OCR Text |
Show LIGHT -HetARTED NESS OF JAPANESE CHILDREN. Ooe of the Brat lessons presented to a foreign teacher in Japan is the reason ol the great apparent happi nesa and light-beartedneas ot Japan children. One may walk for hours thtough the streets ot Tokio, aud scarcely ever hear a child's cry of distress. dis-tress. Four principal causes of this superiority ol the children of Japan over thoBe ot other nations have heeo suggested by an English lady resident there. They are worthy o the uttea tion ot the teachers at home. 1. The style of clothing, loose and yet warm, if fur more comfortable than the diess of our children. .2. Japanese children are much more out in ,tue open air and sunshine. 3. The ahsenoe of furniture, and therefore, the absence of repeatedly given instructions "not to touch." The thick, soft matting funning at once the carpet and beds of all Japanese bona us, and the raispd lintel, on to which the child may clamber as it grows strong, constitute tbe vrry beau ideal of an infant's playground. play-ground. 4. Children are much pelted, without being capriciously thwarted. A obi Id is not culled one moment and indulged the next. To these four most suggestive reasons the writer would add a fifth,-which is, that Japanese character is 80 constituted as to.: brine their elders into atrong sympathy with . .tbe little lit-tle Ones. J,tp has beuu Well said that "Japan is a paradise of babies," for you may see, old and young play ing batlle-uoor and shuttle cock in the streets; while on holidays the national na-tional arpusetuuut of men, women and children is jilyiug huge paper kites. Puppet shows and. masquerades masque-rades also -have thur votaries in thou sands, from among both sexsa and all gt-s. |