"The greatest sorrow in my life was my father's death. I was seven years old. I can remember that he had been ill all day, and that my toys had been put aside, and that I tried to be very quiet. I had not seen him that morning, and the day seemed very long. At last I stole into my father's room, and put my lips close to his cheek, and whispered, 'Father! father!'—and his cheek was very cold. He did not speak. My uncle came, and carried me out of the room, but said nothing. Then I feared my father would die, because his cheek felt cold just as my little sister's had been when she died. In the evening a great many neighbors and other people came to the house, and caressed me, so that I was happy for a time. But they carried my father away during the night, and I never saw him after."
[1] This essay was written early in 1894. Since then, the study of French and of German has been made optional instead of obligatory, and the Higher School course considerably shortened, by a wise decision of the late Minister of Education, Mr. Inouye. It is to be hoped that measures will eventually be taken to render possible making the study of English also optional. Under existing conditions the study is forced upon hundreds who can never obtain any benefit from it.
II
From the foregoing one might suppose a simple style characteristic of English compositions in Japanese higher schools. Yet the reverse is the fact. There is a general tendency to prefer big words to little ones, and long complicated sentences to plain short periods. For this there are some reasons which would need a philological essay by Professor Chamberlain to explain. But the tendency in itself—constantly strengthened by the absurd text-books in use—can be partly understood from the fact that the very simplest forms of English expression are the most obscure to a Japanese,—because they are idiomatic. The student finds them riddles, since the root-ideas behind them are so different from his own that, to explain those ideas, it is first necessary to know something of Japanese psychology; and in avoiding simple idioms he follows instinctively the direction of least resistance.
I tried to cultivate an opposite tendency by various devices. Sometimes I would write familiar stories for the class, all in simple sentences, and in words of one syllable. Sometimes I would suggest themes to write upon, of which the nature almost compelled simple treatment. Of course I was not very successful in my purpose, but one theme chosen in relation to it—"My First Day at School"—evoked a large number of compositions that interested me in quite another way, as revelations of sincerity of feeling and of character. I offer a few selections, slightly abridged and corrected. Their naïveté is not their least charm,—especially if one reflect they are not the recollections of boys. The following seemed to me one of the best:—
"I could not go to school until I was eight years old. I had often begged my father to let me go, for all my playmates were already at school; but he would not, thinking I was not strong enough. So I remained at home, and played with my brother.
"My brother accompanied me to school the first day. He spoke to the teacher, and then left me. The teacher took me into a room, and commanded me to sit on a bench, then he also left me. I felt sad as I sat there in silence: there was no brother to play with now,—only many strange boys. A bell ring twice; and a teacher entered our classroom, and told us to take out our slates. Then he wrote a Japanese character on the blackboard, and told us to copy it. That day he taught us how to write two Japanese words, and told us some story about a good boy. When I returned home I ran to my mother, and knelt down by her side to tell her what the teacher had taught me. Oh! how great my pleasure then was! I cannot even tell how I felt,—much less write it. I can only say that I then thought the teacher was a more learned man than father, or any one else whom I knew,—the most awful, and yet the most kindly person in the world."
The following also shows the teacher in a very pleasing light:—
"My brother and sister took me to school the first day. I thought I could sit beside them in the school, as I used to do at home; but the teacher ordered me to go to a classroom which was very far away from that of my brother and sister. I insisted upon remaining with my brother and sister; and when the teacher said that could not be, I cried and made a great noise. Then they allowed my brother to leave his own class, and accompany me to mine. But after a while I found playmates in my own class; and then I was not afraid to be without my brother."