Chapter 26

MONTHLY PAY ALLOWANCE FOR TOTAL HOUSE-RENT yen yen yen

General 500 (50 pounds) 25:00 525:00 Lieutenant-General 333 18:75 351:75 Major-General 263 12:50 275:50 Colonel 179 10:00 189:00 Lieutenant-Colonel 146 8:75 154:75 Major 102 7:50 109:50 Captain (1st grade) 70 4:75 74:75 (2nd grade) 60 4:75 64:75 Lieutenant (1st grade) 45 4:00 49:00 (2nd grade) 34 4:00 38:00 Second Lieutenant 30 3:50 33:50

When these rates of pay were fixed, about twenty years ago, house-rent was cheap: a good house could be rented anywhere at 3 Yen or 4 Yen per month. To-day in Tokyo an officer can scarcely rent even a very small house at less than 19 yen or 20 yen; and prices of food-stuffs have tripled. Yet there have been very few complaints. Officers whose pay will not allow them to rent houses hire rooms wherever they can. Many suffer hardship; but all are proud of the privilege of serving, and no one dreams of resigning.]

To many it would seem that a wise government must recognize the impracticability of indefinitely maintaining its present demand for self-sacrifice, must perceive the necessity of encouraging talent, inviting fair competition, and making the prizes of life large enough to stimulate healthy egoism. But it is possible that the Government has been acting more wisely than outward appearances would indicate. Several years ago a Japanese official made in [415] my presence this curious observation: "Our Government does not wish to encourage competition beyond the necessary. The people are not prepared for it; and if it were strongly encouraged, the worst side of character would came to the surface." How far this statement really expressed any policy I do not know. But every one is aware that free competition can be made as cruel and as pitiless as war,--though we are apt to forget what experience must have been undergone before Occidental free competition could become as comparatively merciful, as it is. Among a people trained for centuries to regard all selfish competition as criminal, and all profit-seeking despicable, any sudden stimulation of effort for purely personal advantage might well be impolitic. Evidence as to how little the nation was prepared, twelve or thirteen years ago, for Western forms of free government, has been furnished by the history of the earlier district-elections and of the first parliamentary sessions. There was really no personal enmity in those furious election-contests, which cost so many lives; there was scarcely any personal antagonism in those parliamentary debates of which the violence astonished strangers. The political struggles were not really between individuals, but between clan-interests, or party-interests; and the devoted followers of each clan or party understood the new politics only as a new kind of war,--a war of loyalty to be fought for the leader's sake, [416]--a war not to be interfered with by any abstract notions of right or justice. Suppose that a people have been always accustomed to think of loyalty in relation to persons rather than to principles,--loyalty as involving the duty of self-sacrifice regardless of consequence,--it is obvious that the first experiments of such a people with parliamentary government will not reveal any comprehension of fair play in the Western sense. Eventually that comprehension may come; but it will not come quickly. And if you can persuade such a people that in other matters every man has a right to act according to his own convictions, and for his own advantage, independently of any group to which he may belong, the immediate result will not be fortunate,--because the sense of individual moral responsibility has not yet been sufficiently cultivated outside of the group-relation.

The probable truth is that the strength of the government up to the present time has been chiefly due to the conservation of ancient methods, and to the survival of the ancient spirit of reverential submission. Later on, no doubt, great changes will have to be made; meanwhile, much must be bravely endured. Perhaps the future history of modern civilization will hold record of nothing more touching than the patient heroism of those myriads of Japanese patriots, content to accept, under legal [417] conditions of freedom, the official servitude of feudal days,--satisfied to give their talent, their strength, their utmost effort, their lives, for the simple privilege of obeying a government that still accepts all sacrifices in the feudal spirit--as a matter of course,--as a national duty. And as a national duty, indeed, the sacrifices are made. All know that Japan is in danger, between the terrible friendship of England and the terrible enmity of Russia,--that she is poor,--that the cost of maintaining her armaments is straining her resources,--that it is everybody's duty to be content with as little as possible. So the complaints are not many.... Nor has the simple obedience of the nation at large been less touching,--especially, perhaps, as regards the imperial order to acquire Western knowledge, to learn Western languages, to imitate Western ways. Only those who have lived in Japan during or before the early nineties are qualified to speak of the loyal eagerness that made self-destruction by over-study a common form of death,--the passionate obedience that impelled even children to ruin their health in the effort to master tasks too difficult for their little minds (tasks devised by well-meaning advisers with no knowledge of Far-Eastern psychology),--and the strange courage of persistence in periods of earthquake and conflagration, when boys and girls used the tiles of their ruined homes for school-slates, and bits of fallen plaster for pencils. What [418] tragedies I might relate even of the higher educational life of universities!--of fine brains giving way under pressure of work beyond the capacity of the average European student,--of triumphs won in the teeth of death,--of strange farewells from pupils in the time of the dreaded examinations, as when one said to me: "Sir, I am very much afraid that my paper is bad, because I came out of the hospital to make it--there is something the matter with my heart." (His diploma was placed in his hands scarcely an hour before he died.) ... And all this striving--striving not only against difficulties of study, but in most cases against difficulties of poverty, and underfeeding, and discomfort--has been only for duty, and the means to live. To estimate the Japanese student by his errors, his failures, his incapacity to comprehend sentiments and ideas alien to the experience of his race, is the mistake of the shallow: to judge him rightly one must have learned to know the silent moral heroism of which he is capable.

[419]

OFFICIAL EDUCATION

The extent to which national character has been fixed by the discipline of centuries, and the extent or its extraordinary capacity to resist change, is perhaps most strikingly indicated by certain results of State education. The whole nation is being educated, with Government help, upon a European plan; and the full programme includes the chief subjects of Western study, excepting Greek and Latin classics. From Kindergarten to University the entire system is modern in outward seeming; yet the effect of the new education is much less marked in thought and sentiment than might be supposed. This fact is not to be explained merely by the large place which old Chinese study still occupies in the obligatory programme, nor by differences of belief--it is much more due to the fundamental difference in the Japanese and the European conceptions of education as means to an end. In spite of new system and programme the whole of Japanese education is still conducted upon a traditional plan almost the exact opposite of the Western plan. With us, the repressive part of moral training begins in early childhood--the European or American teacher is strict with the little [420] ones; we think that it is important to inculcate the duties of behaviour,--the "must" and the "must not" of individual obligation,--as soon as possible. Later on, more liberty is allowed. The well-grown boy is made to understand that his future will depend upon his personal effort and capacity; and he is thereafter left, in a great measure, to take care of himself, being occasionally admonished or warned, as seems needful. Finally, the adult student of promise and character may become the intimate, or, under happy circumstances, even the friend of his tutor, to whom he can look for counsel in all difficult situations. And throughout the whole course of mental and moral training competition is not only expected, but required. But it is more and more required as discipline is more and more relaxed, with the passing of boyhood into manhood. The aim of Western education is the cultivation of individual ability and personal character,--the creation of an independent and forceful being.

Now Japanese education has always been conducted, and, in spite of superficial appearances, is still being conducted, mostly upon the reverse plan. Its object never has been to train the individual for independent action, but to train him for cooperative action,--to fit him to occupy an exact place in the mechanism of a rigid society. Constraint among ourselves begins with childhood, and gradually relaxes; constraint in Far-Eastern training begins later, [421] and thereafter gradually tightens; and it is not a constraint imposed directly by parents or teachers--which fact, as we shall presently see, makes an enormous difference in results. Not merely up to the age of school-life,--supposed to begin at six years,--but considerably beyond it, a Japanese child enjoys a degree of liberty far greater than is allowed to Occidental children. Exceptional cases are common, of course; but the general rule is that the child be permitted to do as he pleases, providing that his conduct can cause no injury to himself or to others. He is guarded, but not constrained; admonished, but rarely compelled. In short, he is allowed to be so mischievous that, as a Japanese proverb says, "even the holes by the roadside hate a boy of seven or eight years old"* [*By former custom a newly-born child was said to be one year old; and in this case the words "seven or eight years old" mean "six or seven years old."] (Nanatsu, yatsu--michibata no ana desaimon nikumu). Punishment is administered only when absolutely necessary; and on such occasions, by ancient custom, the entire household--servants and all--intercede for the offender; the little brothers and sisters, if any there be, begging in turn to bear the penalty instead. Whipping is not a common punishment, except among the roughest classes; the moxa is preferred as a deterrent; and it is a severe one. To frighten a child by loud harsh words, or angry looks, is condemned by general opinion: all punishment ought [422] to be inflicted as quietly as possible, the punisher calmly admonishing the while. To slap a child about the head, for any reason, is a proof of vulgarity and ignorance. It is not customary to punish by restraining from play, or by a change of diet, or by any denial of accustomed pleasures. To be perfectly patient with children is the ethical law. At school the discipline begins; but it is at first so very light that it can hardly be called discipline: the teacher does not act as a master, but rather as an elder brother; and there is no punishment beyond a public admonition. Whatever restraint exists is chiefly exerted on the child by the common opinion of his class; and a skilful teacher is able to direct that opinion. Also each class is nominally governed by one or two little captains, selected for character and intelligence; and when a disagreeable order has to be given, it is the child-captain, the kyucho, who is commissioned with the duty of giving it. (These little details are worthy of note: I cite them only to show how early in school-life begins the discipline of opinion, the pressure of the common will, and how perfectly this policy accords with the ethical traditions of the race.) In higher classes the pressure slightly increases; and in higher schools it is very much stronger; the ruling power always being class-sentiment, not the individual will of the teacher. In middle schools the pupils become serious: class-opinion there attains a force to which the teacher [423] himself must bend, as it is quite capable of expelling him for any attempt to override it. Each middle-school class has its elected officers, who represent and enforce the moral code of the majority,--the traditional standard of conduct. (This moral standard is deteriorating; but it survives everywhere to some degree.) Fighting or bullying are yet unknown in Japanese schools of this grade for obvious reasons: there can be little indulgence of personal anger, and no attempt at personal domination, under a discipline enforcing a uniform manner of behaviour. It is never the domination of the one over the many that regulates class-life: it is always the rule of the many over the one,--and the power is formidable. The student who consciously or unconsciously offends class-sentiment will suddenly find himself isolated,--condemned to absolute solitude. No one will speak to him or notice him even outside of the school, until such time as he decides to make a public apology, when his pardon will depend upon a majority-vote.

Such temporary ostracism is not unreasonably feared, because it is regarded even outside of student-circles as a disgrace; and the memory of it will cling to the offender during the rest of his career. However high he may rise in official or professional life in after years, the fact that he was once condemned by the general opinion of his schoolmates will not be forgotten,--though circumstances may occur [424] which will turn the fact to his credit.... In the great Government schools--to one of which the student may proceed after graduating from a middle-school--class-discipline is still more severe. The instructors are mostly officials looking for promotion: the students are grown men, preparing for the University, and destined, with few exceptions, for public office. In this quietly and coldly ordered world there is little place for the joy of youth, and small opportunity for sympathetic expansion. There are gatherings and societies; but these are arranged or established for practical purposes--chiefly in relation to particular branches of study; there is little time for merry-making, and less inclination. Under all circumstances, a certain formal demeanour is exacted by tradition,--a tradition older by far than any public school. Everybody watches everybody: eccentricities or singularities are quickly marked and quietly suppressed. The results of this class-discipline, as maintained in some institutions, must seem to the foreign observer discomforting. What most impressed me about these higher official schools was the sinister silence of them. In one where I taught for several years--the most conservative school in the country--there were more than a thousand young men, full of life and energy; yet during the intervals between classes, or during recreation-hours in the playground, the garden, and the gymnastic hall, the general hush gave one a strange sense of [425] oppression. One might watch a game of foot-ball being played, and hear nothing but the thud of the kicking; or one might watch wrestling-contests in the jiujutsu-room, and hear no word spoken for half an hour at a time. (The rules of jiujutsu, it is true, require not only silence, but the total suppression of all visible emotional interest on the part of the spectators.) All this repression at first seemed to me very strange--though I knew that thirty years previously, the training at samurai-schools compelled the same impassiveness and reticence.

At last the University is reached,--the great gate of ceremony to public office. Here the student finds himself released from the restraints previously imposed upon his private life,* though the class-will continues to rule him in certain directions. As a rule, the student passes into official life after having graduated, marries, and becomes the head, or the [426] prospective head, of a household. How sudden the transformation of the man at this epoch of his career, only those who have observed the transformation can imagine. It is then that the full significance of Japanese education reveals itself.

[*This release is of recent date; and the results, by the acknowledgment of the students themselves, have not been good. Twenty-five years ago, University study was so seriously thought about that a scholar who failed, through his own fault, would have been considered a criminal. There was then a Chinese poem in vogue, which used to be sung at the departure of youths for the University of that time (Daigaku Nanko) by their friends and relations:--

Danji kokorozashi wo tatete, kyokwan wo idzu; Gaku moshi narazunba, shisudomo kaeradzu,

[The young man, having made a firm resolve, leaves his native home. If he fail to acquire learning, then, even though he die, he must never return.]

In those years also it was obligatory upon students to live and dress simply, and to abstain from all self-indulgence.]

Few incidents of Japanese life are more surprising than the metamorphosis of the gawky student into the dignified, impassive, easy-mannered official. But a little time ago he was respectfully asking, cap in hand, the explanation of some text, the meaning of some foreign idiom; to-day, perhaps, he is judging cases in some court, or managing diplomatic correspondence under ministerial supervision, or directing the management of some public school. Whatever you may have thought of his particular capacity as a student, you will scarcely doubt his particular fitness for the position to which he has been called. Success in study was at best a secondary consideration in the matter of his appointment,--though he had to succeed. He was put through some special course, under high protection, after having been selected for certain qualities of character,--or at least for the promise of such qualities. There may have been favouritism in his case; but, generally speaking, capable men are appointed to positions of trust: the Government seldom makes serious mistakes. This man has value beyond what mere study could make for him,--some capacity in the direction of management or of organization, [427]--some natural force or talent which his training has served to cultivate. According to the quality of his worth, his position was chosen for him in advance. His long, hard schooling has taught him more than books can teach, and more than a stupid person can ever learn: how to read minds and motives,--how to remain impassive under all circumstances,--how to reach a truth quickly by simple questioning,--how to live upon his guard (even against the most intimate of old acquaintances),--how to remain, even when most amiable, secretive and inscrutable. He has graduated in the art of worldly wisdom. He is really a wonderful person, a highly developed type of his race; and no inexperienced Occidental is capable of judging him, because his visible acquirements count for very little in the measure of his relative value. His University study--his English or French or German knowledge--serves him only as so much oil to make easy the working of certain official machinery: he esteems this learning only as means to some administrative end; his real learning, considerably deeper, represents the development of the Japanese soul of him. Between that mind and any Western mind the distance has become immeasurable. And now, less than ever before, does he belong to himself. He belongs to a family, to a party, to a government: privately he is bound by custom; publicly he must act according to order only, and never dream of yielding to [428] any impulses at variance with order, however generous or sensible such impulses may be. A word might ruin him: he has learned to use no words unnecessarily. By silent submission and tireless observance of duty he may rise, and rise quickly: he may become Governor, Chief justice, Minister of State, Minister Plenipotentiary; but the higher he rises, the heavier will his bonds become.