| Show W ams J taah taA 4 faw in japan surely no child in japan ever d to be grown up and no lit tie girl in a moment of discontent ever heard from 1 er mother s 1 pa the catch phrase your good time s coming my ch id for no grown up woman in japan ever does have a good time I 1 she is too old to en joy it I 1 th it wis sir rutherford alcock who first made the remark that tapan was the se of ba bles and from the day you set ejot en the or g i al of the famous willow gattein plate to the day you sigh air Sa onara to sacred fuji as you leave yokohama hay you will real ize tl e truth of his remark in japan all the orld s a nursery and the streets and temples are the lri h w 1 l a fc r gs ff t S fy adl the baby cart ch idren s playgrounds besides un til qu te recently japan was a na t on at play a nat on where you could see grownups as well as chil dren tal ing part in what we choose to call ch laih games during this great eastern war I 1 wonder it jap anese men and women have put away the r long tailed k tes and sv en tailed gold fishes and histon cal dolls ind have ceased to hunt lost souls in fireflies I 1 doubt it for it has been the 1 felong prater and ad uce of every japanese parent for adless generah ons that their chil dren when they have reached the estate of men and women should re ain the r chil I 1 s hearts when you meet a grown up person who has 1 ept his or her child s heart you cannot help loving them that is why you cannot help loving japan tor the whole nation has kept te child s heart childhood certa aly is the golden age in J pan more than in an oth er country in the world tor that gen tie land seems to have been created on purpose to amuse and spoil chil dren not anat a ch id is ever it in that land of gentle mothers tor a ch id s moral training and aimon per natural power of self control be gan hundreds of years before it was born when I 1 first drove through a na tive city in japan I 1 thought that every other shop was a toy shop and I 1 never could have bel eved that the world contained so many children for noth ng is too young to play on the mikado s highway in japan doll like iris of a few years old dressed e cicily like the r 1 atle mothers ex beit for their gayer clothes and fan tactically shaven heads carry el lo 10 v faced babies cf a few months old tied on the r backs while they n emous games with gorgeous balls made of scarlet and gold s ak or dart about on the r high wooden after the fall ng shuttlecock which they send bounding i p agdis over the tops of their paper homes w th a wooden battledore decorate on one side with the gaudily pa anted luid of a woman of the t I 1 soon learned that the streets were full of babies because the houses were all empty no one in the real japan ever aw a 1 by sleep ing in a cot its r A er was orl ng or being driven in a go cart tt ey sleep with their 1 atle 1 eads abbi n about on the r mothers or older s bacs and learn to sit on their feet with the r bent knees under them before they can stand an I 1 soon began to di sh the real toy shops which are more nu berous than in any other country in the world from the shops wh ch sold the toy like f rn ture and m ni utensil used for the grown up dolls houses shops of the household gods tor instance w th qua nt wh te plas ter foxes and strange gobi n like gods and images seemed to me de 1 gotful toy shops but when I 1 grew more intimate with the 1 fe of the country I 1 zed the tamil lar faces of the goddess of and the seven fat gods of wealth I 1 also learnt that the tiny teapots and diminutive trays and d ashes which I 1 sav in the pottery shops were used in the real b iman dolls houses and were not tos for cl icren but to see ch id 1 te in its perfect tion in japan must go to the tern pies in the courts of the house of buddha holiday att red ch idren sherm 11 e hiving bees as gorgeous G ris n the park as red admiral butterflies in their rich brocades an 1 crimson ob it is there tl at ou the best toy shops both for g ris and bo and it is there under the shade of the sa cred temple trees that the r little pa rents seem to have left their small cares and cespon b lit es of life be hind them in their paper homes and are children aga n not only in heart but m deeds but these endless tern pie f irs and f st vals where the western horld f r rany years learns saxa 1 f jle j rl aa ures of life and in the peace which flows from gentle hearts are alas gradually growing fewer and fewer for loaid schools will not perm t al most as man hoi days in the year as there are sa ants days m the roman catholic calendar in the real ja pan ch idren never went to school the were taught at home but it ild be wrong to give the un that they live lie chere they are protected from all dangers by dozens of strange lit tia charms they receive no proper home training perhaps no other children la the world ever did re ceide s ich a strict home training or ere educated 0 o carefully as the children of van shing a al tho li the major ty of girls 1 now chiv a few of the chinese characters rf their alpha et every boy and g rl 1 new ohp anc ent as a as modern 1 astory of their nat on and all its r ch bolit lore ch idren often accod pan ed then parents to the theater ad there they had iery vividly m rr ned on the r minds all the classi cai dramas and h stor cal traced es the H story before the das of choai was also by rd flavin ind tie famous one hundred poems cf the classics as the wh ch is the household bible ot japan was learnt by games of proverbs the of ch idren especially bos as tested by the tolling pt thrill ng ghost tor ea in eer e places or in the haftl round the hibachi on winter n gibb little g 1 aad famous exam pies recorded to tte if of ali al piety ind obedience by the story of some virtuous daughter who soh herself to a 1 fe of n isery to save her from but the most im part cf a ch id s education was its lesions in et quette eti buotte was so tar reach ng that a 1 t tie child had to beg n its education b foie it rould walk very early did girls learn the spec al teachings tach ings tor women called Wash hoka cebal ako which by the nature were q lal fied to rob a mother of her ch id s feirt in japan there is a very hard and ast line drawn between the moral ri ning and the aducat on of boys nd g ris gioi seldom see boys and ris in the together f you do you will notice that when i boy loses in a game his face re ves a dab of paint when a little rl loses she sticks a straw m her at the different festivals for boys ind g 1 the mark of sex is aas ly listl ngu on the days of the bo s festival the whole ty lies at play in temple garden ader a heaven of floating carps made of hollow gaily painted paper street is lined with bamboo polea from wal ch carp fly out into the breaze 11 e flags to test fv the fact that the japanese man ch id is capable of fighting its way up stream aga ast all the adverse currents ot life on the day of the girls festi val every stall and shop groans un dor its burden of solemn faced dolls if ou a little boy in japan v hat his highest ambition in 1 fe was he would tell you to die tor his em geror A little girl would say to observe the teachings of the seven sages so that he might be a sub missive daughter to her father a submissive w fe to her husband a ve daughter in law to her husband s parents and last of all a suba asive mother to her eldest son if ane was left a widow douglas in montreal herald |
