oversight of the boy to the priest, often closing a long speech on the subject by begging the priest to “whip him a great deal; do not break his back or put out his eyes; anything less than that you can do: I won’t say a word.”
While the child is in the wat the parent is expected to clothe him and also to contribute liberally to the lunch-basket that this man of holy orders carries around daily to have filled by pious Buddhists. The child’s most important duty now is to wait on his teacher, follow him on his morning tramps, paddle his boat, serve his food and be ready at all times to obey his wishes.
The priest, on his part, is expected to teach the boy to read and write; and if he is a very extraordinary “man of letters” he may possibly teach the first principles of arithmetic; this, however, is a rare accomplishment, gained only by the favored few.
But whatever else these Buddhist schoolmasters fail in teaching, there is one lesson that they succeed in imparting better than most college professors of other countries, and that is a feeling of respect on the part of their pupils for their teachers, no matter how indifferently the work may have been done. No matter if ten years have been spent in doing what should have been done in as many months, still, any Siamese man would be branded as a wretched ingrate if he did not through all his life honor and respect the man who taught him to read. This is at least one good thing to be found in the old-fashioned wat education; but just how it is gained, and where the secret of success lies, are somewhat of a mystery.
Doubtless, it is partly owing to the religious element. The yellow-robes themselves are objects of veneration, and Buddha, as it is claimed, was only a teacher, so that the office of teaching, as well as the dress of the teacher, is calculated to inspire fear and respect. And perhaps the birch or ratan discipline, which is often terribly severe, may have something to do with it. A mistake in writing or spelling usually brings down the teacher’s lash, and this is called son hi chum (teaching to remember); for a more heinous offence of disobedience or want of respect toward his teacher the pupil’s hands are tied around a post, and then he is whipped—not four or five strokes, but it is one, two or three dozen, as the case seems to require. A teacher is supposed to take an interest in his pupil, and the pupil to be improving, just in proportion to the amount of corporal punishment administered.
One day a man brought his boy to put him into the “King’s School.” After the arrangements were all made and he was about to say “Good-bye” to his boy, he turned to the principal of the school and said, “Please whip him a great deal; I want him to learn fast. If at any time you think he deserves one dozen, please give him two dozen, and if you think he deserves two dozen, please give him four dozen. Don’t let him be a dunce.” And with this loving injunction he took his leave. Another little boy has dropped out of the same school entirely, the probable reason being that his grandmother’s repeated request to te hi mak mak (whip him a great deal) was entirely disregarded. These wat-schools—if schools they may be called—are free from all the trammels of school laws and school committees, each teacher being left free to follow his own will in everything. Neither are there any school-houses or school-furniture. The teacher seats himself, tailor-fashion, on the floor of his own filthy, cheerless room, and his pupils sit in the same way around him.
There is only one school-book (which is a kind of combined primer and reader), and after that is mastered the learner must practice reading on whatever he can find; it may be a fabulous tale, a drama or a ghost-story, but certainly it will not be a good and truthful book that will elevate and improve the reader, for the literature of Siam has nothing of that kind. Occasionally the books that have been prepared by the missionaries are found in the hands of these wat-boys, but that is the exception and not the rule.
These schools have no regular school-term, and of course no vacations; no regular hours for study, and of course none for play; no classes, and of course no emulation and no chance for a dull boy to be helped over the hard places by his near neighbor. The whole work is controlled by the whim of the teacher at the time, without principle and without rule.
If a boy recites once or twice a week, all is well, and if he recites only once or twice a month, still it is all right; and if in the course of eight or ten years he has learned very little, there is no one to complain. He has at least been kept out of the way at home, and now he is of such an age that he can become a nain and spend a few more years in obtaining a smattering of the Pali or sacred language, and after this he can become a full-fledged priest, which is the summit of the fondest parent’s wishes.