“[TO TEND THESE TREES BECAME A PRIVILEGE]”
After luncheon was finished, I assisted at the planting of two small fir-trees just in front of the building, by dropping into the hole the first two or three mattocks full of earth. We were then conducted to the play-ground near by, where the whole school was drawn up in the form of a hollow square. Here, from one end of the square, I spoke to the children for not more than ten minutes, and President Harada interpreted; after which the head-master made a characteristically poetical response by way of thanks,—saying that the memory of the visit and the impression of the words spoken would be evergreen, like the tree which had been planted, and expressing the wish that the future long lives of both their guests might be symbolised by the life of the tree. [To tend these trees became a privilege] for which the pupils of the school have since kept up a friendly rivalry.
The excursionists were quite naturally desirous of getting off promptly upon the postponed pleasure trip; but this was not even yet easily to be done. For now followed the request to visit two schools of the higher grade and make a short talk to the pupils in them. I compromised on the condition that the two should be gathered into the same assembly; and this was cheerfully, and for the Japanese, promptly done. The combined audience made about three-hundred of each sex—older boys and girls—standing close together, one on one side and the other on the other side of the room, in soldier-like ranks, facing the speaker with curious and eager eyes, but with most exemplary behaviour. Again I spoke for ten minutes; after which followed the interpretation and the address of thanks and of promise to remember and put into practice the speaker’s injunctions.
At the termination of this ceremony, I said—I fear a little abruptly—“Arigato” (“Thank you”) and “Sayonara” (“Good-bye”) and started to go. But I was brought to a halt by the suggestive, “Dozo, chotto” (“In a moment, please”) and then asked to give the boys of the school a chance to precede us to the river bank on foot, from which they wished to see us off and to bid us a Japanese good-bye. And who that knows what a Japanese “good-bye,” when genuine and hearty, really is, would not give more than a single little moment, at almost any juncture, to be the recipient of one? The boys, thereupon, filed out in good military fashion; and after giving them a fair start, we took our jinrikishas again and were carried to the river’s bank. It was still some little time before the boat was ready; and then the party, seated on the blankets and secured against the cold by a covering of rugs, accompanied by the pastor and one of the teachers as an escort, started down the river. Several hundred yards below our starting point, the three-hundred school boys stood in single file along the bank, and continued to “banzai” in their best style until a turn in the river hid them from our sight.
I have dwelt at such length on this seemingly trivial incident, because I should be glad to give an adequate impression of the influence of the lower grades of the public schools of Japan in inculcating lessons of order and politeness upon the children of the nation; and in this way preparing them for fitting in well with the existing social order and for obedience to the sovereign authority of the Emperor, of their parents, and in general of their elders. The common impression that Japanese babies are born so little nervous or so good-natured that they never cry, is indeed far enough from the truth. They do cry, as all healthy babies should, when hurt or when grieved; or, with particular vehemence, when mad. They are almost without exception injudiciously indulged by their parents, their nurses, and in truth by everybody else. But from the time the boy or girl begins to attend school, an astonishing change takes place. How far this change is due to the influence of the teacher’s instruction and example, and how far to the spirit and practice of the older pupils, it is perhaps not easy to say. But, in school, both sexes are immediately placed under a close-fitting system of physical and intellectual drill. Thus the pride and ambition of all are called out by the effort to succeed and to excel. The Imperial rescripts, the wise sayings and noble achievements of ancient sages and heroes, the arousement of that spirit which is called “Bushidō” or “Yamato-Damashii,” the appeal to the pride and love of country, and instruction in ethics—as the Japanese understand ethics—prolonged from the kindergarten to the University;—all these means are employed in the public system of education with the intention of producing citizens serviceable to the State. They are all needed in the effort of the Government to control the ferment of new ideas and the pressure of the new forces which are shaping the future commercial, political, and social life of the nation, perhaps too rapidly for its own good.
For the interested and sympathetic teacher of children there are no more delightful experiences than may be had by visiting and observing the primary grades of the public schools of Japan. I have had the pleasure of speaking to several thousands of their pupils. At the summons, the boys would come filing in on one side, and the girls on the other side, of the large assembly room with which every well-appointed school-house is now being provided; and as quietly as drilled and veteran soldiers they would form themselves into a compacted phalanx of the large style of ancient Macedonia. Six hundred pairs of bright black eyes are then gazing steadily and unflinchingly, but with a quiet and engaging respectfulness, into the eyes of the speaker. And if his experience is like my own, he will never see the slightest sign of inattention, impatience, or disorder, on the part of a single one of his childish auditors. Further, as to the effect of this upon the older boys when out of school: Although I have been in a considerable number of places, both in the cities and in the country places of Japan, I have never seen two Japanese boys quarrelling or even behaving rudely toward each other so far as their language was concerned. The second item of “advice” in the “Imperial Rescript to the Army and Navy,” which precedes even the exhortation—“It is incumbent on soldiers to be brave and courageous”—reads as follows: “Soldiers must be polite in their behaviour and ways. In the army and navy, there are hierarchical ranks from the Marshal to the private or bluejacket which bind together the whole for purposes of command, and there are the gradations of seniority within the same rank. The junior must obey the senior; the inferior must take orders from the superior, who transmits them to Our direct command; and inferior and junior officers and men must pay respect to their superiors and seniors, even though they be not their direct superiors and seniors. Superiors must never be haughty and proud toward those of lower rank, and severity of discipline must be reserved for exceptional cases. In all other cases superiors must treat those beneath them with kindness and especial clemency, so that all men may unite as one man in the service of the country. If you do not observe courtesy of behaviour, if inferiors treat their superiors with disrespect, or superiors their inferiors with harshness, if, in a word, the harmonious relations between superiors and inferiors be lost, you will be not only playing havoc with the army, but committing serious crimes against the country.”
The success in blending courage with courtesy, bravery with politeness, which this way of disciplining the youth of the country may attain, and actually has attained in Japan, is a complete refutation of the silly notion—so common, alas! in Anglo-Saxon and Christian lands, that haughtiness in “superiors” and insolence in “inferiors,” together with the readiness to fight one’s fellows with fists, swords, or pistols, is a necessary part of a soldier’s preparation for the most successful resistance to the enemies of one’s country. It is difficult to conceive of more impressive lessons regarding the effects produced by different systems of education upon different racial characteristics than that afforded by the following two incidents. For some weeks in the Autumn of 1899 I occupied a house in Tokyo, from the rooms of which nearly everything going on in one of the large public schools of the city could be either overheard or overlooked. But not once did a harsh word or a loud cry reach our ears, or a rude and impolite action our eyes. But during a residence of a fortnight in similar proximity to one of the best Christian colleges of India, there was scarcely an hour of the school day when some seemingly serious uproar was not in evidence in the room beneath our window. And it was not an uncommon thing to observe both pupil and teacher standing on their feet and vociferously “sassing” each other,—with one or more of the other pupils occasionally chiming in. More suggestive of vital differences, however, is another experience of mine. Toward the close of the Russo-Japanese war a Japanese pupil, a Buddhist priest, who had fought in the Chino-Japanese war and had been decorated for his bravery, had been called out into the “reserves.” A letter received from him while his regiment was still waiting to be ordered to the front, after telling how he had left the school for “temple-boys,” which he had founded on his return from his studies in this country, and of which he was the Dean, added these pregnant words: “Pray for us, that we may have success and victory.” Now it so happened that almost the same mail which brought this letter, carried to another member of my family a letter from a Christian Hindū, who had come to this country for theological study. In this letter, too, there was an appeal to our pious sympathy; but it took the following form: “Pray for me, that I may be able to bear the cold.” Surely, Great Britain need not fear an uprising of the “intellectuals” in India, so long as its babus are educated in such manner as to foster so unenduring character, however gifted in philosophical speculation and eloquence of speech.
The system of education now established in Japan, both in its Universities and in its public schools, has still many weaknesses and deficiencies, and some glaring faults. Nor are Japanese boys, especially when they have grown older and become more wise in their own eyes, always agreeable to their teachers, or easy to manage and to instruct. But of all this we may perhaps conclude to speak at another time. This at any rate is certain: There are few memories in the life-time of at least one American teacher, which he more gladly recalls, and more delights to cherish, than those which signalise his many meetings with the school children of Japan: and among them all, not the least pleasant is that of the three hundred boys of Kameoka, standing in a row upon the banks of the Katsura-gawa and shouting their “banzais” to the departing boat.
And, indeed, having already described with sufficient fulness how one runs the rapids, admires the banks, perhaps visits a shrine or a tea-house on the way, and arrives in safety to find refreshment and rest at Arashi-yama, there is nothing more worth saying to be said on the subject.