TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK
Kumamoto, June, 1894.
Dear Hendrick,— ... We were chatting last time about the morality of business. Now let me tell you how the question strikes an intelligent Japanese student.
“Sir, what was your opinion when you first came to our country about the old-fashioned Japanese? Please be frank with me.”
“You mean the old men, who still preserve the old customs and courtesy,—men like Mr. Akizuki, the Chinese teacher?”
“Yes.”
“I think they were much better men than the Japanese of to-day. They seemed to me like the ideals of their own gods realized. They seemed to me all that was good and noble.”
“And do you still think as well of them?”
“I think better of them, if anything. The more I see the Japanese of the new generation, the more I admire the men of the old.”