The superintendent said the children of the Russian peasants could attend if they wished, but very few did so.

The teacher was a subordinate priest of the Eastern church.

The expense of the establishment was paid by Government, with the design of making the boys useful in educating the Gilyaks.
The Gilyaks of the lower Amoor are pagans, and the attempts to Christianize them have not been very successful thus far.

Their religion consists in the worship of idols and animals, and their priests or _shamans_ correspond to the 'medicine man' of the American Indians.

Among animals they revere the tiger, and I was told no instance was known of their killing one.