“SPECIAL LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG IN HOW TO BOW”
To the specialist, one such ill-regulated day in a baby’s life would augur a morning after with digestion in tatters and a ragged temper. He does not take into account the strange mental and physical contradictions of the race. Unchecked, the baby has been permitted to shatter every precept of health, but he awakens as happy as a young kitten. Fresh, sweet, and wholesome, he crawls from his soft nest of comfortables and goes about seeking some object on which to bestow his adorable smile. He is ready to thrive on another lawless day.
There is a mistaken, but popular, belief that a Japanese baby never cries. There is really no reason why he should. Replete with nourishment and rarely denied a wish, he blossoms like a wild rose on the sunny side of the hedge, as sweet and as unrestrained. His life is full of rich and varied interests. From his second day on earth, tied safely to his mother’s back under an overcoat made for two, he finds amusement for every waking hour in watching the passing show. He is the honored guest at every family picnic. No matter what the hour or the weather, he is the active member in all that concerns the household amusements or work. From his perch he participates in the life of the neighborhood, and is a part of all the merry festivals that turn the streets into fairy-land. Later, his playground is the gay market-place or the dim old temples.
“UNDER AN OVERCOAT MADE FOR TWO”
Up to this time the child has had no suggestion of real training. His innate deftness in the art of imitation has taught him much. Continual contact with a wide-awake world has effectively quickened the growth of his brain, but the strings that have held him steadily to his mother’s back have stunted the growth of his body. The result is that when the time comes for that wonderful first day in the kindergarten, into the play-room often toddles a self-confident youngster whose legs refuse to coöperate when he makes his quaint bow, but whose keen brain and correspondingly deft hand work small miracles with blocks and paint-brush.
In Japan only a blind child could be insensible to color, after long days under the pink mist of the cherry-blossoms and the crimson glory of the maples, in the sunny green and yellow fields, or with mountain slopes of wild azalea for a romping-place and a wonderful sky of blue for a cover. By inheritance and environment he is an artist in the use of color. Form, too, is as easy, for when crude toys have failed to please, it is his privilege to build ships, castles, gunboats, and temples with every conceivable household article from the spinning-wheel to the family rice-bucket.
His instinct for play is strong, and after his legs grow steady he quickly masters games, and to his own satisfaction he can sing any song without tune or words. In the kindergarten he finds at first new joys in a play paradise of which he is, as at home, the ruler. Alas! for the swift coming of grief! For the first time in his life his will clashes with law, and for the first time he meets defeat, though he rises to conquer with all his fighting blood on fire. The struggle is swift and fierce, then behold the mystery of a small Oriental! After the first encounter, and often before the tears of passion have dried, he bends to authority, and with only occasional lapses soon becomes a devotee of the thing he has so bitterly fought. Henceforth kisoku, or law, becomes his meat and drink, the very foundation of living.