husband, constitute the ideal of the perfect woman, then the Japanese married women approach so near that ideal as to be practically perfect, and in this respect are, as foreign women will cheerfully grant to them, unquestionably superior.

The Japanese maiden is bright, intelligent, interesting, modest, ladylike, self-reliant; neither a slave nor a wanton. What the American girl is in Europe, the Japanese maiden is among Asiatics. Both are misunderstood. A Japanese virgin may act in a way not reconcilable with our standards. She may expose her charms so as to shock our exalted and chaste masculinity. Lighter-skinned womankind may see moral obliquity in an eye not perfectly horizontal, when there is none. The Japanese virgin knows nothing of the white lady's calculated limits of exposure, or of scientific dress-making, which by an inch of affluent economy exerts a more wicked influence than a nude bust empty of intent to charm.

The importance of the new education of Japanese girls to their country can not be overestimated. The revolution through which the nation is passing requires completion. The new reforms, of the necessity of which the leaders of Japan are convinced, and to which they are pledged, require to be certified, and to become part of the home-life of the people. The work of the Government must be done in the homes. The foundations of society are there; and as the home is, so will the State be in every land. All governments, in their various forms, are but households of a larger growth. Given a complete knowledge of the average household in any land, and the real government is easily known and understood.

Looking at the question of female education even from the vulgar concrete standing-point-that woman is merely the supplement of man, and that the end and aim and Almighty purpose of a woman's creation is that she shall become some man's wife- -the question is all-important. The rising generation, who are to take the places of the present leaders of Japan, are being educated in Western ideas, and are passing through a developing process which will tend to exalt the mental powers at the expense of the animal instincts. The decay of the old feudal frame-work of society, and the suppression of government pensions and hereditary revenues, by removing all actual necessity for marriage, will create in the minds of the increasing numbers of those who marry from the higher motives a desire for a congenial lifecompanion and helpmate, and not for a mere female of the human species. Though some of the present generation of students may

marry ordinary native women, those who wish for happiness in their home-life, who aspire to rise out of the old plane of existence and dwell permanently on the higher levels of intellectual life, will seek for educated women as wives. The new civilization will never take root in Japan until planted and cultivated in the homes, and, to secure that end, the thorough education of woman is an absolute necessity.

In conclusion, I must add my testimony and offer my plaudit to the earnest diligence and rapid progress of the girls in the national schools, of whose efforts and successes I have been witness, and which must be extremely gratifying to those who organized or who are interested in them. Of the signal success, far-reaching influence, and exalted teachings of the Christian missionary schools for girls, I can not speak in too high terms. In this good work, American ladies have led the way. By them the Japanese maiden is taught the ideals, associations, and ordering of a Christian home, a purer code of morals, a regenerating spiritual power, of which Buddhism knows nothing, and to which the highest aspirations of Shintō are strangers. Above all, an ideal of womanhood, which is the creation and gift of Christianity alone, eclipsing the loftiest conceptions of classic paganism, is held up for imitation. The precept and example of Christian women in these labors are mightily working the renovation of the social fabric in Japan.

I think none will accuse me of failure to see the best side of the Japanese character, or of an honest endeavor to estimate fairly the force and capability of the religions of Japan. Fully conscious of my liability to error in all that I have written in this book, I yet utter my conviction that nothing can ever renovate the individual heart, nothing purify society, and give pure blood-growth to the body politic in Japan, but the religion of Jesus Christ. Only the spiritual morality, and, above all, the chastity, taught by Him can ever give the Japanese a home-life equal to ours. With all our faults and sins, and with all the impurities and failures of our society, I believe our family and social life to be immeasurably higher and purer than that of Japan.

The religion of the Home-maker, and the Children -lover, and the Woman-exalter, is mighty to save the Japanese mother, and must be most potent to purify and exalt the Japanese home. Of all the branches of missionary labor in Japan, none, it seems to me, is of greater importance, or more hopeful of sure results, permanent and far-reaching in its influence, than the work of Christian women for women in Japan.

XVIII.

NEW JAPAN.

THE history of Japan from 1872 to 1876 is intimately connected with that of the mikado. On the 1st of January, 1872, he visited the imperial navy, dock-yards, and machine-shops at Yokosuka, displaying the liveliest interest in all he saw. By his conduct throughout the entire day, and coolness and self-possession during a critical moment, when a damp mold, full of molten iron, exploded and bespattered the imperial person, he proved himself more than a petty pseudo-divinity. He showed himself a man. The last act of the mystery-play was over. As a god, the mikado is a failure; as a man, he is a splendid success. If he has any divinity, it is the divinity of common sense. From dwelling in mediæval seclusion in the palace, steeped in sensual delights, degraded in body and mind to the intellectual level of a girl, the sovereign of Japan has taken his place among men of thought and action, a student, a thinker, an earnest and enlightened ruler. In April, Mutsŭhito visited the Imperial College; and, being in his presence several hours, and immediately before him during the performance of experiments and recitations by the students, I was enabled to study his countenance as he sat surrounded by princes of the blood, court nobles, and ministers of the cabinet, all robed in variegated brocade. He was then dressed in flowing robes of crimson and white satin, with black cap or crown, bound by a fillet of fluted gold, with a tall, upright plume, or stiff ribbon of gold. He appeared as the picture on page 102 represents some one of his ancestors. I afterward (January 1st, 1873) had the pleasure of an audience in the imperial palace, seeing him sitting on a chair, or throne, richly ornamented with golden dragons and lions, flanked by his sword-bearer and train of courtiers, in all the gorgeousness and variety of silk robes and ceremonial caps, so characteristic of rank in Dai Nippon. At the opening of the new buildings of the

These are built in modern style, in three wings, each 192 feet long, joined to

Imperial College—thenceforth called the Imperial University of Japan-I saw him dressed in the costume shown in the portrait on page 37, thoroughly Europeanized in dress and person. I consider the likeness in photograph and wood-cut to be a capital one.

On the 3d of April, 1872, at 3 P.M., during the prevalence of a high wind, a fire, breaking out inside the castle circuit, leaped wall and moat, and in five hours swept Tōkiō to the bay. Five thousand houses and hundreds of yashikis and temples-among them the great Monzéki, in Tsukuji-were destroyed. The foreign hotels were left in ashes, which covered many square miles. Out of this calamity rose the phenix of a new plan with a new order of architecture. The main avenues were widened to ninety feet, the smaller ones to sixty feet. Rows of fine houses in brick and stone, and new bridges, in many cases of stone or iron, were built. Tōkiō is now thoroughly modernized in large portions. The foreign residents joined in the work of alleviating the distress. As bearer of their silver contributions to the mayor of the city, I found my old friend, Mitsŭöka (Yuri), of Fukui, sitting amidst the ashes of his dwelling, but happy in the possession of an imperial order to visit America and Europe, to study municipal government and improvements.

the main building, 324 feet long. They contain 79 rooms. The students, who wear uniform as in American schools, number 350, taught by 20 foreign professors. The Foreign-language School, in which students learn the English or other language preparatory to entering the college, is on Hitotsubashi Avenue, opposite. It has 600 students and 20 foreign teachers. Both are well equipped with books and apparatus. At the banquet given October 9th, Hayashi Fushimi no Miya, prince of the blood; Sanjō Sanéyoshi, Dai Jō Dai Jin; Eto Shimpei, Ōki, and Itagaki, Counselors of State; Saigo Yorimichi, Yoshida Kiyonari, and many others, were present, all of whom I met. The empire is, for educational purposes, divided into eight districts, in each of which is to be a university, supplied by 210 schools of foreign languages. The elementary vernacular schools will number 53,000, or one for every 600 persons in the empire. They are supplied by native teachers trained in normal schools. At present, nearly 3,000,000 youths of both sexes are in school. With such excellent provision at home, the Government, having found out their expensive mistake of sending raw students abroad to study, and the political objects of the movement having been secured, recalled most of them in 1873—an order that was curiously misunderstood in America and Europe to mean reaction. This, however, is a mistake. Trained students versed in the languages and science have taken the place of many of those recalled. While the embassy was in America, David Murray, A. M., Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy in Rutgers College, was appointed Superintendent of Schools and Colleges in Japan. Dr. Murray, by his quiet vigor, unassuming manners, thorough competence, ability, and industry, has done much to improve and perfect education in Japan. He was, in 1875, also appointed Commissioner to the Centennial Exhibition.

During the summer, Mr. Katsŭ Awa was made Minister of the Navy, and Mr. Ōkubo Ichio, Mayor of Tōkiō. A large number of exTokugawa vassals were called into the service

of the Government, and the old lines of division obliterated. The head of the Tokugawa family, so appointed by the mikado's court in 1868, is Jiusammi Tayasŭ Kaménosŭké, whom I often met in Tōkiō. The Tokugawa clansmen are now among the loyal upholders of the throne and the new order of things. Mr. Katsu devoted himself to the thorough organization of the navy (see page 597). The British model had already been selected. In the accompanying cut is given a specimen of the national fleet, the Tsukuba Kan, which Japanese Naval Officer. visited San Francisco during 1875. The portrait of the commander shows the Japanese naval officer of the period in modern tonsure and uniform. The sun-flag of Japan floats astern. In the latter part of June, 1872, the mikado left Tōkiō in the flagship of Admiral Akamatsu, who was trained in Holland with Enomoto,

The Japanese Steam Corvette Tsukuba Kan.

and made a tour in Kiushiu and the South and West of the empire. For the first time in twelve centuries, the Emperor of Japan moved freely and unveiled among his subjects, whose loyalty and devotion were manifested in the intense but decorous enthusiasm characteristic of a people to whom etiquette is second nature. In several ancient places the imperial hands opened, in anticipation of the Vienna Ex