Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

All the electric car system which is now in the hands of one company, is soon to be owned by the city. It is at this present time being considered by the Diet. The city in this way hopes to meet the enormous expenses which are confronting it in the way of harbor improvement, street widening and new sewerage, all of which will cost something like 100,000,000 yen. The new water works are almost completed. The water comes from the river Fama, about fifty or sixty miles out of the city, and is a masterly piece of engineering. It will provide Tokyo with a water system second to none. Of it the present mayor is justly proud.

Tokyo is increasing in population at about the same rate as Chicago, that is, about 100,000 per year. Labor troubles have not as yet become a serious thing in Tokyo, but the prescient gaze of the administration foresees that the day is not far distant when they may become so. The municipality was only established about ten years ago and was before that under the rule of a governor. The office of governor is still a relic of the feudal times and the Governor still has some prerogatives which remain from the ancient and somewhat archaic institution.

The preparation for the coming Exposition is the most serious thing before the city now. There has been appropriated about 10,000,000 yen.

“After the Exposition we hope to have the Aoyama Parade ground as a permanent park, and the construction for this gigantic affair involves the closest attention from now on,” said His Excellency. A huge building is projected, which will become permanent and will adorn Shiba park. The model which we saw is very imposing indeed, and is the work of the city engineer. It is rather of Roman style of architecture and is massive and admirably proportioned.

JAPANESE RAILWAYS

Dr. Hirai, Director of the Government Railway Bureau, graduated in the Van Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute just after the exhibition in Philadelphia in 1878, and on graduating was employed in the Mississippi River Commission by the United States Government, and did not return to Japan till 1882.

His pioneer railway service was in the Hokkaido, on the line which was built by Col. J. U. Crawford, an American, and run on purely American plans and methods. It has changed since, as after Dr. Hirai left the engineer introduced English customs, but retained the American cars.

“In my day,” said Dr. Hirai, “the New York Central and the Pennsylvania were the leading roads in America. I hope to see myself what thirty years have brought about, on my trip to that country next year. I had intended visiting Europe and America during the war time, but was prevented on that account from travelling. On my return I shall have seen and investigated modern railroading as it actually is in America and Europe. What I shall see will naturally bring benefit to my system.”

“What do you think of American railroad men, Dr. Hirai?” we asked.

“I think they are the greatest men that you have in any line. We are working at this moment for the amalgamation of seventeen private railroads and are reducing them to the same standard of rates, fares, and working staff. Our railroad system is just a little over 45,000 miles, which does not show very large, but its significance is in the fact that it includes all the main lines of this Empire and is therefore important. It includes the lines in the Hokkaido, Kyushiu, all of the main island, and Shikoku, one third of which belonged before to the Government, the rest having been acquired since 1906-07. The method by which these seventeen railroads have been acquired is based on the calculation that the stockholders will receive Government bonds bearing interest at the rate of 5 per cent., equal to the average of the dividend they have been receiving during the three years previous to the time of nationalization. When the railroad has been paying less on the capital than that, the amount of the bonds to be paid for the railroad is to be agreed upon between the Government, and the representatives of the stockholders. The whole amount of bonds to be issued for nationalization will be nearly Y450,000,000, or Y500,000,000, which we calculate will be paid off, interest and principal, in 60 years. The actual result since acquiring the railways is better than had been anticipated. Rates for goods and fares for passengers have been reduced to a single standard. The reduction on some lines has been more than 30 per cent., but still on the whole our receipts are about 10 per cent. on fares and 20 per cent. on freight more than the receipts of the previous year. The results are, therefore, most gratifying. The total receipts for the fiscal year ending the 31st of March this year will, I think, approximate Y70,000,000; the net receipts are about 32 to 35 millions. The actual net receipts for nine months to the end of last December are a little over Y28,000,000. This is a showing which speaks for itself.

“The most marked results of nationalization of our railroads is seen in the Hokkaido, where the best part of the railway was under the control of the Hokkaido Colliery and Railway Company. Naturally this company transported their coal in preference to all other freight, and the development of paper mills and other manufactures was slow. Since the Government has taken over the railway, no preference is given to any particular freight, and in consequence the development of other industries is facilitated.

“The steel works at Wakamatsu are supplying the army and navy, so we are short of materials from this source, but we obtain the greater part of our rails from them. We are building our cars in our own shops and in three private shops, but we import our locomotives from foreign countries, and you see English, German and American locomotives on our road. The most economical engines so far in use we find to be English. We hope to introduce greater ease and luxury in our cars every year. We are now exporting wood for ties and sleepers to America. Our first aim is for cheap and quick transportation of goods. Heretofore our receipts have been mostly from passengers, over 70 per cent., but of late we are giving more facilities to freight. We expect to build a central station in Tokyo, beginning the work this year, and Shimbashi will be like an old horse which in pride has once drawn his master’s carriage, but is later relegated to a dray, for it will be used for goods alone. We expect to connect the elevated line we are building now to Uyeno and Ochanomidzu. The plan of the new central station is already complete. It will be located in Marunouchi and will be a thoroughly modern station costing about Y2,000,000. It will be completed in time for the exposition, and we expect to have a station hotel in connection with it, after the plan of the Canadian Pacific hotels. But, when it is all finished, we shall have, like the man in the scripture, to pull down and build bigger, so fast does the tide and onward sweep of modern life outreach even the large projects of man’s brain. We have something like 70,000 employes, a good standing army, and our Society for the relief of the injured and disabled has on its list 50,000 members; this provides for medical treatment and care for those laid aside in any way. It is a society in which the railroad and the men co-operate. The men pay in every month 3 per cent. of their wages, and the government 2 per cent., so that 5 per cent. of the income of all wages is appropriated for this relief fund. The officers of the road get a pension after 15 years’ service amounting to one quarter of their salary. We have to supply the staff of the Korean, Manchurian and Formosan times, who are men trained with us.

“During the war we sent 15,000 men to work the military lines in Manchuria and Korea. A Railway School is situated near Uyeno Station in Tokyo, where the course is preliminary. After graduation the men come to us and work up. For high grades we employ university graduates or those from high commercial schools. The most urgent work we have on hand in the coming year is the extension of station facilities, doubling of tracks, extension of repairing shops for the existing lines, for which we have an estimate of eight millions for the coming year. In the line of new construction, we have an estimate of about 25 millions yearly extending over twelve years, which will add about two thousand miles to our railway when completed.”

Dr. Hirai speaks the English of a generation gone, with the clear cut pronunciation of another age when men and women had time to do things well, and as he speaks English, so he stands at the head of one of the great railroads of the world, with the gentle suavity and calm reflective face of a scholar, not a man of affairs, with a serene self-possession which is the unmistakable mark of genius combined with self-mastery. He is more like the great Dr. Charcot than any man I ever met, and I remembered on coming home that in Dr. Charcot’s Paris house was placed, in his vast library, a statue of Buddha.

MADAME SHIMODA

Madame Shimoda is one of those rare beings, who have the singular fortune to have not only fame, but what is far more to be coveted, a place, in the hearts of thousands of her countrymen and women.

Hardly any one in Tokyo, who reads at all, but could guide you to the little wooden house, on the hill, one of a million homes of her city, where this virile and delicate woman lives, surrounded by the care of relatives and friends, who it is easy to see give her, not only care, but love.

Born in a feudal castle in the picturesque country of the Japan mountain region, with the country spirit still in her, which the life for many years in the palace of Tokyo could not destroy, that spirit you feel in the touch of her diminutive hand, in the glance of her powerful eyes, where dwells unquenched the freshness of free spaces.

Before she was twenty she was a reader to Her Majesty the Empress and began the severe training of court etiquette, with its demands, more than those of a soldier for self-control, yet even after years of such experience and the still more severe drill as a teacher of young ladies she has as charming a naturalness as a girl, so great is the gift of the “kind old Nurse” Nature.

These men and women of Japan, who have crossed the half century line, are all of them, more or less, the inheritors of the chivalry of the ages gone by, and of all those ideas which Japan once held as absolutely necessary to the making of a lady or a gentleman.

They tell us with a soft resigned sigh, that those ideals are passing away before the inroads of western civilization, and who can not regret it?

A volume of this little lady’s work with her round, generous hand-writing, is one of my treasures, as she stands first among the “singing birds” among the women of her land.

Her tastes are as varied as her life, with always that passionate love of nature in the foreground.

The heroic, as is natural in a Japanese woman, comes next, and the late war comes often into the short simple lines, where self-poise is again so marked.

Her fondness for youth and the sentiments of youth come into play on every other page.

I had spent a number of hours in the school which is her greatest monument, the “Peeress school,” where the daughters of the nobility are educated, and found there a duplicate of a first class European institution, from the kindergarten to the graduating class.

I had listened to the eloquence of the teachers as they spoke of the French Revolution, and watched the faces of the English class, as they went over the ever imperial verses of Tennyson.

In those pretty, demure eyes, there was just the passion for the “good, the true and beautiful,” which all fine youth has, the same we know so well, before the Dawn has left them.

We passed a group in the hall and there was the daughter of the greatest admiral of modern times, Miss Togo!

We saw them in the cooking school and heard their bursts of laughter as they made the interesting and doubtless indigestible dishes they were soon to partake of.

From the Auditorium to the garden, where the children play and make those queer shapes and forms in the sand which latter are enlarged in the vaster designs of manhood and womanhood, we found everywhere the mark of this woman, her care and her genius.

On one Sunday, we were invited to her house, and a very bright Yokohama girl, who spoke Japanese fluently, was our enthusiastic companion to the home of the first teacher and first poetess of the land.

I was amused as we sat and she talked for an hour in the quiet soft toned parlor of the higher education of the women of her land, to see how her glance would wander from my pencil to the face of the young girl, and of how she would interrupt her most serious remarks of history, which she has at her finger tips, of philosophy, bred in her bones, of the highest ethics of life, when she would cast one of those bewitching smiles on the girl as she pressed her to take more sweets. Life is ever the master passion of all such souls and they live only in to-day. Higher education is not new, but like all great movements, this of Japan began long, long ago, and once women held the place of almost the equal of their lords, but the strange story of reaction and retrogression, which marks the advance of the East, came in to disfigure the wonderful march of the thought life of women.

Madame Shimoda is a pioneer in her work, and to-day thousands of modern Japanese women rise up to call her blessed.

She was left a widow after a very brief married life and then all her pent up love and devotion went out to her sex.

She has travelled extensively in Europe and America, and with that master power that all Japanese seem to have, she has taken much of the good, and left the bad of the West.

The great need of physical culture for the future mothers of Japan was what appealed to her most strongly and this has been the first note in her educational scheme.

We had sought for the motto which gives the keynote to the social life of a Japanese home, and in the house of Viscount Kaneko we had found it to be: “Wealth and rank are but a fleeting show, the merit is the man.” Here it was, as we might have known: “Duty First.”

What would one expect of a woman who had spent her middle life in educating the upper classes of her people, that she would want to rest? Oh, no! for the remaining years she is to devote herself just as earnestly to the educating of middle and lower class Japanese women.

This frail but purposeful woman had fire in her eyes as she spoke of the future, a future which to such as she must only mean vaster and vaster horizons and more radiant conquests.

PEERESS’ SCHOOL

If you walk from Hibiya Park between two imposing public buildings, up the broad avenue to the top of the hill, you will come to the high wall which encloses the Peeress’ School, with the court, a fine entrance space, with porter’s lodge and a porte cochere of Gothic arches, and the whole a good bit of English architecture, with wide door and a lofty hall. Opposite you as you enter is the refectory, with its low tables and the plain and substantial effect of age and use. Two pretty portresses will meet you at the door, with their eyes full of fun, as all boarding-school maids have, as they are the secret ambassadors of much mischief and are initiates of that occult society of fun. Their demure manners, assumed for the occasion, do not blind you to their roguery, for you have been a boarding-school girl long ago.

The instructor in English is as courteous as a guide as he is clever in the use of your mother tongue, and you begin with a keen relish the tour of inspection.

The reception room is rather like the meeting room of a committee, for which purpose it is doubtless often used. Here the wise heads are doubtless laid together and those plans for the education of Japan’s future wives and mothers laid. Out of this room leads the Empress’ reception room, with the heavy damask curtains, the high ceilings and the empty walls where, on the two yearly visits, the gracious and “first woman of the land” receives the homage of the director and his staff and gives in return the interest of all true women, be they high or low, in the education and welfare of their sex.

The school has three terms,--one week’s vacation in April, and more than two months in summer, and a short vacation at the New Year. About the end of October is the exhibition in physical exercises, and about the end of March that awe-inspiring epoch of graduation, when the high functionaries of State and the distinguished clientele of Tokyo come to see their girls step out of the schoolroom into the school of life--a moment mingled in every land and school with gaiety and pathos.

The children enter the kindergarten at the end of the toddling age, and the little lads and lassies sit side by side in their delightful rooms and make their first songs of life, as they end them, together, their little arms and hands making the first efforts at rhythm together, awkward movements full of grace. They pass at eight years to the primary department and begin the toilsome upward pull of real study, and here their ways part,--the boys for the Peers’ School and the ruder ways of masculine effort. From the primary course they enter at about the age of fourteen the “middle course,” and that is in grade substantially our High School. From this they can take post-graduate courses in special studies, such as the classics, music and other branches. The branches are technical departments, music, needlework and embroidery, and a thorough course in cooking. Of the painting we will speak later.

The Literary department must include courses in advanced Japanese classics and English and French literature. The Science department comprises a small laboratory, not overstocked with apparatus, and a good class-room for experiments. This department has few devotees, as might be expected, and also mathematics, and there is “little Latin and less Greek” in the regular curriculum.

These sparkling-eyed young damsels take mostly to the gentler arts and the gentler paths of learning. Our first visit was to the painting department, as was fitting in a land which is above all things an amateur of art. Here some ten young girls were painting on silk the flowers and butterflies so dear to the Japanese heart. They were fifth-year students and were very clever. The first year’s work hung about on the walls. We looked for still-life subjects and casts, and were told we would find them later, as we did, and some good work in oil, and were told that animals and more ambitious subjects were attempted by these embryo Rosa Bonheurs. The work was about on a level technically, without being as original, as similar work of the same age at home.

The gong struck for the end of a forty-five minutes’ period as we left these rooms and the girls rushed out to the playground with all the excitement of such times at home. The playground is much too small. It had a tennis court where the girls were striking wildly at a tethered ball, an amusement they seemed much to enjoy. There is a fine gymnasium with the omnipresent piano, and here the marching and physical exercises are practised. The kindergarten department playground has piles of sand for the little folks, and they begin their engineering and their landscape gardening in the bright sunshine there. In the halls we saw two ping-pong tables, and certainly the physical side of the young ladies’ training is not neglected. The auditorium is spacious, and here are held the overflow recitations occasionally. We saw a class in ethics file in, their faces alive with youth and happiness, a charming ethical picture! As we were passing one door a group of these eager beings emerged, and our guide informed us that the tall young lady was Admiral Togo’s daughter.

Four hours a week are given to foreign languages, and French or English may be selected. German is not taught to the girls. We were particularly entertained in the history class. The young ladies were as intent as their master, who told them in impassioned language of that impassioned epoch of the French revolution. “Danton and Robespierre,” how strange those names sounded so far away, mingled with the hurrying voice of the speaker! The revenge of the years on evil, how far-reaching! In the English class we heard some very creditable rendering of English verse by the girls, and the charm of Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” lost nothing on those pretty lips. The Knight Sir Lancelot and the maid Elaine and all their chivalric woes and their exquisite love story was dainty enough in its new setting. We saw the cooking class at work and the little maids frying fish and preparing the lunch that was to be served at the long table in the airy dining-room which opens into the garden. For myself I was willing to try the cooking, however indigestible, after seeing the cooks. The teacher was an old Japanese gentleman who was as cool, apparently, with these too many “cooks spoiling the broth” as a young chef would not be, patience being the supreme qualification for a cook, as for a Cabinet Minister.

We found the kindergarten department, after all, the most alluring, for the rooms here were more attractive and the little pupils passingly dear. They sang so sweetly and played so charmingly in the wee garden and came running about us with all the abandonment of childhood and the laughter of fairies that we were captives to education at once.

If we could have one of those baby companions as a seat mate we would be willing to go over the whole course again, beset with the terrors of examinations and failure marks as it was.

The teachers of the Peeress’ School are specialists and have received the training of many lands. We had a cosy chat in the director’s study, and he amusingly informed us in very idiomatic English as a beginning “that as he had arrived only a day before us he did not know much more than we about the school.” This admission was certainly promising of great good to the school, as wisdom is not hasty in its judgments, nor rash in its methods.

Looking into that face which bears the beauty of refinement and culture to an eminent degree, as well as that soul light, without which all education is vain and all teachers worse than vain, we felt that in the hands of a man associated for more than twenty years with the education of the youth of Japan, Mr. Gentaro Matsumoto, the future of the Peeress’ School might be even brighter than its past.

KANEKO

The subject of this chapter is one of the forces,--which unobtrusively and unostentatiously is not only felt in Japan, but in the world. He is a world man. In order to pass into this category of world men, a great deal is required, and process is always of intense interest to humanity,--which from the lowest to the highest is aspiring to be felt.

Chosen to represent in the Great Exposition the country of which his proudest boast is to be a son, he combines those distinguished attainments, which a long past of services well rendered have given in turn, and is not only a fine example of Modern Japan at its present moment of leadership, but is also a man of the world,--moulded by the best scholarship of the last century, and while working to-day in the formation and perfecting of his own government, his thought has the catholicity of a statesman and embraces the interests of every land as well.

Born at an epoch when his country was just awakening to the modern struggle,--born out of the provincial life, which is always the best preparation for city life, because it is more serious, more profound, and more far-reaching in its thought than that of a metropolis, as it is more introspective; he came as a very young man to be the adopted foster son of our great republic, and with singular Oriental astuteness, read into its pages of history and life, its secrets of growth and progress, as well as its defects and limitations; he rose through all the grades of a city public school, that unrivaled training for life, entered our proudest university, the synonym of culture, of the humanities of that aristocracy of thought which separates and differentiates men, far more than lineage,--and came out of it to mingle in the affairs of men, a democrat, progressive, man of action, incorporating in his ideals and work the best influences of the past, but an ardent lover of the future, a believer in better days and things, a belief which he has kept to this hour.

Kentaro Kaneko was born in Fukuoka, Chikuzen, Western Japan,--noted for its chivalry, its warriors, and also for its learning. Its Daimyo was Marquis Kurada, one of the greatest nobles of the land, the grandfather of the present Vice-President of the House, and this man took a special interest in Viscount Kaneko, and it was through his influence that as a boy he was sent to Tokyo to study, and later to Boston, where he began his education in the Boston public schools. From these schools be entered Harvard Law School and graduated, returning to his own country after eight years, and was soon appointed by Prince Ito Secretary of the State Council, and was in the next year appointed private secretary to Prime Minister Ito, and launched on the arduous labors of making the draft of Japan’s future Constitution.

He was married to the present Viscountess, the daughter of a governor of one of the Japanese provinces, and they have two daughters and a son. Viscountess Kaneko is exceptional in her graceful hospitality, a lover of home, and although she does not speak foreign languages, is said to be a brilliant conversationalist in her own, and is a real helpmate to her husband in his intellectual and social life, devoted to children and to entertaining, she has won enthusiastic appreciation from her guests by her tact and kindness. She is interested in all the best modernism.

In a recent resume of his life, we gather these details:

“In 1890 he was elected as a member of the Institute of International Law and in 1892 attended its general meeting held in Switzerland. At the meetings, he advocated reforming the Treaties then in force between Japan and foreign powers and for abolishing extraterritoriality in Japan, and after much argument and pleading, he at last succeeded in getting the Institute to pass the resolution. In 1894 he was appointed the Vice Minister of Agriculture and Commerce; in 1898 became the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in the Ito Ministry, and then resigned the portfolio together with Prime Minister Ito. In 1899 he went over to the United States, accepting an invitation from Harvard University, where the honorary title of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him. He was the first Japanese that received the title, and the reason for conferring this singular honor upon him was announced by President Eliot at the Commencement as follows:

“Kentaro Kaneko, Harvard Bachelor of Laws, formerly Chief Secretary of the Imperial House of Peers in Japan, and Vice-Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, Life member of this House of Peers, the type of those scholars of two Hemispheres through whom West would welcome East to share in the inheritance of Hebrew religion, Greek Art, Roman Law and Nineteenth Century Science.”

In 1900, he was created a Baron in recognition of his service. Before this time, he had organized with Prince Ito a political association named Seiyu-Kwai and was appointed a member of the managing committee. When the Ito Cabinet was formed in 1900 he was appointed to the portfolio of the Minister of Justice. The next year, when the Ito Ministry resigned, he retired to a quiet life for a while. In 1904 on the declaration of war with Russia, the Viscount was ordered to proceed to the United States on a special mission and remained there for one year and a half. During that time he devoted himself to promote the best interests of his country and scarcely had a day’s rest, so that he was looked upon as uncommissioned ambassador; and it is said when the negotiation for peace was commenced at Portsmouth, he labored hard to secure a successful result, and had several interviews with President Roosevelt. In 1906 he was appointed a Privy Councillor and for his service during the war, decorated with the First Order of Merit and the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun. In 1907, when the Order for the Organization of the Bureau of the Grand Exhibition of Japan, to be opened in 1912, was promulgated, he received the Imperial Order to be the Director of the Exhibition with all the offices and rank already conferred upon that function. In September, 1907, he was a Viscount for his service rendered for the cause of his country.

In one of our interviews with this man, whose souvenirs cover such an interesting period, we asked him for reminiscences, which he kindly gave in the genial and unstudied manner characteristic of his conversation.

“My souvenirs of England? Every day I used to go and sit in the house and listen to the debates in which Gladstone and his illustrious colleagues took part, this was in 1890, and I learned the usages from Sir Reginald Palgrave, who was the clerk of the house, the brother of the famous Prof. Palgrave of Oxford. My friendship with Herbert Spencer was a connecting link from America, for I took a letter from Mr. John Fish to him, and sending him my card, we met the following day by his invitation. At once we talked on the constitutional government of Japan and I showed him the English translation of the Constitution and we discussed questions of morality and religion. He was particularly interested in Japanese history, and evidently my explanation cleared many points he could not get right before. His face glowed with excitement. He jumped up, having an engagement at half past four, and he took me in his carriage and drove me to my hotel on his way to the “Atheneum Club.” We talked all the way and he said ‘I shall propose you as an honorary member of the Atheneum Club,’ and I was informed a week later that I was elected a member. Frequently afterward we dined there together, and on my return to Japan we corresponded. Herbert Spencer had great interest in the Orient and in collecting from there his materials for his social studies. Another friend was Lord Coolidge, Chief Justice of England. He used to entertain a great deal in his London house and there I met the celebrities. Sir Francis and Lady Jeune entertained me during the London season, and I visited with them in their country place in Newberry, meeting all the society of the day, Lord Knutsford and others. Gladstone impressed me as one of the greatest men in intellectuality, learning and the force of conviction; at that time he was out of office.

“In 1892 I revisited London, and arrived the very day Lord Salisbury went out and Gladstone’s cabinet came in. Among its members Mr. James Brace was my particular friend. I met him often in London and in the United States in 1904, when he was invited to give lectures to the Alumni at Harvard.

“When in England I met many Oxford and Cambridge men. What impressed me as admirable in England was the English quiet, contented life. In Japan politically we are aristocratic, but in all the social relations we are democratic. The wife educates our servants to be really interested in their duties. We, the Japanese, are not very rich, we do not count the men by their money, but by their worth; any man is admitted to the best society who is worthy of it. Japan is the most deceptive country externally; you scarcely meet a single lady, or gentleman in the street, so you do not meet them on the cars or the parks. A Japanese lady sends for her goods to the house, a promiscuous crowd alone meets you so that you rarely come in contact with the well-bred people of the country. So it is also the undesirable people who go to America, oftentimes either in misfortune financially through the fault of others, he is preparing himself by an industrious life in a foreign country, and often he is trying to retrieve his life or that of his family. Hotel boys and servants come back and take useful places here, the better for their experience.

“Among the great men who moulded my ideals in America, I wanted to study the religious institutions and influence in the United States, so I went to all the churches while in Boston, Roman Catholic, Congregational, Swedenborgian, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Parker’s Memorial, and met all classes of preachers, theologians, and ethical teachers. I was in public school in Boston in 1872, when the public school was at its best. That gave me the strong force to come back into the battle of life, and from the mingling with negroes and emigrants, I learned life. I knew Longfellow and Holmes and spent two summers with him at Beverly Farm. Robert C. Winthrop was also my friend, and was also a great help to me. Through his kindness, Judge Holmes gave me more material to cultivate my mind perhaps than any other American. President Eliot was of course an inspiration and two of my pleasantest memories are visits to James G. Blaine at Bar Harbor and President Cleveland at “Gray Gables”.”

In closing, as the sun was setting over Tokio and filling the vast salle of the Exposition Administration offices with twilight, the delicate and earnest face of the speaker flashed now with humor, now with seriousness and pathos as he spoke of the present relation of Japan and America, serious it is, when loose tongues speak of that most awful thing,--war. “We try to weigh the past, present and future, and we are sure that soon the temporary strain will be relieved,” said the earnest voice,--“ever since the restoration in 1868 America has been our friend and we remember it; it has been a friendship cemented with our growth.”

EXPOSITION NOTES

A jinriksha ride through the picturesque streets of Tokyo about two to two and a half miles from Shimbashi Station brings you to the Aoyama Parade ground, which, with the Imperial Park forms the site of the Exposition of 1912. From corners of the grounds and a temporary station, trains will leave for and come from all parts of the Empire. This place, now perfectly bare, will show the result of Japanese genius and invention in a short time. On one side is the park of the Crown Prince’s palace, and at another corner is a military university, which will be removed. The ground here is high and the air very fresh and invigorating, as it is in an open part of the city, and it will remain a permanent park after the Exposition. The work on the ground begins early in 1908.

Tokyo alone is most interesting in its street sights; the children at their games, a baby asleep in the shop, a lovely vision, two old people weighed down with their burdens, pilgrims in quaint garb, the boys and girls returning from school with knapsacks full of books, arms over each others’ shoulders, bright-eyed girls out for amusement or to pay visits, the big milk carts and street vendors, the portable kitchens, around which some are taking an evening meal, the flower wagons, the horses with their bright accoutrements, the strange calls, the pathetic blind beggars, all mingle in the city’s drama! The road from the parade ground is lined with parks and villas, passing we see many gay singing children. We go through the deeper lanes and hedges to the park which we enter by an avenue of truly imperial trees, pine trees, and groves also of maples and shrubs, 120 acres, rented from the Imperial household, paths of delightful vistas, mystery and woods full of charm, a sylvan paradise, hilly, rolling, full of possibilities of gardening, near Tokyo Bay.

Dr. Fukuichi, the chief engineer of Japan, is the Chairman of the Committee for the buildings and is now engaged on the plans. The gardening and electricity, each best authority, has been appointed. Mr. Fuwa is the Director of the Imperial Horticultural department and is the chairman of the Committee on Gardening. The buildings will be unique,--five departments, education, science, electricity, manufactory.

The Governments of the world have been requested to build in the style of their own country. Viscount Kaneko emphasizes that every nation should incorporate its own architecture in the structures. “We hope,” thus he says, “that our ideas of architecture will be revolutionized.” There will be large hotels constructed in different cities of Japan and many new ones in Tokyo, as the houses already here are by no means adequate.

“The International Exposition,” said Viscount Kaneko, “as far as I have seen in Europe and America, have been too large in extent and scope, so that as a rule it is too great for any one to grasp as the exhibits are over-full, and might be described as ‘too much of a muchness.’ Neither the eyes nor the ears can take in the magnitude, so you are dumb and numb, and you come out overawed by the detail. The extent and magnitude have defeated often their object: too much paltry stuff, and show and display, not realizing the educational purpose, have become rather a sight-seeing scheme.

“This was said of Paris and of St. Louis, and I have heard from different sources, commissioners, executives, both European and American, express this feeling, and so at this juncture of world’s fairs, I think the organizers are thinking to lessen the extent and magnitude and thereby to make the exposition compact, systematic, and effective.

“I believe that in the future the world’s fairs will be lessened in size and in indiscriminate exhibits. That is my idea, which I hope to incorporate in the coming exposition. We mean to emphasize to the world that in the grandeur of the buildings we cannot compete with Europe and America, and also Japan cannot show anything of electricity, manufacturing or machinery, and we cannot give any lesson to the world either, in going ahead of other nations in the ensemble;--we hardly hope to show much of overwhelming value on any line to the world, as it is the first International Exhibition in the Orient. Consequently we expect to make the Asiatic exhibit the special point; we want to exhibit all the products of Asia and the Indian Archipelago, the Philippines, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Australia, New Zealand, and Formosa, and so we will have the first Asiatic expression of commerce on so large a scale, showing unity of language, racial features, religion and customs, for we can collect from all those peoples and realize a unifying of the Oriental Nations, and enlighten the world as to the Oriental essence, thought, ideals,--past and future. This is our aim.

“Next, we expect to make Tokyo the centre from Tokyo then, expanding in the radii of Nikko and Sendai in the north, and in the south Nagoya, Nara, and Kyoto, and farther down south Shimonoseki and the Island of Kyushu, and thus the whole country will be thrown open to the people as an exhibition ground. All the temples will be open to the western visitors, and every corner and every mountain and all the scenery will form a part of the Exposition grounds, and thus we expect to show to the Western peoples the manners, customs and life of the Japanese, and show them also, not only in public, but at home. Thus also by interchange of ideas between the Japanese and Western nations, they will come to a better understanding of each other for mutual benefit, so many misunderstandings between the East and the West may be corrected and also it will bring about a “rapprochement” of sympathy and interest, and in this manner we will contribute something to the world’s commerce, diplomacy and civilization. These are the general lines along which we shall move and we expect to organize.

“We wish the exposition also to serve in statecraft. Formerly the Sovereigns and Ministers negotiated the diplomacy of a nation in secret conclaves, but within the last fifty years this has been changed. Now the people hold the power. If we can bring a better understanding between the Orient and Occident by the means of a friendly rivalry of an Exposition, the ends of civilization will be met and progress will be served.

“Japan is considered the leading artistic nation of the Orient, but the nations of the world have not seen Japanese art arranged in order. Now we expect to have an exposition of Japanese ancient art, arranged chronologically, and also according to schools, covering a period of 1,500 years, after the introduction of Indian religion and Chinese philosophy into Japan. This period will be divided into eight periods of Japanese artistic history, and each period will show the characteristic arts of painting, bronze and pottery, and lacquer, and so forth, and will show characteristic ideas and instincts of the Japanese people. Thus the whole history of Japanese art will be brought down to the modern age.

“These are only a few details of the forthcoming Exposition which will, we trust, bring the East and West into greater unity.”

BARON TAKAHASHI

In the two great branches of state craft, diplomacy and finance, it is interesting to see the interchange of qualities and the intellectual dominance of each is usually thought to be most marked, still there have been men of rare human qualities, who were financiers and diplomats as well.

Baron Takahashi unquestionably belongs to this class who weave, as do certain scientists, a romance of facts or more justly speaking comprehend the intense humanness of dollars and cents.

Five times he has crossed the ocean to visit America on commercial missions and brought back a fund of observation, as well as more material baggage. He has put his finger on the pulse of Wall street and discovered some of the causes of its fitful and erratic pulsations, and has even after bearing the tremendous financial burden of a country in its hour of extreme need come out with the vigor and the magnetic vitality of a man of the future, not of the past.

We thought of Necker at once and the cheerful Latin optimism seemed in the speaker and in his person.

“Japan has not yet recovered as we know from the late war, and she requires foreign capital, we must look to the world’s markets for it. Unfortunately for us we must wait for our loans until the affairs of other countries are on a better basis or rather in a less fluctuating condition than they are to-day. I believe that if men of capital will continue to invest in my country, it will be to their advantage and I am also desirous for the mutual good of both, that these investments be as safe as possible and in this I have been and will be an intermediary.

“From the standpoint of investors England and Germany are unquestionably the safest and surest markets to-day. Financial security always goes with freedom, the United States has such serious abuses of power that freedom becomes disturbed and so as by a paradox tyranny often reigns.

“The continual warfare between labor and capital gives rise to uneasiness and disturbs the market, as does the lax social conditions the sequel of the indiscriminate immigration and it has the seeds of revolt against established rule.

“Something must be done with the banking system in America and there must be reforms also in the monetary system. The peculiar centralization of the gold in Washington and so in an event of crisis the intervention coming wholly from there, is not advantageous. A central banking system as in Germany should be established. The amassing of great fortunes is not however as many suppose an evil, money is never idle except unspent in the pocket of the poor man! The rich man puts it at once to use. Turning to Japan we see some very hopeful signs and some serious drawbacks. Foremost among the things which promise most, are the sugar plantations of Formosa. If in a few years she furnishes us with most all the sugar we need as we expect and Korea with her vast territory as yet waiting for energy and for intellect to develop can give us cotton, we shall find these great items in our imports changed to sources of income and in the near future a trade balance in our favor. This cotton of Korea is of far more value to us than her gold mines. One of the major drawbacks in Japan commercially is the want of co-operation among small manufacturers and work men handicrafts.

“We feel this primarily in the exports to China. Take the case of Manchuria. The Chinese are very observing and they can tell the difference between our work and German work at once and they prefer to use the German although they must pay more for it.

“The cause of this is often that a poor manufacturer is many times compelled to over-produce under great pressure and turns out half-done work, even when he knows it means no more orders.

“Local authorities are trying to urge combinations among manufacturers, but so far have met with little success.

“This isolated working purely for self interest is undoubtedly the root of what is called Japanese commercial dishonesty.

“To France we must turn to-day to see the supreme example of thrift and industry and reciprocity of helpfulness. Japan unfortunately does not yet give us as hopeful a picture of economy.”

Laughingly assuring Baron Takahashi that we had a personal sympathy with the people who could not save, he answered playfully that we must all acknowledge the wisdom of providing for old age and children, and with that very human and humane observation our interview was closed. We felt the man spoke rather than the financier.

TOKYO OBSERVATORY

If you look at an astronomical map of stations of observation, you will see what looks to be a meteoric shower of dots on Europe, where there are one hundred and thirty observatories, sixty-five in North America, six in India, six also in Australia, two in the West Indies, three on the coast of China, and following the line of sea and shore northward in a vast region of watery waste only two lone spots which are the two Japanese observatories. Their importance to science is therefore obvious. Though situated on a height which seems to crown the city of Tokyo with the picturesque foliage of Hibiya Park, where the lungs and the mind expand, we are surprised to be told that for star gazers, there is not enough space. The observatory is soon to be moved; so bad are the atmospheric conditions and it is all but impossible to obtain good results in astronomical photography. In spite of this draw-back some very successful work on the Milky Way has been obtained by Prof. S. Hirayama, still as the enthusiastic young assistant says who has just returned from two years at the Yerkes observatory at Williams bay, Wisconsin, it is very unsatisfactory.

The work just now of the Observatory is the observation of variable stars, and the study of the deviation of verticals for which the observers must go out into the country to other heights. The chief work of the staff is along the line of time service, variation of latitude, solar observations, though the most important work is possibly on the Milky Way. The staff has been up to this time small, but there is now a sufficient force to ensure greater results of a more searching character. The present officers are:--Director, Prof. Terao; Professors S. and K. Hirayama; Assistant Professors, Sotome, Midzuhara, and Ichinoye.

The Astronomical Society which has just been established intends to popularize the study of astronomy, and they will have for this purpose, a series of journals published in Japanese. For scholars there will be also journals in English, German and French, giving an account of the work done at the observatory as well as matters of universal interest to astronomers. In eclipse trials many observations have been made; some of the plates are most beautiful, one taken of the corona of the sun by Prof. Hirayama was exquisite, this work was done at Padang, Sumatra. The instruments are three equatorials, two meridian circles and several smaller telescopes. Proudest of all is the institution of their Reflers clock which, I believe, is the only one in the Orient. The library is excellent, containing very many valuable works of reference. Mr. Ichinoye, while at the Yerkes observatory, took special work in spectroscopy and double stars and he speaks with enthusiasm of Profs. Frost, Burnham and Bernard, who are among the leading astronomers of the world in solar and stellar investigation.

An account of the taking of the coronax of the Sun is given graphically in the “Annal” of the Tokyo Observatory.

We left Singapore on the 4th April on the steamer “Van Outhoorn” of the Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij, and four days later we anchored in Oleh-leh, at the extreme north of Sumatra island. During the rest of the voyage the steamer remained within sight of land. Our destination, Emmahaven, was reached at one o’clock in the afternoon of April 15th. There we took the train for Padang, only twenty minutes’ journey. In Padang I was able to select an abandoned shooting ground for archery on the seashore near Damar Street, as a site for the observing station. It was found afterwards that this site was too near the sea; when the sea was rough it was impossible to make sextant observations with artificial horizon on account of the periodical trembling of the ground. But fortunately on the day of the eclipse the sea was extremely calm, so that we could get sharp photographs. Dr. Lau, a German engineer, who had been resident for a long time in Padang, was most helpful to us during the whole period of our stay. He provided for us both labor and materials. On account of the excessive rain it was not possible to commence the setting of our instruments until April 27th. The principal instruments employed are as follows:--8-inch prismatic camera, in charge of the writer; 5-inch coronagraph, in charge of Mr. K. Hirayama; Vogel’s direct vision star-spectroscope in connection with a 4-inch telescope, in charge of Mr. Sotome.

Now for a few words about the weather conditions at this station during my stay. Observations at Padang for several days after our arrival showed that as a rule the mornings were quite clear, but about noon the sky began to be overcast, and in the evenings it rained. Since the totality was to occur about one o’clock in the afternoon, we were all anxious about the visibility of the eclipse. But later observations showed that the weather was greatly improving. Still there was not a single day in which the sky was entirely free of clouds, such as I had enjoyed during my stay in India to observe the total eclipse of 1898. The nights were specially bad, with either clouds or rain. Till the time of the eclipse we had only a few clear nights, during which we tried to photograph the spectrum of a bright star for focussing.