The foundations of Japan

by J. W. Robertson Scott

Hereabouts I first noticed the device common to many districts of having on the roof of a cottage a water barrel, tub or cistern, ready to be emptied on the shingle roof when sparks fly from a burning dwelling. Sometimes the wooden water receptacles are wrapped round with straw.

In the prefectural city of Yamagata I heard of a primary school which had a farm and made a profit, also of four landowners who had engaged an agricultural expert for the instruction of their tenants. "A very certain crop" round about the city was grapes. Some 25,000 persons yearly visited the prefectural 12-chō experiment station, which within a year had distributed to farmers 7,600 cyanided fruit trees and 80 bushels of special seed rice.

Near the experiment station was a crematorium of ugly brick and galvanised iron belonging to the city of Yamagata at which 1,000 bodies were burnt in a year in furnaces heated with pine blocks. A selection might be made from four rates ranging from 35 sen to 5 yen. The most expensive rate was for folk who arrived in Western-style coffins.

The experiment station had another institution at its doors. This had to do not with the dead but with the living. Its name was "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." The director of it was the father of the agricultural expert of the prefecture. The garden, which was not a garden, was a home for bad boys, or rather for thirty bad boys and one bad girl. The bad girl—the director, being a man of humanity, common sense and courage, thought it most necessary that there should be at least one bad girl—acted as maidservant to the director. The bad boys "maided" themselves and the school. The lads were such as had fallen into the hands of the police. They were being reformed in a somewhat original way by a somewhat original director.

Early in the day they had their cold bath, which was itself a break with Japanese custom, for, though most Japanese have a nightly hot bath, they are content with a basin wash in the morning. Then the boys "cleaned school." Next they were marched up one by one to a mirror and required to take a good look at themselves, in order, no doubt, to see just how bad they were. After this they were called on to "give thanks to the Emperor and their ancestors." Finally came a half-hour lecture on "morality." It was considered that by this time the boys were entitled to their breakfast. For open-air labour they were sent to the experiment station, but they had manual work also in their own school, where, among other things, they "made useful things out of waste," the income from which went to their families. On Sundays the master, though he must be nearer sixty than fifty, fenced with every one of the thirty boys in turn—no ordinary task, for Japanese fencing calls not only for an eye and a hand, but for a muscular back. Some wholesome-looking young fellows, members of a young men's association, served as volunteer masters and lived in the bare fashion that was so good for the boys.

The director did not believe that bad boys were hopeless. He said that not only the boys but their parents were better for the work done in "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." He seemed to have become a sort of consulting expert to primary school-masters who were at a loss to know how to manage bad boys. Chastisement, as is well known, is unusual in Japanese schools. The director of the human hortus inclusus confessed to me that though two of his boys whom he had caught fighting might not have been separated without, in the Western phrase, "feeling the weight of his hand," his heaviest punishment on other difficult occasions was the moxa.

The moxa brings us back to real horticulture. Moxa is mogusa or mugwort. Mogusa means "burning herb." The moxa is a great therapeutic agent in the Far East. A bit of the dried herb is laid on the skin and set fire to as a sort of blister. From the application of the moxa as a cure for physical ills to its application for the cure of bad boys is a natural step. One sees by the scars on the backs of not a few Japanese that in their youth either their health or their characters left something to be desired. The moxa, then, is the rod in pickle in "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." But I think it is not brought out often. A wrestling ring in a mass of sand thrown down in a yard, a harmonium, a blackboard for the boys to work their will on, doors labelled "The Room of Patience," "The Room of Honesty," "The Room of Cleanliness" and "The Room of Good Arrangement," not to speak of a rabbit loping about the school premises—these and some other touches in the management of the school spoke of an even stronger influence toward well-doing than the moxa. But even if the moxa should fail, the attention of the boys could always be drawn to the crematorium.

One who knew the rural districts discoursed to me in this wise: "The best men are not numerous, but neither are the worst. I doubt whether the desire to enjoy life is as strong in the Japanese as in the people of the West. Most farmers would no doubt be happy with material comfort. Pressed as they have been by material needs, they have no time to think. When they are easier, they may get something beyond the physical. At present we must regard their material welfare as the most urgent thing." But a man standing by, who was also a countryman, strongly dissented. "Religion," he said, "is not only important but fundamental."

I have been received by more than one prefectural governor at eight in the morning. His Excellency of Yamagata sets a good example by rising at five and by going to bed at nine. He told me that he thought the farmer's chief lack was cheap money. Low interest and a long term might convert into arable 25,000 acres of barren land in his prefecture. In the old days, as I knew, the farmers drove tunnels considerable distances for irrigation, but with modern engineering better results would be possible if money were available. As to the misdeeds of the rivers, it might almost be said that every village was feeling the need of embanking and of going to the source of loss by planting trees in the hills. Beautiful forests of feudal period had been wasted in the early days of Meiji and the result was now plain.

But attention had to be given to the minds as well as the pockets of the villagers. Families that were once reasonably content were now discontented. A livelihood was harder to get, taxation was heavier and there was an increase in needs. Country people imagined townspeople to be comfortably off, "not realising how they were tormented." Villagers envied townsmen their amusements. Some prefectures had forbidden the Bon dance and had supplied nothing in its place. It was easy to see why farmers no longer applied themselves so closely to their calling and were wavering in their allegiance to country life. Healthful amusements were necessary for those whose minds were not much developed. Also, country people should be taught the true character of town life, and that agriculture, though it might not yield the profit of commerce and industry, ensured a reasonably happy life in healthful places where physical strength could be enjoyed. The right kind of village libraries should be encouraged. Music might perhaps be forced into competition with saké.