'What we think very strange is that in Europe every wife loves her husband more than her parents. In Nippon there is no wife who more loves not her parents than her husband.
'And Europeans walk out in the road with their wives, which we utterly refuse to, except on the festival of Hachiman.
'The Japanese woman is treated by man as a servant, while the European woman is respected as a master. I think these customs are both bad.
'We think it is very much trouble to treat European ladies; and we do not know why ladies are so much respected by Europeans.'
Conversation in the class-room about foreign subjects is often equally amusing and suggestive:
'Teacher, I have been told that if a European and his father and his wife were all to fall into the sea together, and that he only could swim, he would try to save his wife first. Would he really?'
'Probably,' I reply.
'But why?'
'One reason is that Europeans consider it a man's duty to help the weaker first—especially women and children.'
'And does a European love his wife more than his father and mother?'