Four Years in Upper Burma by W.R. Winston — Read

The Countess of Dufferin's fund for the training of female nurses in midwifery, for the benefit of women in the East, is nowhere more sorely needed than it is in Burma, for there are among the Burmans, in connection with that critical period, usages that render some more enlightened method of treatment urgently to be desired. Immediately on the birth of the child, it is the earnest endeavour of those in charge to place the mother as near as possible to a very large fire. Hot bricks are applied, rugs and blankets are piled upon her, irrespective of the state of the weather, in a country where for two months of the year the thermometer stands at 110° in the shade of the verandah. This continues for seven days, and is with a view to dispel the noxious humours supposed to be generated. This treatment, in addition to the drinking of much medicine at the same time, renders that crisis of life more than usually hazardous to the mother.

The boy goes to the monastery school as soon as he is able to learn, and is there taught to read and write, and is initiated into the teachings of Buddhism. He learns the five universal commandments, the five subsidiary rules, and the Pali formule used at the pagoda worship. At the monastery he is made familiar, at the most susceptible period of his life, with the routine of the life of the monks, learning, amongst other things, idleness as a fine art, and he is taught to look upon the condition of the monk as the holiest man can attain in this life. If I were asked which I considered the strongest point Buddhism holds in the midst of the Burmese people, I should at once lay my finger on this-_the influence of the monastery school on the boys_. There can be no doubt that before any great inroads can be made upon Buddhism-before Christianity can have a fair chance of success-the missionary will have to enter into an honourable competition with the monastery schools. These are days of competition. He will have to provide a better and a wider system of vernacular elementary education than the people can get at present, and by providing a better article, he can attract the people to him. Let him fearlessly permeate the teaching through and through with _Christian truth_ (not anti-Buddhism), and he will find that will not lessen, but increase, his popularity. In all Oriental lands the heathen instruction of the indigenous schools is a hindrance to Christianity, but I know of no country where it is more so than in Burma.