When I Was a Boy in Japan

I suppose I don’t need to tell you exactly, my little friends, when and where I was born, because Japanese names are rather hard for you to remember, and then I don’t want to di...

Our family consisted of father, mother, grandmother, and two children besides myself, at the time when I was six years old. I don’t remember exactly what business my father was...

At the age of six I was sent to school. For some time before the fall opening, I was filled with excitement and curiosity and looked forward to the day with great impatience. As...

About two years after I entered the village school I had to leave it for good and all. My father, as I have said, was in mid-air between the heaven of old Japan and the prosaic...

But I must tell you who Tomo-chan was. She--yes, _she_--was the adopted daughter of my aunt, of about the same age as I, and in the same class at school. I wish I had space enou...

Some months after I entered the public school, my father came to a conclusion that what was taught there was too modern to have enough of culture value. My education had to be s...

My father was a silent, close-mouthed man. His words to children were few and mostly in a form of command. They were never disobeyed, partly because it was father who spoke, but...

The third summer in Tokyo had come. The air was fresh and cool, while the morning-glories in our back yard were blooming lavishly, and the Ainu chrysanthemums in white, pink, an...

It was September and the beginning of a new term. Father decided that I should leave the school I had attended hitherto and go to another one where English was taught. This was...

In a daily paper to which we were subscribing, there was a story appearing in serial form, which I happened to read, and in which I became immediately interested. It was a scien...

We were now to remove to the suburbs. Father got a better position with a firm quite far from our house, and it was thought expedient for us to do so for his convenience.