Out of the East (3 page)

1. "Before Meiji, there were no such public schools in Japan as there are now. But in every province there was a sort of student society composed of the sons of Samurai. Unless a man were a Samurai, his son could not enter such a society. It was under the control of the Lord of the province, who appointed a director to rule the students. The principal study of the Samurai was that of the Chinese language and literature. Most of the Statesmen of the present goverment were once students in such Samurai schools. Common citizens and country people had to send their sons and daughters to primary schools called
Terahoya
, where all the teaching was usually done by one teacher. It consisted of little more than reading, writing, calculating, and some moral instruction. We could learn to write an ordinary letter, or a very easy essay. At eight years old, I was sent to a terakoya, as I was not the son of a Samurai. At first I did not want to go; and every morning my grandfather had to strike me with his stick to make me go. The discipline at that school was very severe. If a boy did not obey, he was beaten with a bamboo,—being held down to receive his punishment. After a year, many public schools were opened: and I entered a public school."

2. "A great gate, a pompous building, a very large dismal room with benches in rows,—these I remember. The teachers looked very severe; I did not like their faces. I sat on a bench in the room and Felt hateful. The teachers seemed unkind; none of the boys knew me, or spoke to me. A teacher stood up by the blackboard, and began to call the names. He had a whip in his hand. He called my name. I could not answer, and burst out crying. So I was sent home. That was my first day at school."

3. "When I was seven years old I was obliged to enter a school in my native village. My father gave me two or three writing brushes and some paper;—I was very glad to get them, and promised to study as earnestly as I could. But how unpleasant the first day at school was! When I went to the school, none of the students knew me, and I found myself without a friend. I entered a classroom. A teacher, with a whip in his hand, called my name in a
large
voice. I was very much surprised at it, and so frightened that I could not help crying. The boys laughed very loudly at me; but the teacher scolded them, and whipped one of them, and then said to me, 'Don't be afraid of my voice: what is your name?' I told him my name, snuffling. I thought then that school was a very disagreeable place, where we could neither weep nor laugh. I wanted only to go back home at once; and though I Felt it was out of my power to go, I could scarcely bear to stay until the lessons were over. When I returned home at last, I told my father what I had Felt at school, and said: ' I do not like to go to school at all.'"

Needless to say the next memory is of Meiji. It gives, as a composition, evidence of what we should call in the West, character. The suggestion of self-reliance at six years old is delicious: so is the recollection of the little sister taking off her white tabi to deck her child-brother on his first school-day:—

"I was six years old. My mother awoke me early. My sister gave me her own stockings
(tabi)
to wear,—and I Felt very happy. Father ordered a servant to attend me to the school; but I refused to be accompanied: I wanted to Feel that I could go all by myself. So I went alone; and, as the school was not far from the house, I soon found myself in front of the gate. There I stood still a little while, because I knew none of the children I saw going in. Boys and girls were passing into the schoolyard, accompanied by servants or relatives; and inside I saw others playing games which filled me with envy. But all at once a little boy among the players saw me, and with a laugh came running to me. Then I was very happy. I walked to and fro with him, hand in hand. At last a teacher called all of us into a schoolroom, and made a speech which I could not understand. After that we were free for the day because it was the first day. I returned home with my friend. My parents were waiting for me, with fruits and cakes; and my friend and I ate them together."

Another writes:—

"When I first went to school I was six years old. I remember only that my grandfather carried my books and slate for me, and that the teacher and the boys were very, very, very kind and good to me,—so that I thought school was a paradise in this world, and did not want to return home."

I think this little bit of natural remorse is also worth the writing down:—

"I was eight years old when I first went to school. I was a bad boy. I remember on the way home from school I had a quarrel with one of my playmates,—younger than I. He threw a very little stone at me which hit me. I took a branch of a tree lying in the road, and struck him across the face with all my might. Then I ran away, leaving him crying in the middle of the road. My heart told me what I had done. After reaching my home, I thought I still heard him crying. My little playmate is not any more in this world now. Can any one know my Feelings? "

All this capacity of young men to turn back with perfect naturalness of Feeling to scenes of their childhood appears to me essentially Oriental. In the Occident men seldom begin to recall their childhood vividly before the approach of the autumn season of life. But childhood in Japan is certainly happier than in other lands, and therefore perhaps is regretted earlier in adult life. The following extract from a student's record of his holiday experience touchingly expresses such regret:

"During the spring vacation, I went home to visit my parents. Just before the end of the holidays, when it was nearly time for me to return to the college, I heard that the students of the middle school of my native town were also going to Kumamoto on an excursion, and I resolved to go with them.

"They marched in military order with their rifles. I had no rifle, so I took my place in the rear of the column. We marched all day, keeping time to military songs which we sung all together.

"In the evening we reached Soyeda. The teachers and students of the Soyeda school, and the chief men of the village, welcomed us. Then we were separated into detachments, each of which was quartered in a different hotel. I entered a hotel, with the last detachment, to rest for the night.

"But I could not sleep for a long time. Five years before, on a similar ' military excursion,' I had rested in that very hotel, as a student of the same middle school. I remembered the fatigue and the pleasure; and I compared my Feelings of the moment with the recollection of my Feelings then as a boy. I could not help a weak wish to be young again like my companions. They were fast asleep, tired with their long march; and I sat up and looked at their faces. How pretty their faces seemed in that young sleep!"

The preceding selections give no more indication of the general character of the students' compositions than might be furnished by any choice made to illustrate a particular Feeling. Examples of ideas and sentiments from themes of a graver kind would show variety of thought and not a little originality in method, but would require much space. A Few notes, however, copied out of my class-register, will be found suggestive, if not exactly curious.

At the summer examinations of 1893 I submitted to the graduating classes, for a composition theme, the question, "What is eternal in literature?" I expected original answers, a
a
the subject had never been discussed by us, and was certainly new to the pupils, so far as their knowledge of Western thought was concerned. Nearly all the papers proved interesting. I select twenty replies as examples. Most of them immediately preceded a long discussion, but a Few were embodied in the text of the essay:—

1. "Truth and Eternity are identical: these make the Full Circle,—in Chinese, Yen-Man."

2. "All that in human life and conduct which is according to the laws of the Universe."

3. "The lives of patriots, and the teachings of those who have given pure maxims to the world."

4. "Filial Piety, and the doctrine of its teachers. Vainly the books of Confucius were burned during the Shin dynasty; they are translated today into all the languages of the civilized world."

5. "Ethics, and scientific truth."

6. "Both evil and good are eternal, said a Chinese sage. We should read only that which is good."

7. "The great thoughts and ideas of our ancestors."

8. "For a thousand million centuries truth is truth."

9. "Those ideas of right and wrong upon which all schools of ethics agree."

10. "Books which rightly explain the phenomena of the Universe."

11. "Conscience alone is unchangeable. Wherefore books about ethics based upon conscience are eternal."

12. "Reasons for noble action: these remain unchanged by time."

13. "Books written upon the best moral means of giving the greatest possible happiness to the greatest possible number of people,—that is, to mankind."

14. "The Goky
ō
(the Five Great Chinese Classics)."

15. "The holy books of China, and of the Buddhists."

16. "All that which teaches the Bight and Pure Way of human conduct."

17. "The Story of Kusunoki Masashige who vowed to be reborn seven times to fight against the enemies of his Sovereign."

18. "Moral sentiment, without which the world would he only an enormous clod of earth, and all books waste-paper."

19. "The Tao-te-King."

20. Same as 19, but with this comment. "He who reads that which is eternal,
his soul shall hover eternally in the Universe."

Some particularly Oriental sentiments were occasionally drawn out through discussions. The discussions were based upon stories which I would relate to a class by word of mouth, and invite written or spoken comment about. The results of such a discussion are hereafter set forth. At the time it took place, I had already told the students of the higher classes a considerable number of stories. I had told them many of the Greek myths; among which that of (Edipus and the Sphinx seemed especially to please them, because of the hidden moral, and that of Orpheus, like all our musical legends, to have no interest for them. I had also told them a variety of our most famous modern stories. The marvelous tale of "Eappacini's Daughter "proved greatly to their liking; and the spirit of Hawthorne might have found no little ghostly pleasure in their interpretation of it. "Monos and Daimonos" found favor; and Poe's wonderful fragment, "Silence," was appreciated after a fashion that surprised me. On the other hand, the story of "Frankenstein" impressed them very little. None took it seriously. For Western minds the tale must always hold a peculiar horror, because of the shock it gives to Feelings evolved under the influence of Hebraic ideas concerning the origin of life, the tremendous character of divine prohibitions, and the awful punishments destined for those who would tear the veil from Nature's secrets, or mock, even unconsciously, the work of a jealous Creator. But to the Oriental mind, unshadowed by such grim faith,—Feeling no distance between gods and men,—conceiving life as a multiform whole ruled by one uniform law that shapes the consequence of every act into a reward or a punishment,—the ghastliness of the story makes no appeal. Most of the written criticisms showed me that it was generally regarded as a comic or semi-comic parable. After all this, I was rather puzzled one morning by the request for a "very strong moral story of the Western kind."

I suddenly resolved—though knowing I was about to venture on dangerous ground—to try the full effect of a certain Arthurian legend which I Felt sure somebody would criticise with a vim. The moral is rather more than "very strong;" and for that reason I was curious to hear the result.

So I related to them the story of Sir Bors, which is in the sixteenth book of Sir Thomas Mallory's "Morte d'Arthur,"—" how Sir Bors met his brother Sir Lionel taken and beaten with thorns,—and of a maid which should have been dishonored,—and how Sir Bors left his brother to rescue the damsel,—and how it was told them that Lionel was dead. "But I did not try to explain to them the knightly idealism imaged in the beautiful old tale, as I wished to hear them comment, in their own Oriental way, upon the bare facts of the narrative.

Which they did as follows:—

"The action of Mallory's knight, "exclaimed Iwai," was contrary even to the principles of Christianity,—if it be true that the Christian religion declares all men brothers. Such conduct might be right if there were no society in the world. But while any society exists which is formed of families, family love must be the strength of that society; and the action of that knight was against family love, and therefore against society. The principle he followed was opposed not only to all society, but was contrary to all religion, and contrary to the morals of all countries."

"The story is certainly immoral," said Orito. "What it relates is opposed to all our ideas of love and loyalty, and even seems to us contrary to nature. Loyalty is not a mere duty. It must be from the heart, or it is not loyalty. It must be an inborn Feeling. And it is in the nature of every Japanese."

"It is a horrible story," said Ando." Philanthropy itself is only an expansion of fraternal love. The man who could abandon his own brother to death merely to save a strange woman was a wicked man. Perhaps he was influenced by passion."

"No," I said: "you forget I told you that there was no selfishness in his action,—that it must be interpreted as a heroism."