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the views of Japan and America concerning "the grand passion "-well, there is well, there is no such thing as "the grand passion" in the Japanese conception. I heard an American traveler, in addressing a Japanese normal school, allude to the public school teacher as "the American sweetheart." The interpreter had no word with which to translate the phrase, because the character and the word alike do not exist in Japan; so he quoted it bodily, since the expression was unintel

Entrance into school life has been like a voyage to the happy isles for the quiet little Japanese girls. Education has opened up a new world, socially as well as intellectually. It would not be easy to find anywhese happier companies of young women than the Japanese girl students. The smiling faces and merry disposition of the young women of the Island Empire have always been famous. On the school campus and in the dormitories this has developed a depth and

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ligible in Japanese. In passing, it is worthy of mention that all Japanese students, male and female, above a certain grade are obliged to study English, and it is the bête noire of modern education. It is said that the girls more readily master this perplexing tongue than their brothers. I once heard a Tokyo college professor say that this is because women have less brains than men, language study being a purely imitative, monkey-like art. To every one's amazement, a Japanese man arose and roundly dissented, vigorously championing woman's cause. Thus has Japan advanced.

expansion unknown before. Quite understandable were the tears of a girl whom I saw come to take leave of her teachers and school, as she was about to be married. Among themselves the students have jolly times. As yet, the college yells and college songs have not penetrated to this land, and surreptitious midnight feasts are unknown. These docile, ceremonious little ladies never think of breaking over rules, although their brothers do not hesitate to go on "strike " against an unpopular teacher. The formality of the relations between teacher and pupils would astonish breezy

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The Japanese school-girl wears a cos- wooden pillow, gives way in the case of tume all her own. It may be seen in students to the simple American pompaevery village in the Empire, but most dour, which does not take hours to commonly on the streets of Tokyo, which arrange, as does the former fashion. is now the greatest student center in the This modern coiffure is coming into world. Even the smallest girls attend- vogue among all classes of women. The ing the government primary schools wear school-girls wear wooden clogs, or geta, it. This uniform has as its distinguish- held in place by a thong passing between ing feature a dark red or purple hakama, the great toe and the second toe. Short or skirt, worn outside the regulation stockings, called tabi, with a compartkimono. The latter is always of quiet ment for the great toe, complete the footcolors, the gay gowns being worn only by wear. Clogs, sandals, or shoes are never little children and dancing-girls. The worn indoors, with the result that Jappopular idea in the West that the Japanese homes and schools are the cleananese dress in bright colors arises from est in the world. The geta-boxes are

even more necessary at the entrance to a school than are hat-racks in America. Of course the girls do not wear hats. The student carries her books, as all hand packages in Japan are carried, wrapped up in a furoshiki, which is a large square of colored cloth.

education to a Japanese girl in a higher school will seem ridiculously small to Americans, averaging, as it does, six or seven dollars a month for tuition, board, lodging, books, and incidentals.

Despite the newness of most of the girls' schools, they are surprisingly well

Dormitory life for the Japanese girl is equipped. Their apparatus is extensive.

the "simple life" indeed.

When a visitor is shown into one of the small, low-ceiled rooms which two or more girls occupy, he sees nothing but the mats, each six feet by three feet, which constitute the floor, and a small table about ten inches high and three feet square, holding books and inkstone and brush. Perhaps on the walls are a few unframed American pictures. That is all-no bed, no chairs, no bureau, no mirrors. The problem of housekeeping is here reduced to a minimum. Slide open the wall at one end of the room, however, and a closet will be disclosed containing the girls' few articles of raiment (styles do not change in Japan so far as a Westerner can see, though the initiated declare otherwise) and the thick quilts, or futons, which, with a small round hard pillow for each girl, constitute the bedding.

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AN IMPROMPTU CHARADE
Better than hara-kiri is it to live for one's country," counsels
the mother, to a patriot arrested in the act of self-destruction
Hiroshima Girls' School

More than this the girls do not know nor desire nor need. They sit on the floor, sleep on the floor, and eat from low tables or trays placed on the floor. Some of the school dining-rooms now use chairs, for a reason which will presently be explained. The principal articles of diet are rice and fish, eaten, of course, with chop-sticks. Each girl has her chop-stick box, as an American would have a napkin ring. Adjoining the kitchen is the lavatory, with its rows of individual basins and towels. Near by is the big tub where the girls, a dozen at a time, enjoy the daily hot bath which is a national institution. The expense of an

their furnishings modern, and their lighting and ventilation an improvement upon even the best Japanese homes. One of the appurtenances which the government department of hygiene requires in every school, and to which it takes Americans a long time to become accustomed in an institution for young women, is a huge and hideous receptacle labeled "spit-box," which adorns every corridor and hallway.

Especially well equipped is the Woman's University at Tokyo, which, Tokyo, which, although only seven years old, yet has an enrollment of twelve hundred students. This most progressive of Japanese educational institutions for women boasts branches to be found in few women's colleges elsewhere

A SCHOOL-GIRL CHARADE
A fugitive queen and her two children in the snow
Hiroshima Girls' School

gardening and chicken-raising, for in-
stance, and practical kitchen classes
both in "foreign style" and the Japa-
nese fashion. Although so young, the
Woman's University has an alert alumni
association, which has erected the
"Cherry and Maple Leaf Building " for
administrative, business, and social pur-
poses. It publishes a weekly newspaper,
and the businesslike manner in which a
pretty young Japanese miss interviewed

the visitors from America upon current topics was quite typical of New Japan. The phenomenal growth of this largest institution of its kind in Japan is due largely to the fact that the most eminent men and women in the Empire are its supporters, the Empress herself having made a personal gift toward its establishment.

The oldest schools for girls, and probably the most thorough, are those established by missionaries. Some of these are thirty years old, and they have furnished many or most of the teachers for the newer government schools. They are to be found in all sections of the country, and their teachers are noble representatives of America's best.

The course of study which the Japanese student must pursue is different in important particulars from that known to the American girl. She gets no Greek or Latin, having instead to study Chinese, with its countless ideographs. These are more interesting to talk about than to study. Thus, as ungallant male students inform you with a chuckle, the character which represents a house with one woman in it means peace, the same character with two women in it means discord! Japanese history and literature, general history, mathematics, including the difficult abacus or counting-slate, physiology, geography, philosophy, psychology, ethics, zoology, botany, physics, domestic science, sewing, drawing, music, and gymnastics, all belong in the ordinary curriculum.

In addition, the girls must learn the polite accomplishments which characterize a Japanese lady. There is a prescribed rule for every detail of social intercourse. The caller is greeted with three profound bows and certain complimentary formulas. The guest returns

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these in kind-somehow, with all this bowing in close proximity, heads never crack, although I have often looked for it in terror, when it seemed inevitable. How, even with a college education, the Japanese women can regulate her bows, and the length of time she remains bent, to accord with that of the person whom she is greeting, is impossible for the Western mind to understand. Certainly she peeps, but you cannot catch her at it. The simple matter of handing a zabiton, or flat cushion, for the guest to sit upon is a delicate one of certain folds, and a bow at prescribed paces, and an extending of the article with certain crooks of the elbow. Slow and painful, albeit graceful, is the offering of writing materials to a guest. For fifteen minutes I watched a picturesque old Samurai, who looked as if he had just stepped out of an ancient print, teaching the intricacies of this to a class of girls; and every thumb had to be in a certain place, and literally every movement of the hands and body was a point of regulation.

When it comes to the weightier matters of the law, like ceremonial tea, then the class in Japanese etiquette realizes the seriousness of life. To describe ceremonial tea (which, after all, is only a

coarse bowl of bitter stuff, not to be drunk twice if avoidable) would require an article in itself. The performance lasts for hours, and my own knees were groaning after the first ten minutes. The exceeding solemnity of it all-you may smile at a funeral, but not at ceremonial tea-from the bringing into the room of the special set of utensils, of which a stiff stirrer, in shape like a shaving-brush, is the most interesting-until the last vestige of the ceremony has been removed and the last bow has been made, would drive an American girl into nervous prostration or hysteria.

Writing poetry is a kindred study that differs from anything known to the American school-girl. In Japan, poets are made, not born. The chirography, which is executed upon a long strip of heavy paper of a prescribed kind, is counted somewhat more important than the sentiment, originality being at a discount. There are no considerations of rhyme to bother the student. Japanese poetry has from the beginning ordinarily consisted of alternate lines of five and seven syllables, with an additional seven syllables at the end; and thirty-one syllables is the usual length of the ode, which is generally addressed to some phase of

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