The Foundations of Japan

The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of Feelings.-Havelock Ellis.

One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he answered, "I am."

We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing, Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[11] "Contrary to the principles of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the way of improvement.

The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (Bimbogami). He said that the Spirit visited a man when he became rich-in order to bring curios to him; and again when he became poor-in order to take them away from him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him again.

Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition. People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad influences of civilisation.

Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young people-formerly young men used to visit the factory girls-but it was rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.

There was in the neighbourhood, this Buddhist pastor went on, a temple belonging to the same sect as his own, and he was on friendly terms with its priest. It was good discipline, he said, for two priests to be working near one another if they were of the same sect, for their work was compared. In answer to my enquiry, the old man said that he preached four days a month. Each service consisted of reading for an hour and then preaching for two hours. About 150 or 200 persons would attend. He had also a service every morning from five to six. In addition to these gatherings in the temple he conducted services in farmers' houses. "I feel rather ashamed sometimes," he said," when I listen to the good sermons of Christians."

As the priest was taking leave he told me that he was going to a farmer's house in order to conduct a service. I asked to be allowed to accompany him. He kindly agreed, and invited me to stay the night in his temple.

When I reached the farmhouse there were there about two dozen kneeling people, including members of the family. On the coming of the priest, who had gone to the temple to put on his robes, the farmer threw open the doors of the family shrine and lighted the candles in it. The priest knelt down by the shrine and invited me to kneel near him. In a few words he told the people why I was in the district. Whereupon the farmer's aged mother piped, "We heard that a tall man had come, but to think that we should see him and be in the same room with him!"

When he had prayed, the priest read from a roll of the Shinshu scripture which he had taken reverently from a box and a succession of wrappings. Afterwards he preached from a "text," continuing, of course, to kneel as we did. A flickering light fell upon us from a lamp hanging from a beam. The room was pervaded with incense from an iron censer which the farmer gently swung. The worshippers told their beads, and in intervals between the priest's sentences I heard the murmur of fervent prayer. The priest preached his sermon with his eyes shut, and I could watch him narrowly. It is not so often that one sees an old man with a sweet face. But there was sweetness in both the face and voice of this priest. He spoke slowly and clearly, sometimes pausing for a little between his sentences as if for better inspiration, as a Quaker will sometimes do in speaking at meeting. His tones were no higher than could be heard clearly in the room. There was nothing of the exhorter in this man. His talk did not sound like preaching at all. It was like kind, friendly talk at the fireside at a solemn time. "Faith, prayer, morality: these alone are necessary," was the burden of the simple address. "We have faith by divine providence; out of our thanksgiving comes prayer, and we cannot but be good." It was plain that the old women loved their priest. In the front of the congregation were three crones gnarled in hands and face. When the sermon of an hour or so came to an end they spoke quaveringly of the mercy of Buddha to them, and of their own feebleness to do well. The old priest gently offered them comfort and counsel.

After the service, in the light of the priest's paper lantern, I made my way along the road to the temple. At length I found myself mounting the lichened stone steps to the great closed gates. The priest drew the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined in detail.

About half-past four in the morning I was awakened by the booming of the temple bell. It is the sound which of all delights in the Far East is most memorable. I got up, and, following the example of my host, had a bath in the open, and dressed.

Then I was lighted along passages into the public part of the temple. The priest with an acolyte began service at the middle altar. Afterwards he proceeded to a side altar. At one stage of the service he chanted a hymn which ran something like this:

From the virtues and the mercies of divine providence we get faith, the worth of which is boundless.

The ice of petty care and trouble which froze our hearts is melted.

It has become the water of divine illumination, bearing us on to peace.

The more care and trouble, the greater the illumination and the reward.

I knelt on the outside of the congregational group. It was cold as the great doors were slid open from time to time and the kneeling figures grew in number to about forty. Day broke and a few sparrows twittered by the time the first part of the service was over.

The priest then took up his lamp and low table, and, coming without the altar rail, knelt down in the midst of the congregation. In this familiar relation with his people he delivered a homily in a conversational tone. Buddha was to mankind as a father to his children, he said. If a man did bad things but repented, his father would be more delighted than if he got rich. The way of serving Buddha was to feel his love. To ask of the rich or of a master was supplication, but we did not need to supplicate Buddha. Our love of Buddha and his love for us would become one thing. Carelessness, an evil spirit, doubt: these were the enemies. Gold was beautiful to look at, but if the gold stuck in one's eyes so that one could not see, how then? The true essence of belief was the abandonment of ourselves to divine providence.

So the speaker went on, pressing home his thoughts with anecdote or legend. There was the tale of a woman whose character benefited when her husband became a leper. Another story was of an injured lizard which was fed for many days by its mate. We were also told of a mischievous fellow who tried to anger a believer. The ne'er-do-weel went to the man's house and called him a liar. The believer thanked him for his faithful dealing, and said that it might be true that he was a liar. He would be glad, he said, to be given further advice after his wife had warmed water in order that his visitor might wash his feet. "The mind of the vagabond was thereupon changed."

The rays of light from the lamp illumined the large Buddha-like shaven head and mild countenance of the priest and the labour-worn faces of his flock around him. Two weatherbeaten men curiously resembled Highland elders. I saw that they, an old woman and a young mother with a child tied on her back kept their eyes fixed on the preacher. It was plain that in the service they found strength for the day.

I was in a reverie when the priest ended his talk. To my embarrassment he begged me to come with him within the altar rail and speak to the people. I had been quickened to such a degree by the experience of the previous night and by this service at dawn that I stood up at once. But there seemed to be not one word at my call, and my knees knocked because of cold and shyness. I grasped the chilly brass altar rail, and, as I met the gaze of friendly, sun-tanned, care-rutted alien faces, which yet had the look of "kent folk," I marvellously found sentence following sentence. What I said matters nothing. What I felt was the unity of all religion, my veneration for this rare priest, a sense of kinship with these worshippers of another race and faith, and a realisation of the elemental things which lie at the basis of international understanding. Several old men and women came up to me and bowed and made little speeches of kindness and cordiality. Six was striking on a clock in the priest's house as the doors of the temple were slid open, the great cryptomeria[12] which guard the village fane stood forth augustly in the morning light, and the congregation went out to its labour.

As I knelt at breakfast and ate my rice and pickles and drank my miso soup,[13] the priest, after the manner of a Japanese with an honoured guest, did not take food but waited upon me. He asked if the English clergy wore a costume which marked them off from the people. He liked the way of some of our preachers who wore ordinary clothes and eschewed the title of "reverend." He was also taken by the idea of the Quaker meeting at which there is silence until someone feels he has a message to utter. As to the future of Buddhism, he deeply regretted to say that many priests were a generation behind the age. If the priests were "more democratic, better educated and more truly religious," then they might be able to keep hold of young men. He knew of one priest in Tokyo who had a dormitory for university students.

The priest presented his wife, a kindly woman full of character. "This is my wife," he said; "please teach her." I spoke of a kind of kindergarten which I had learnt had been conducted at the temple for five years. "We merely play with the children," she said. "I had the plan of it from the kindergarten of a missionary," her husband added. The priest and his wife were kneeling side by side in the still temple-room looking out on their restful garden. Behind them was a screen the inscription on which might be translated, "We are to be thankful for our environment; we are to become content quite naturally by the gracious influence of the universe and by the strength of our own will."

I could learn nothing from the priest concerning several helpful organisations which I had heard that the villagers owed to his influence and exertions. But the manager of the village agricultural association told me that for a quarter of a century Otera San (Mr. Temple) had superintended the education of the young people, that under his guidance the village had a seven years' old co-operative credit and selling society, 294 families belonged to a poultry society, 320 men and women gathered to study the doctrines of Ninomiya (whom we in the West know from a little book by a late Japanese Ambassador in London, called For His People), and the young men's association performed its discipline at half-past five in the morning in the winter and at four o'clock in the summer.

To Rouse the Village you must first rouse the Priest

(Autograph of Otera-San)

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Exchange in 1916; in 1921 the yen is worth 2s. 8d.

[10] The chapters in this section are based on notes of several visits paid to Aichi, which is in the middle of Japan, and agriculturally and socially one of the most interesting of the prefectures. It is three prefectures distant from Tokyo.

[11] Throughout this book an attempt has been made to preserve in translation something of the character of the Japanese phraseology.

[12] Cryptomeria japonica, or in Japanese, sugi, allied to the sequoia, yew and cypress.

[13] Miso, bean paste.

Je ne propose rien, je n'impose rien, j'expose.-De la liberté du travail

He had been through Tokyo University, but his hands were rough with the work of the rice fields. "I resent the fact that a farmer is considered to be socially inferior to a townsman," he said. "I am going to show that the income of a farmer who is diligent and skilful may equal that of a Minister of State. I also propose to build a fine house, not out of vanity, but in order to show that an honest farmer can do as well for himself as a townsman."

When I asked the speaker to tell me something about himself he went on: "My father was a follower of a pupil of the great Ninomiya. Schools of frugal living and high ideals were common in the Tokugawa period.[14] The object sought was the education of heart and spirit. At night when I was in bed my father used to kneel by me,[15] his eldest son, and say, 'When you grow big you must become a great man and distinguish our family name.' This instruction was given to me repeatedly and it went deeply into my heart."

"When I became a young man," he continued, "I had two friends. We made promises to each other. One said, 'I will become the greatest scholar in Japan.' The second said, 'I will become the greatest statesman.' The third, myself, said, 'I will be the greatest rice grower in this country.' If we all succeeded we were to build beautiful houses and invite each other to them.

I did not graduate at the University because, by the entreaty of my father, when I reached twenty-one, I left Tokyo in order to become a practical farmer. It is twenty-one years since I began farming. I consulted with skilful agriculturists and then I saw my way to make a plan. Rice in my native place is inferior. I improved it for three or four years. I gained the first gold prize at the prefectural show. Some years later I obtained the first prize at the exhibition which was held by five prefectures together. Later still I received the first prize at the exhibition for eighteen prefectures, also the first prize at the exhibition of the National Agricultural Association. Further, I was appointed a judge of rice and travelled about.

"I consumed a great deal of time in doing this public work. One day I was made to think. A collector for a charity said in my hearing that he expected larger subscriptions from practical men because though public men were esteemed by society their economic power was small. I at once resolved that before doing any more public work I should put myself in a sound financial position.

"As I thought over the matter it seemed to me that it was not to be expected that a public man should be able to do his really best work if his financial position were not sound. Again, could he have lasting influence with people in practical affairs if his own practical affairs were not in good order?[16] At any rate I determined not to go out to any more exhibitions or lectures except those which were remunerative, and I resolved to devote myself as my first duty to my farming.

"I set to work and managed my land, 3 chō (a chō is 2? acres), so as to obtain the gross income of an M.P. [The reader could scarcely have a more striking illustration of the intensity with which Japanese land is cultivated- the average area is under 3 acres per family.] I am now working about 4 chō (10 acres). Later on I am going to farm 7 chō (15? acres) and from that I am expecting the income of a Minister.[17] I have already collected the materials for my villa, for I am approaching my goal. One of my two friends, who is also forty years of age, is a distinguished chemist in the Imperial Agricultural College. My other friend, who is forty-four, is Secretary of the Korean Government."

The indomitable experimenter swallowed another cupful of tea and declared that "in order to be prosperous, all the members of the family must work." All the members of his family did work. His wife was strong and there were five healthy children. He used the ordinary farm implements and his livestock consisted of only a horse and a few hens. The home farm was five miles from the station. The outlying farms were scattered in five villages-"there are always spendthrift lazy fellows willing to sell their land." "I have a firm belief," the speaker added complacently, "that agriculture is the most honest, the most sincere, the most interesting, the most secure and the most profitable calling."

"Very often," he went on, "good people are not sufficiently precautious"-I give the excellent word coined by my interpreter. "They spend for the public good, and in the end they are left poor. Renowned, rich families have come to a miserable condition by such action. What they have done may have been good. But they are reduced to pauperism and they are laughed at by many persons. People jeer that they pretended to do good, yet they could not do good to themselves. If all people who work for the public benefit are laughed at at last-and many are-it will come to be thought that to work for the public benefit is not good. Therefore I think that the man who would work for the public good must be careful in his own affairs. He must not be a poor man if he is to help public business. However philanthropic he may be, if his financial position is not strong he cannot go on long. He will be stopped on his good way. He cannot help other people. Therefore I am now gathering wealth for strengthening my financial position as a means to attain the higher end."

As the speaker awaited my judgment on his career, I ventured to suggest that gifts, qualities and inspiration which made a man a public man did not necessarily equip him for being a great success in business life. The question was, perhaps, whether the type of man who was pre-eminently successful in promoting his own pecuniary interests was necessarily the best type of public man. Was the average character equal to the strain of many years of concentration on money-making to the exclusion of public interests? When men emerged from the sphere of concentrated money-making, were they worth so very much as public men? Might not the values of things have altered a little for them? Might it not have a shrivelling effect on the heart to resist applications which must be refused when the strengthening of one's financial position was regarded as the chief object in life?

At this point our host, Mr. Yamasaki, the respected principal of the big agricultural school of the prefecture and a well-known rural author and speaker, broke in with the ejaculation, "He has got a needle in your head"-the Japanese equivalent for "touching the spot"-and continued: "Surely he is right who through his life offers freely what he may have as to members of his own family. I give away many pamphlets and I have guests. I could save in these directions. But I am not doing it. I am content if I can support my family. I gave a savings book to each of my five children. When the boy becomes twenty-one he will have enough to finish at the university or start as a small merchant so as not to be a parasite. My girls will be provided with enough to furnish the costs of modest marriage. If I did more I might perhaps become greedy."

I cannot say that the farmer who had so kindly outlined his life's programme was impressed either by our host's views or by mine, but he told us that he now spent 5 per cent. of his income on public purposes, and that 150 yen received for giving lectures was spent on books and recreation "for enlarging mind and heart." He happened to mention that, though his family was of the Zen sect of Buddhism, he was a Shintoist. It is difficult to believe that a genuine Buddhist could have evolved such a life scheme. There is certainly a Shinto symbolism in his plan of tree planting before his house. He has set there, in the order shown, eleven pines which he named as marked:

Plan of the Eleven Symbolic Trees which the Farmer Planted outside his House and the Evils (represented by Arrows) from which they are Shielding Him

The virtues inscribed on this plan are the guardians of the farmer and his family, which is represented in the middle of it. The words behind the arrows represent the character of the attacks to which the farmer conceives himself and his family to be exposed. Courage is imagined as going before and Wisdom as protecting the rear.

The talk turned to some advice which had been given to farmers to lay out "economic gardens." They were to plant no trees but fruit trees. To this an old farmer of our company replied: "If you are too economical your children will become mercenary. Some families were too economical and cut down beautiful trees, planting instead economical ones. Those families I have seen come to an evil end. The man who exercises rigid economy may be a good man, but his children can know little of his real motives and must be wrongly influenced by his conduct." We all agreed that there was nowadays too much talk about money-making in rural Japan. "Even I," laughed the owner of the symbolic trees, "planted not persimmons but pines."

FOOTNOTES:

[14] That is, before the Revolution of half a century ago, when the Tokugawa Shogun resigned his powers to the Emperor.

[15] The Japanese bed, futon, consists of a soft mattress of cotton wool, two or three inches thick. It is spread on the floor, which itself consists of mats of almost the same thickness, 6 ft. long by 3 ft. wide.

[16] Most of the really big men of Australia have left political life in comparatively impoverished circumstances. Not only did Sir Henry Parkes die poor. Sir George Reid took the High Commissionership in London; Sir Graham Berry was provided with a small annuity; Sir George Dibbs was made the manager of a State savings bank; Sir Edmund Barton was lifted to the High Court Bench.-Times, January 11, 1921.

To the last day of his life, executions were levied in his house.-Rosebery on Pitt.

[17] For his figures see Appendix I.

I should be heartily sorry if there were no signs of partiality. On the other hand, there is, I trust, no importunate advocacy or tedious assentation.-Morley

"The alarum clocks for waking us at four o'clock in the summer and five in the winter"-it was the chairman of a village Early-Rising Society who was speaking to me-are placed at the houses of the secretaries, and each member is in turn a secretary. The duty of a secretary, when the alarum clock strikes, is to get up and visit the houses of all the members allotted to him and to shout for the young men until they answer. Each member on rising walks to the house of the secretary of his division and writes his name on the record of attendances. Then the member goes to the shrine, where we fence and wrestle for a time. At first we thought that if we fenced and wrestled early in the morning we should be tired for our work, but we found that it was not so.

"Sometimes a clock gets damaged and does not ring, so a few of us may be getting up later that morning. Or a man becomes afraid of sleeping too late, fears his clock is wrong, and gets up at 3 o'clock and then goes off to waken members. Hence complaints. Some cunning fellows ask their friends or brothers to write down for them their names on the list of attendances. But we find out their deceit by their handwriting. It is very difficult to form the habit of early rising, because members are not expected to report at the secretaries' houses on a rainy day. As there is no control over them that day, they are easy in their minds and sleep on. Thus they break the habit of early rising that they are forming. Getting up early is necessary not only because it is good to begin work early but because early rising overcomes the habit of gadding about at night which is customary in many villages.

"You may say that all this is a great deal to ask of young men," the chairman continued. "But if you ask from them comfortable practices only, how can you expect from them a remarkable result? Young men should ponder this and be willing to exert themselves." Later on it was explained to me that it had been found that it took a great deal of time for the secretaries to call up all the members in the morning by shouting to them, "so the secretary obtained bugles; but even the bugles were not heard everywhere, so they were changed to drums, and now five drums go round our village every morning."

In every village of Japan there is a young men's association, which is by no means to be confounded with the world-encircling Y.M.C.A.[18] The village Y.M.A. of Japan is an institution of some antiquity and it has nothing whatever to do with religious effort. One day, when I was staying in a rural district, I was invited to a remoter part in order to see something of the discipline that the members of a group of young men's associations were imposing on themselves. The members of this group of Y.M.A. belonged to the branches established in a village of nineteen aza, that is hamlets. This fact, with the further fact that the village containing the nineteen aza had four elementary schools and one higher school, will show that a Japanese village may be much larger than a Western one.

Nearly six hundred young men were in the parade. They were dressed exactly alike in the tight blue calico trousers and kimono of jacket length which the Japanese farmer ordinarily wears. Each man had the usual obi (waist scarf) tied round his kimono, and in the obi was thrust the small cotton towel which Japanese carry with them everywhere. The young men wore puttees, waraji (straw sandals) and caps. It is only of late that the Japanese worker has taken to wearing head-gear, or at any rate head-gear other than he could contrive with his towel. The physical condition of the young fellows was good and their evolutions with dummy "rifles" were smart and skilful. The paraders seemed lost in their desire to do their best for their credit's sake and their own good. After the first movements, the "troops" with "rifles" held as if there were bayonets at the end, made rushes with loud cries. The secret of this somewhat surprising display far away in the heart of Japan was that the work of the young men had been done under the direction of two fit, be-medalled army surgeons, reserve officers, who were present in order to answer my questions.

Every morning half an hour before sunrise these Y.M.A. members assemble in the grounds of their Shinto shrine or of their school, where they exercise until the sun shows itself. In the evenings after work they also fence, wrestle, lift weights and develop their wrists. This wrist development is done by two youths grasping a pole, one at either end, and then trying to rotate it one against the other.

The members endeavour to cultivate their minds as well as their bodies, and they also observe in their dress a self-denying ordinance. On ceremonial occasions they permit themselves to wear a full-length kimono and the hakama or divided skirt, but they deny themselves the third article of a Japanese man's full dress, the haori or silk overcoat. An effort is also made to dispense with the use of "luxurious" geta (the national wooden pattens). [19]

The object of all this varied discipline is to develop physique, self-control, self-respect and what the Japanese call the spirit of association, or, as we might say, good fellowship. The spirit of association is needed in order to promote greater administrative, educational and social efficiency. The modern Japanese village is no longer an historical but a political unit which covers a considerable district. It is, as I have explained, a combination of clusters of aza (hamlets). Each of these aza has its local sentiment, and this local sentiment when untouched by outside influences tends to become selfish, narrow and prejudiced. If, however, anything is to be done in the development of rural life there must be co-operation between aza for all sorts of objects.

I was assured that in addition to the development of physique, moral and the spirit of association, there was to be seen, under the influence of the Y.M.A., a development of good manners and mental nimbleness. A special result of early rising and discipline in one area had been that "the habit of spending evening hours idly has died away, immorality has diminished, singing loudly and foolishly and boasting oneself have disappeared, while punctuality and respect for old age have increased." I was even assured that parents-whom no true Japanese would ever dream of attempting to reform at first hand-parents, I say, moved by the physical and mental advance in their sons, have "begun to practise greater punctuality."

After the drilling was over I was taken to a large elementary school and was called upon to address the young men, who were kneeling in perfect files. Mr. Yamasaki followed me and told the youths that Japanese were not so tall as they might be, and that therefore their physique "must be continuously developed." Nor were rural conditions all they should be from a moral point of view. Therefore, "every desire which interferes with the development of your health or morality must be overcome."

Let me speak of another village. It numbers a thousand families and it rises in the morning and goes to bed at night by the sound of the bugle. It has five public baths and a notice-board of news "to enlarge people's ideas." The shopkeepers are said to "work very diligently, so things are cheaper." The education of such of the young men as are exempted from military service is continued on Saturday evenings for four years. The Y.M.A., in addition to the military discipline, fencing, wrestling, weight-lifting and pole-twisting of which I have spoken, exercises itself in handwriting-which many Japanese practise as an art during their whole lifetime-and in composing the conventional short poem. I was gravely informed that "the custom of spending money on sweet-stuff is decreasing." What this really means is that the young men were not frequenting the sweet-stuff shops, which are staffed by girls who are in many cases a greater temptation than the sweets. The worthy members of this association had "burnt their geta."

In some places Y.M.A. members give their labour when a school teacher or a fellow member is building his house, or they do repairs at the school. Bicycle excursions are made to neighbouring villages in order to participate in inter-Y.M.A. debates, or to study vegetable raising, fruit culture or poultry keeping. The Japanese are much given to "taking trips," and the special training which they receive at school in making notes and plans results in everybody having a notebook and being able to sketch a rough route-plan for personal use, or for a stranger who may ask his way.

Not a few associations favour members cutting each other's hair once a fortnight, thus at one and the same time saving money and curbing vanity. Several Y.M.A.s publish cyclostyled monthlies. Others minutely investigate the economic condition of their villages. Some Y.M.A.s provide public "complaint boxes," and have boards up asking for friendly help for soldiers billeted in the district. One association has issued instructions to its members that they are not to ride when in charge of ox-drawn carts. The reason is that the ox is only partially under control and may injure a pedestrian-unwittingly, I am sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of saké.

I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined and rewarded"-a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s "old people are respected and comforted." More than one association has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good, to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."

One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation with a geisha shall be fined 20 yen. There is even a village in which the young men's association and the young women's association have united to issue a regulation providing that at night time members, in order that their doings shall be public, shall carry lanterns painted with the ideographs of their societies. [20]

With regard to the young women's associations, I found that one of them studied domestic matters and good manners, "asking questions and receiving answers." The motto of the organisation was "Good Wives and Good Mothers." A member, this Society believes, should be "polite, gentle and warm-hearted, but with a strong will inside and able to meet difficulties." Her hairdressing and clothes "should not be luxurious," and she "must not run after fashions." She must "respect Buddha and abandon sweet-eating," for "taking food between meals is bad for your health, for economy and for your posterity."

Let us now hear something of Societies for the Cultivation of Rice by Schoolboys. The lads become responsible for the cultivation of a tan of their family land, or of a small paddy, and they work it themselves with the help of such advice as the schoolmaster may give them. (The cultivation of a tan of a paddy, a quarter of an acre, is supposed to need in a year about twenty-one days' labour of a man working from sunrise to sunset.) The report of one boy to which I turned in a collection of reports by members of a rice-cultivation society showed that he was between fourteen and fifteen. His diary of work and observations was as follows:

June 5.-4 to of herring applied.

June 7.-Locusts and other insects arrive.[21]

June 20.-153 clumps of rice transplanted from the seed bed.[22]

July 11.-Rice cultivated and 4 to of herring applied.

July 27.-First weeding.

Aug. 6.-Second weeding.

Aug. 8.-Locusts again.

Aug. 11.-Third weeding.

Sept. 10.-All ears shot.

Oct. 10.-Some plants suffering from bacillus.

It was further noted that the soil was sandy, that cold spring water was percolating through the bottom of the paddy field, that the aeration of the soil was bad and that some plants were laid by wind. The young farmer appended to his report an excellent plan. He received marks as follows: Method of planting, 15; levelling, 20; provision against insects, 5; general attention, 25; total, 65. Some boys got as many as 99 marks.

A word concerning a Village Association for Promoting Morality. One of the things it does is to assemble yearly the whole population, old and young, "in order to get friendly." The police meanwhile keep an eye open for strangers who might take it into their heads to visit the village on that day and help themselves from the houses. I may quote three poems in rough translations from a speech made by a priest at the annual meeting:

The legs of a horse, the rudder of a boat, the pin of a fan, and the sincerity of a man.

Let your heart be pure and true and you need not pray for the protection of the gods.

The bride brings many things with her to her new home, but one thing more, the spirit of sincerity, will not encumber her.

After these varied accounts of rural merit, I could not but listen with attention to a tale of village gamblers, the offence of gambling having been "introduced by the excavators on the new railway." First the headman fined a dozen young men. Then he made a raid and found among the village sinners several members of his own council. "The salaried officials were at a loss to know what to do, and proposed to resign. But the headman brought the prisoners together before the whole body of officials. He spoke of the sufferings of the troops in Manchuria and the heroic deaths among them. (It was the time of the Russian war.) 'Lest your offences should come to be known by our soldiers and discourage them,' said the headman, 'I cannot but overlook your conduct.' It is thought that gambling practically ceased from that time."

Local officials have a way of making the most of historic events in order to touch the imagination of their villagers. Many original undertakings were begun, for example, under the inspiration of the Coronation. One village set about raising a fund by a system of taxation under which inhabitants contribute according to the following tariff:

Birth of a child, 10 sen (that is, 2? d. or 5 cents).

Wedding, 15 sen.

Adoption, 15 sen.

Graduation from the primary school, 10 sen; advanced school, 20 sen.

Teacher or official on appointment, 2 per cent. of salary; when salary is increased, 10 per cent. of increase.

When an official receives a prize of money from his superior, 5 per cent.

Every villager to pay every quarter, 1 sen.

On the basis of this assessment it is expected that fifty-seven years after the Coronation such a sum will have been accumulated as will enable the villagers to live rate free. Some villages have thanksgiving associations in connection with Shinto shrines. Aged villagers are "respected by being blessed before the shrine and by being given a present." Worthy villagers who are not aged "receive prizes and honour."

More than once when I went to a village I was welcomed first by a parade of the Y.M.A., then by the school children in rows, and finally in the school grounds by two lines of venerable members of an Ex-Public Servants' Association. The object of an E.P.S.A. is to strengthen the hands of the present officials and to give honour to their predecessors. A headman explained to me: "If ex-officials fell into poverty or lacked public respect, people would not be inclined to work for the public good. A former clerk in the village office whom everybody had forgotten was working as a labourer. But as a member of the association he was seen to be treated with honour, so the children were impressed. The funeral of such a man is apt to be lonely, but when this man died all the members of the association attended his funeral in ceremonial dress and offered some money to his memory. [23] His honour is great and the villagers say, 'We may well work for the public benefit.'"

Every village in Japan has a Village Agricultural Association. One V.A.A., which belongs to a village of less than 6,000 people, sees the fruit of its labours in the existence of "322 good manure houses." The gift of a plan and the grant of a yen had prompted the building of most of them. Then the organisation incites its members to cement the ground below their dwellings. This is not so much for the benefit of the farmer and his family as for the welfare of their silkworms. A fly harmful to silkworms winters in the soil, but it cannot find a resting-place in concrete.

A word may also be said about the way in which silkworm rearers have been induced by the V.A.A. to keep the same breed of caterpillar, so facilitating bulking of cocoons at the association's co-operative sales. A small library of silkworm-culture books has been started in the village, and there is a special pamphlet for young men which they are urged to keep in "their pockets and to study ten minutes each day." A general library has 2,400 volumes divided into eight circulating libraries. The cost of the building which provides the library in chief, a meeting hall and also a storehouse for cocoons has been defrayed by the commissions charged for the co-operative sale of cocoons.

Again, there used to be no cattle in the village, but now, thanks to the purchase of young animals by the association, and thanks to village shows, there are 103.

There is a competition to get the biggest yield of rice, and there is also "an exhibition of crops." This exhibition incidentally aims at ending trouble between landlord and tenants due to complaints of the inferiority of the rice brought in as rent. (Paddy-field rent is invariably paid in rice.) These complaints are more directly dealt with by the V.A.A. arbitrating between landlords and tenants who are at issue. In addition to rice crop and cattle shows in the village, there is a yearly exhibition of the products of secondary industries, such as mats, sandals and hats.

The V.A.A. is also working to secure the planting of hill-side waste. Some 300,000 tree seedlings have been distributed to members of the Y.M.A., who "grow them on," and, after examination and criticism, plant them out. I must not omit to speak of the V.A.A.s' distribution of moral and economic diaries of the type already referred to. The villagers, in the spirit of boy-scoutism, are "advised to do one good thing in a day." I saw several of these diaries, well thumbed by their authors after having been laboured at for a year. One young farmer noted down on the space for January 2 that he said his prayers and then went daikon[24] pulling, and that daikon pulling (like our mangold pulling) is a cold job.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] There are, however, 11,000 members of Y.M.C.A. in Japan. There is also a Y.W.C.A. with a considerable membership.

[19] See Appendix II.

[20] For official action in regard to the Y.M.A.s, see later.

[21] The damage done by insects is estimated at 10 million yen a year. In some parts locusts are roasted and eaten.

[22] For an account of the processes of rice cultivation, see Chapter IX.

[23] It is the practical Japanese custom to make a gift of money to a family on the occasion of a death. The Emperor makes a present to the family of a deceased statesman.

[24] The giant white radish which reaches 2 or 3 ft. in length and 3 in. or more in diameter. There is also a correspondingly large turnip-shaped sort.