Show V e t k ITH her tiny pigeon toes and her butter fly gown her paint her oiled hair and k k her soft timid voice e O 0 the japanese woman 0 hardly sug 9 bests tho the po pos s slbil 11 ity of memorizing thousands of chi nese characters that are necessary in the most ardi nary reading and much less would one believe her capable of evolving ideas and expressing them intelligently but she does both the japanese woman of the old era was like I 1 er entire nation a in she was the preeminent pre eminent ay iy y exclusive member of an excle sive people her powers her whole life were wholly at the dis dosal of her family arst and after ward of her husband huband or more Y correctly speaking her lord and master in a book of the old sa mural Is written the law for wo we men firstly a woman has no lord to serve but her husband she must obey and honor him as her lord and master be cautious never despise nor sl his words A woman s first duty is obedience she should be careful about the expression of her face and never t show anger or excitement in her looks subject to such restrictions it was impossible for the stranger in the past to learn of the real possibilities of the japanese woman he could be guided only by the artist artists s conception of tier her and ir by whatever reports might come from the lips of men while these portrayals were true in a way they were misleading because they did not lot espres the whole truth was the japanese woman shrinking and timid yes because she was taught so from time immemorial it was an art with her a supreme ment As an indication of her real nature it meant nothing save that she had the po power and the good judgment to conform to the demands of custom probably her will was in her intellect clear and strong in such case she reached more nearly to the ideal because she could control herself she believed in the customs of her land se s e loved them she was guided by them so it t was a ral mistake stake to regard her soft voice her well weIl learned timidity as indicative of weak ness of flexibility even in the long musty past a woman came out now and then and gave to her people a sample of the possibilities of the feminine mind in fields other than the intimate home life but such disclosures were naturally rare ore of these was a wo we man who lived about 1500 years ago and wrote a realistic story of genji a prominent member of the nobility of that time this novel has long been a classic in japan and la Is studied in the modern schools parts of it have been translated into english Seisho a famous poet and sketch writer dined about the same time she was a strong moralist and was noted for her high and excellent character shiran lan an agawa the mrs browning of japan lived during the reign of shogun toku gawa about years ago and together with her husband wrote many chinese poems at that time as today to day cl toese inese was the medium employed by the japanese classic writer for the express loi foi of his thoughts when the breath of western civilization blew across the picturesque little island of japan it melted the chains of conservatism and prejudice for women as well as for men and so we have today the peculiar spectacle of the new springing with almost startling zeal out of the very bosom of the old mothers who cling with fervent faith to the old school of training have daughters who go out and work as newspaper new reporters there are those whose emancipation is so radical that it even jars upon the sensibilities of one so callous as a westerner there are e other ather women whose growth though marked is pleasing and graceful grace tut to this class belongs kashi kasht iwamoto mrs airs iwamoto as of that generation that helped to make japan what she Is to day and she was herself a part of the new order born at the end of the old regime and growing up amidst the fiercest struggle of transition she imbibed that which was best of the old and at the same time caught the true spirit of the new her husband zenji iwamoto is a ell known literary man and founder of meiji a prominent college for or girls in vi working with him mrs airs iwamoto a 8 views of life were broadened and she inter ested herself in all things pertaining to the welfare of her people she not only learned 0 english but mastered it to a degree in which her style Is not only correct but has a dis I 1 quality and a charm partly due perhaps to a d hint of foreign idiom which d AL 7 V M gah AN V tat at SM t alf ne W A W gives freshness to the use of an acquired language mrs airs iwamoto Iwai noto first became known as a writer through her eions of proctors sailor boy and little lord fauntleroy into the japanese language she also wrote a volume of essays in english an extract from one of these some phases of the japanese home and home lift will give a hint of her style and of the process of her thought japan like any other ancient country has had a unique national life and history she boasts of a civilization a code of morals a form of government and a system of education all peculiar to herself and she cherishes these as heirlooms expressive express iNe of the wisdom and experience exper tence handed down through the whole line of her ancestors you all know that the old time japanese woman was trained ac cording to rules of conduct that were most severe in their rigidity she was assiduously taught to guard her personal virtue and the proud honor of her household death was the only alternative in case she swerved from her duties place on the one hand hard this type of womanhood serving in the house of her lord ai I 1 master with singleness of pur pose and with devotion strong in its s simplic ity and on the other an average girl of mod mcl ern education with a smattering of western knowledge it Is true but without discretion and judgment to apply her newly found anfor mation and of course the latter will appear at a disadvantage in the present home where the old and the ne de v elements combine contrary streams of thought and action thwart the young wife at her every step and in spite of her resolution many are the tears that she sheds unseen but she must learn to be just as cantio s and defered bial in one respect as it is her duty to be prompt and decisive deci siye jn n another for herein lies the very ery test of her intrinsic worth and usefulness useful nebs we deplore the many evils that have issued and still do issue from the ancient household system in japan yet we cannot help noting that this has been perhaps the most successful system of bisci pline ever extant a discipline productive of the utmost diligence circumspectness and self sacrifice vt vie e certainly owe it to this system that indolent whimsical and selfish women have been set aside and the noble ing type of wives and mothers was pre served for the old time japanese homes and landed down as an heirloom to the present day another woman of marked ability as a writer was the baroness As a child she excelled in her studies and was al at lowed to go to a boys school there being no high schools for girls at that time her fame as a scholar became known at court and she was appointed as a teacher of learning to the empress after retiring from this service she toured the country for special study and ob serration it was an unusual thing for an 4 unmarried woman to travel alone giving lea le tures on political and scientific subject an 1 at one time the baroness at that time yoshiko kushida was arrested and imprisoned on the charge of plotting plott against the govern ment while in prison she wrote many poems in chinese giving vent to her feelings regard ing the condition of her country later on she married a newspaper man who was atte ward made baron he ile was the first president of the house of commons and ana arso a minister to italy ine rine young couple never ceased to interest themselves thum selves in the politic cd affairs of their land and at one time were banished from the capital city charged with disloyalty mental ana physical overwork brought the baron to an early eary death and the wife broken hearted followed him within two years the baroness was vas considered a very beautiful woman and the many experiences she underwent as student and reformer gave depth and strength to her character which speak plainly in her written works her es save and lectures are numerous and her last work which is a dally daily record of her life Is very instructive and interesting she wrote minutely of passing events and illustrated these details w th fine drawings or comic sketches this work she continued until with in five days of her death miss ichiye higuchi who died at 23 had already attil ned fame as a writer ot of realistic fiction being of humble and poor parentage she was mas obliged to leave school at ten years of age a time when most children are merely beginning to learn to read with her sister she helped to support her widowed mother but gave all of her spare time to study and writing she was forced to live with her fam lly fly in the outskirts of the city among the poorest and lowest people and it was there that she got the material for all of her stories which are pathetic in the extreme standing the fact that her opportunities for learning were limited her composition is with out faiet her style chaste and expressive it was not until after consumption bred through poverty and overwork had taken strong hold on her system that her genius was recognized for a little time then she knew knevi the luxury of friends and of admiration but I 1 have never known what youth free from aties means she told a friend the japanese bow low in reverence reye rence to the memory of miss higuchi who might well be styled tie t I 1 e female gorky of japanese literature miss kaho mrs kajita and mrs otosuke are all prominent writers of today to day miss uta imal Is a representative of the ultra modern japanese woman miss imal Is the chief editor of or eth century NN woman oman and Is one of the found ers of the hokkaido woman s society she la is working toward that day when the japanese women will rise as a unit in their declarations along certain lines of emancipation she Is hopeful buoyant and unswerving in her pur L 2 pose and as she belongs toa the new est generation of workers she be alieves she will see great changes ir in methods and principles before hei her sun Is set the daughter of kashi kasht promises to be a prominent figure in the future literary world of japan she has been writing stories and translating from foreign tongues foi for several years the first woman to anter the regu lar tar newspaper field was mrs airs takeyo Take goshi who with her husband joined the staff of the shin bum in tokyo some 15 years ago after four or five live years other women became interested in newspaper work and to day many are employed as cial writers as reporters and as ed edi ors of departments tor for women these are but a few ot of the women writers of japan they arp sufficient to illustrate however the tact fact that the japanese woman Is a creature of considerable reserve mental force and of intense feeling under th the e new nea re gime only was it possible e for her to make these facts known to the out side world since the he old teaching con strained her to keep hidden every feeling every thought that she might develop a more spartan like charac ter capable of enduring great fice flee when sacrifice should come as it did in the lives of many japanese women it was not an accident that the japanese soldiers repulsed the larger men of the russian army they were the sons of mothers whose d pline through thousands ot of years had well nigh reached perfection whose endurance was great and whose wits were sharp sharpened ened by con stant contact with domineering husbands and fractious mothers in law it Is an unhappy fact that the jap anese literati re loses its artistic beauty and its real strength when translated into foreign languages this is probably due to the tact fact that the japanese student Is still gling in the mazes of the foreign tongues and Is not as yet capable of 0 manipulating the new words so as to express the fine shades of meaning that he sees and appreciates in his own literature the delicacy with which an artist attacks his subject in the jap anese Is likely to become clumsy or inane and meaningless when he attempts to employ other languages langi ages as a medium ot of expression this perhaps Is the reason that westerners say that japan Is a country without literature |