The Foundations of Japan

partiality. On the other hand, there is, I trust, n

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 writ

others 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 tha

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

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 bran

w 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 go

e they exercise until the sun shows itself. In the evenings after work they also fence, wrestle, lift weights and develop their wrists

ccasions 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

ative, 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 loc

ng 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 ha

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

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 conventi

lages 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 w

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 gentlenes

ing 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 go

in which the young men's association and the young women's association have united to issue a regulation providing that at night

ves 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

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 s

to of herr

and other inse

f rice transplanted f

tivated and 4 to

.-First

-Second

-Locust

.-Third

.-All ea

lants suffering

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 fo

ung, "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

er of a boat, the pin of a fa

rue and you need not pray fo

her new home, but one thing more, the s

ng 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 Manchur

ers. Many original undertakings were begun, for example, under the inspiration of the Coronation. One village set

10 sen (that is,

ng, 1

ion,

imary school, 10 sen;

2 per cent. of salary; when salary i

s a prize of money from

to pay every

nable the villagers to live rate free. Some villages have thanksgiving associations in connection with Shinto shrines. Aged villagers are

nour 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 trea

nure 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 i

f 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 divid

now, thanks to the purchase of young animals by the as

plaints 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 landlo

o 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 b

TNO

of Y.M.C.A. in Japan. There is also a

e Appen

tion in regard to th

imated at 10 million yen a year. In so

he processes of rice cul

f money to a family on the occasion of a death. The Emper

t. in length and 3 in. or more in diameter. There