MEMORY IN EDUCATION. : • :

rt The old culture came to a man at his work \ itwasnota'fc"
-rf^he expense of-life, but an exaltation of, life .itse.lf, It came in.
at the eyes as some civic ceremony sailed along ' i;he streets, 01*
.as one arrayed oneself before the looking-glass, onife-* came in at-
"the rears in a song as one bent over the plough or the anvil, off
at that great table where rich and poor sat down together and
flieard the minstrel bidding them pass around the wine-cup and
say a prayer for G-awain dead. Certainly it came without
a price ; ife did not take one from one's friends and one's handi-
work ; but it was like a good woman who gives all for love and
is; never jealous and. is ready to do all the talking when we are tired,

" How the old is to eome^again, how the other aide of the penny
is to come up, how the spit is to turn the other side of the meat to>"
the fire, I do not kiipw, but that the time will come I am certain ;
when one kind of .desire has been satisfied fora long time Ifc
fbecomes sleepy, and other kinds, long quiet, after ranking a noise,
foegin to order life,"

In Ceylon the old culture has not entirely died out,
-especially in the up-country villages ; it is however parsing
:away, and in the most " civilised " districts is a thing of
the past. This is partly due to the competition of Govern-
ment and Mission schools, partly to the decay of Buddhism,-
^partly to the general indifference to the importance of
vernacular education. So much is the mother-tongueV
•neglected and despised that instances of " educated ,'f
^Sinhalese unable to speak to, or read a letter from, their
*own relations are by no means unknown; those who
have been through the mill in an ordinary English school
:are usually very ignorant of the geography history and
literature of Ceylon, Most sttipicl of all is the affectation,
•of admiring everything English and despising everything1
'Sinhalese, or Tamil; recalling that time in England-whem
•" Falsehood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers, Truth
inpovtois no listeners." ;

The old system had, no doubt, its faults ; but it did
not divorce the " educated " from their past, nor raise art
Intellectual barrier between the upper classes and the lower.
The memory system itself has many merits. It may be*-