character, absolute confidence and trustfulness on the one hand, and
suspicion on the other. It is the universal testimony that the former
characteristic is rapidly passing away; in the cities it is well-nigh
gone. But in the country places it is still common. The idea of making
a bargain when two persons entered upon some particular piece of work,
the one as employer, the other as employed, was entirely repugnant to
the older generation, since it was assumed that their relations as
inferior and superior should determine their financial relations; the
superior would do what was right, and the inferior should accept what
the superior might give without a question or a murmur. Among the
samurai, where the arrangement is between equals, bargaining or making
fixed and fast terms which will hold to the end, and which may be
carried to the courts in case of differences, was a thing practically
unknown in the older civilization. Everything of a business nature was
left to honor, and was carried on in mutual confidence.
A few illustrations of this spirit of confidence from my own
experience may not be without interest. On first coming to Japan, I
found it usual for a Japanese who wished to take a jinrikisha to call
the runner and take the ride without making any bargain, giving him at
the end what seemed right. And the men generally accepted the payment
without question. I have found that recently, unless there is some
definite understanding arrived at before the ride, there is apt to be
some disagreement, the runner presuming on the hold he has, by virtue
of work done, to get more than is customary. This is especially true
in case the rider is a foreigner. Another set of examples in which
astonishing simplicity and confidence were manifested was in the
employment of evangelists. I have known several instances in which a
full correspondence with an evangelist with regard to his employment
was carried on, and the settlement finally concluded, and the man set
to work without a word said about money matters. It need hardly be
said that no foreigner took part in that correspondence.
The simple, childlike trustfulness of the country people is seen in
multiplied ways; yet on the whole I cannot escape the conviction that
it is a trustfulness which is shown toward each other as equals.
Certain farmers whom I have employed to care for a cow and to
cultivate the garden, while showing a trustful disposition towards me,
have not had the same feelings toward their fellows apparently.
This confidence and trustfulness were the product of a civilization
resting on communalistic feudalism; the people were kept as children
in dependence on their feudal lord; they had to accept what he said
and did; they were accustomed to that order of things from the
beginning and had no other thought; on the whole too, without doubt,
they received regular and kindly treatment. Furthermore, there was no
redress for the peasant in case of harshness; it was always the wise
policy, therefore, for him to accept whatever was given without even
the appearance of dissatisfaction. This spirit was connected with the
dominance of the military class. Simple trustfulness was, therefore,
chiefly that of the non-military classes. The trustfulness of the
samurai sprang from their distinctive training. As already mentioned,
when drawing up a bond in feudal times, in place of any tangible
security, the document would read, "If I fail to do so and so, you may
laugh at me in public."
Since the overthrow of communal feudalism and the establishment of an
individualistic social order, necessitating personal ownership of
property, and the universal use of money, trustful confidence is
rapidly passing away. Everything is being more and more accurately
reduced to a money basis. The old samurai scorn for money seems to be
wholly gone, an astonishing transformation of character. Since the
disestablishment of the samurai class many of them have gone into
business. Not a few have made tremendous failures for lack of business
instinct, being easily fleeced by more cunning and less honorable
fellows who have played the "confidence" game most successfully;
others have made equally great successes because of their superior
mental ability and education. The government of Japan is to-day chiefly
in the hands of the descendants of the samurai class. They have their
fixed salaries and everything is done on a financial basis, payment
being made for work only. The lazy and the incapable are being pushed
to the wall. Many of the poorest and most pitiable people of the land
to-day are the proud sons of the former aristocracy, who glory in the
history of their ancestors, but are not able or willing to change
their old habits of thought and manner of life.
The American Board has had a very curious, not to say disastrous,
experience with the spirit of trustful confidence that was the
prevailing business characteristic of the older civilization.
According to the treaties which Japan had made with foreign nations,
no foreigner was allowed to buy land outside the treaty ports. As,
however, mission work was freely allowed by the government and
welcomed by many of the people in all parts of the land, and as it
became desirable to have continuous missionary work in several of the
interior towns, it seemed wise to locate missionaries in those places
and to provide suitable houses for them. In order to do this, land was
bought and the needed houses erected, and the title was necessarily
held in the names of apparently trustworthy native Christians. The
government was, of course, fully aware of what was being done and
offered no objection. It was well understood that the property was not
for the private ownership of the individual missionary, but was to be
held by the Christians for the use of the mission to which the
missionary belonged. For many years no questions were raised and all
moved along smoothly. The arrangement between the missionaries and the
Christian or Christians in whose names the property might be held was
entirely verbal, no document being of any legal value, to say nothing
of the fact that in those early days the mention of documentary
relationships would have greatly hurt the tender feelings of honor
which were so prominent a part of samurai character. The financial
relations were purely those of honor and trust.
Under this general method, large sums of money were expended by the
American Board for homes for its missionaries in various parts of
Japan, and especially in Kyoto. Here was the Doshisha, which grew from
a small English school and Evangelists' training class to a prosperous
university with fine buildings. Tens of thousands of dollars were put
into this institution, besides the funds needful for the land and the
houses for nine foreign families. An endowment was also raised, partly
in Japan, but chiefly in America. In a single bequest, Mr. Harris of
New London gave over one hundred thousand dollars for a School of
Science. It has been estimated that, altogether, the American Board
and its constituency have put into the Doshisha, including the
salaries of the missionary teachers, toward a million dollars.
In the early nineties the political skies were suddenly darkened. The
question of treaty revision loomed up black in the heavens. The
politicians of the land clamored for the absolute refusal of all right
of property ownership by foreigners. In their political furore they
soon began to attack the Japanese Christians who were holding the
property used by the various missions. They accused them of being
traitors to the country. A proposed law was drafted and presented in
the National Diet, confiscating all such property. The Japanese
holders naturally became nervous and desirous of severing the
relationships with the foreigners as soon as possible. In the case of
corporate ownership the trustees began to make assumptions of absolute
ownership, regardless of the moral claims of the donors of the funds.
In the earlier days of the trouble frequent conferences on the
question were held by the missionaries of the American Board with the
leading Christians of the Empire, and their constant statement was,
"Do not worry; trust us; we are samurai and will do nothing that is
not perfectly honorable." So often were these sentiments reiterated,
and yet so steadily did the whole management of the Doshisha move
further and further away from the honorable course, that finally the
"financial honor of the samurai" came to have an odor far from
pleasant. A deputation of four gentlemen, as representatives of the
American Board, came from America especially to confer with the
trustees as to the Christian principles of the institution, and the
moral claims of the Board, but wholly in vain. The administration of
the Doshisha became so distinctly non-Christian, to use no stronger
term, that the mission felt it impossible to co-operate longer with
the Doshisha trustees; the missionary members of the faculty
accordingly resigned. In order to secure exemption from the draft for
its students the trustees of the Doshisha abrogated certain clauses of
the constitution relating to the Christian character of the
institution, in spite of the fact that these clauses belonged to the
"unchangeable" part of the constitution which the trustees, on taking
office, had individually sworn to maintain. Again the Board sent out a
man, now a lawyer vested with full power to press matters to a final
issue. After months of negotiations with the trustees in regard to the
restoration of the substance of the abrogated clauses, without result,
he was on the point of carrying the case into the courts, when the
trustees decided to resign in a body. A new board of trustees has been
formed, who bid fair to carry on the institution in accord with the
wishes of its founders and benefactors, as expressed in the original
constitution. At one stage of the proceedings the trustees voted
magnanimously, as they appeared to think, to allow the missionaries of
the Board to live for fifteen years, rent free, in the foreign houses
connected with the Doshisha; this, because of the many favors it had
received from the Board! By this vote they maintained that they had
more than fulfilled every requirement of honor. That they were
consciously betraying the trust that had been reposed in them is not
for a moment to be supposed.
It would not be fair not to add that this experience in Kyoto does not
exemplify the universal Japanese character. There are many Japanese
who deeply deplore and condemn the whole proceeding. Some of the
Doshisha alumni have exerted themselves strenuously to have
righteousness done.
Passing now from the character of trustful confidence, we take up its
opposite, suspiciousness. The development of this quality is a natural
result of a military feudalism such as ruled Japan for hundreds of
years. Intrigue was in constant use when actual war was not being
waged. In an age when conflicts were always hand to hand, and the man
who could best deceive his enemy as to his next blow was the one to
carry off his head, the development of suspicion, strategy, and deceit
was inevitable. The most suspicious men, other things being equal,
would be the victors; they, with their families, would survive and
thus determine the nature of the social order. The more than two
hundred and fifty clans and "kuni," "clan territory," into which the
land was divided, kept up perpetual training in the arts of intrigue
and subtlety which are inevitably accompanied by suspicion.
Modern manifestations of this characteristic are frequent. Not a
cabinet is formed, but the question of its make-up is discussed from
the clannish standpoint. Even though it is now thirty years since the
centralizing policy was entered upon and clan distinctions were
effectually broken down, yet clan suspicion and jealousy is not dead.
The foreigner is impressed by the constant need of care in
conversation, lest he be thought to mean something more or other than
he says. When we have occasion to criticise anything in the Japanese,
we have found by experience that much more is inferred than is said.
Shortly after my arrival in Japan I was advised by one who had been in
the land many years to be careful in correcting a domestic or any
other person sustaining any relation to myself, to say not more than
one-tenth of what I meant, for the other nine-tenths would be
inferred. Direct and perfectly frank criticism and suggestion, such as
prevail among Anglo-Americans at least, seem to be rare among the
Japanese.
In closing, it is in order to note once again that the emotional
characteristics considered in this chapter, although customarily
thought to be deep-seated traits of race nature, are, nevertheless,
shown to be dependent on the character of the social order. Change the
order, and in due season corresponding changes occur in the national
character, a fact which would be impossible were that character
inherent and essential, passed on from generation to generation by the
single fact of biological heredity.
XI
JEALOUSY--REVENGE--HUMANE FEELINGS
According to the teachings of Confucius, jealousy is one of the seven
just grounds on which a woman may be divorced. In the "Greater
Learning for Women,"[M] occur the following words: "Let her never even
dream of jealousy. If her husband be dissolute, she must expostulate
with him, but never either render her countenance frightful or her
accents repulsive, which can only result in completely alienating her
husband from her, and making her intolerable in his eyes." "The five
worst maladies that afflict the female mind are indocility,
discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness. Without any doubt, these
five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten women, and it is
from these that arises the inferiority of women to men ... Neither
when she blames and accuses and curses innocent persons, nor when in
her jealousy of others she thinks to set herself up alone, does she
see that she is her own enemy, estranging others and incurring their
hatred."
The humiliating conditions to which women have been subjected in the
past and present social order, and to which full reference has been
made in previous chapters, give sufficient explanation of the jealousy
which is recognized as a marked, and, as might appear, inevitable
characteristic of Japanese women. Especially does this seem inevitable
when it is remembered how slight is their hold on their husbands, on
whose faithfulness their happiness so largely depends. Only as this
order changes and the wife secures a more certain place in the home,
free from the competition of concubines and harlots and dancing girls,
can we expect the characteristic to disappear. That it will do so
under such conditions, there is no reason to question. Already there
are evidences that in homes where the husband and the wife are both
earnest Christians, and where each is confident of the loyalty of the
other, jealousy is as rare as it is in Christian lands.
But is jealousy a characteristic limited to women? or is it not also a
characteristic of men? I am assured from many quarters that men also
suffer from it. The jealousy of a woman is aroused by the fear that
some other woman may supplant her in the eyes of her husband; that of
a man by the fear that some man may supplant him in rank or influence.
Marital jealousy of men seems to be rare. Yet I heard not long since
of a man who was so afraid lest some man might steal his wife's
affections that he could not attend to his business, and finally,
after three months of married wretchedness, he divorced her. A year
later he married her again, but the old trouble reappeared, and so he
divorced her a second time. If marital jealousy is less common among
men than among women, the explanation is at hand in the lax moral
standard for man. The feudal order of society, furthermore, was
exactly the soil in which to develop masculine jealousy. In such a
society ambition and jealousy go hand in hand. Wherever a man's rise
in popularity and influence depends on the overthrow of someone
already in possession, jealousy is natural. Connected with the spirit
of jealousy is that of revenge. Had we known Japan only during her
feudal days, we should have pronounced the Japanese exceedingly
revengeful. Revenge was not only the custom, it was also the law of
the land and the teaching of moralists. One of the proverbs handed
down from the hoary past is: "Kumpu no ada to tomo ni ten we
itadakazu." "With the enemy of country, or father, one cannot live
under the same heaven." The tales of heroic Japan abound in stories of
revenge. Once when Confucius was asked about the doctrine of Lao-Tse
that one should return good for evil, he replied, "With what then
should one reward good? The true doctrine is to return good for good,
and evil with justice." This saying of Confucius has nullified for
twenty-four hundred years that pearl of truth enunciated by Lao-Tse,
and has caused it to remain an undiscovered diamond amid the rubbish
of Taoism. By this judgment Confucius sanctified the rough methods of
justice adopted in a primitive order of society. His dictum peculiarly
harmonized with the militarism of Japan. Being, then, a recognized
duty for many hundred years, it would be strange indeed were not
revengefulness to appear among the modern traits of the Japanese.
But the whole order of society has been transformed. Revenge is now
under the ban of the state, which has made itself responsible for the
infliction of corporal punishment on individual transgressors. As a
result conspicuous manifestations of the revengeful spirit have
disappeared, and, may we not rightly say, even the spirit itself? The
new order of society leaves no room for its ordinary activity; it
furnishes legal methods of redress. The rapid change in regard to this
characteristic gives reason for thinking that if the industrial and
social order could be suitably adjusted, and the conditions of
individual thought and life regulated, this, and many other evil
traits of human character, might become radically changed in a short
time. Intelligent Christian Socialism is based on this theory and
seems to have no little support for its position.
Are Japanese cruel or humane? The general impression of the casual
tourist doubtless is that they are humane. They are kind to children
on the streets, to a marked degree; the jinrikisha runners turn out
not only for men, women, and children, but even for dogs. The
patience, too, of the ordinary Japanese under trying circumstances is
marked; they show amazing tolerance for one another's failings and
defects, and their mutual helpfulness in seasons of distress is often
striking. To one traveling through New Japan there is usually little
that will strike the eye as cruel.
But the longer one lives in the country, the more is he impressed with
certain aspects of life which seem to evince an essentially
unsympathetic and inhumane disposition. I well remember the shock I
received when I discovered, not far from my home in Kumamoto, an
insane man kept in a cage. He was given only a slight amount of
clothing, even though heavy frost fell each night. Food was given him
once or twice a day. He was treated like a wild animal, not even being
provided with bedding. This is not an exceptional instance, as might,
perhaps, at first be supposed. The editor of the _Japan Mail_, who has
lived in Japan many years, and knows the people well, says: "Every
foreigner traveling or residing in Japan must have been shocked from
time to time by the method of treating lunatics. Only a few months ago
an imbecile might have been seen at Hakone confined in what was
virtually a cage, where, from year's end to year's end, he received
neither medical assistance nor loving tendance, but was simply fed
like a wild beast in a menagerie. We have witnessed many such sights
with horror and pity. Yet humane Japanese do not seem to think of
establishing asylums where these unhappy sufferers can find refuge.
There is only one lunatic asylum in Tokyo. It is controlled by the
municipality, its accommodation is limited, and its terms place it
beyond the reach of the poor." And the amazing part is that such
sights do not seem to arouse the sentiment of pity in the Japanese.
The treatment accorded to lepers is another significant indication of
the lack of sympathetic and humane sentiments among the people at
large. For ages they have been turned from home and house and
compelled to wander outcasts, living in the outskirt of the villages
in rude booths of their own construction, and dependent on their daily
begging, until a wretched death gives them relief from a more wretched
life. So far as I have been able to learn, the opening of hospitals
for lepers did not take place until begun by Christians in recent
times. This casting out of leper kindred was not done by the poor
alone, but by the wealthy also, although I do hot affirm or suppose
that the practice was universal. I am personally acquainted with the
management of the Christian Leper Hospital in Kumamoto, and the sad
accounts I have heard of the way in which lepers are treated by their
kindred would seem incredible, were they not supported by the
character of my informants, and by many other facts of a kindred
nature.
A history of Japan was prepared by Japanese scholars under appointment
from the government and sent to the Columbian Exposition in 1893; it
makes the following statement, already referred to on a previous page:
"Despite the issue of several proclamations ... people were governed
by such strong aversion to the sight of sickness that travelers were
often left to die by the roadside from thirst, hunger, or disease, and
householders even went to the length of thrusting out of doors and
abandoning to utter destitution servants who suffered from chronic
maladies.... Whenever an epidemic occurred, the number of deaths that
resulted was enormous."[N] This was the condition of things after
Buddhism, with its civilizing and humanizing influences, had been at
work in the land for about four hundred years, and Old Japan was at
the height of her glory, whether considered from the standpoint of her
government, her literature, her religious development, or her art.