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Transcriber’s Notes
This e-text is based on ‘The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine,’
from June 1913. The table of contents has been added by the transcriber.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation have been retained, but
punctuation and typographical errors have been corrected. Passages
in English dialect and in languages other than English have not been
altered.
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[Illustration: TEMPLE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA
PAINTED FOR THE CENTURY BY JULES GUÉRIN]
Copyright, 1913, by ~The Century Co.~ All rights reserved.
TRAVEL NUMBER
~The Century Magazine~
~Vol. LXXXVI~ JUNE, 1913 ~No. 2~
CONTENTS
PAGE
~The Great St. Bernard.~ _Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg_ 161
Pictures by André Castaigne.
~The Training of a Japanese Child.~ _Frances Little_ 170
Pictures from photographs.
~Brother Leo.~ _Phyllis Bottome_ 181
Pictures by W. T. Benda.
~The Century’s After-the-war Series.~
Another View of “The Hayes-Tilden
Contest”. _George F. Edmunds_ 192
Portrait of Ex-Senator Edmunds.
~The Grand Cañon of the Colorado.~ _Joseph Pennell_ 202
Six lithographs drawn from
nature for “The Century.”
~If Richard Wagner Came Back.~ _Henry T. Finck_ 208
Portrait of Wagner from photograph.
~Portrait of Dorothy McK----.~ _Wilhelm Funk_ 211
“~Black Blood.~” _Edward Lyell Fox_ 213
Pictures by William H. Foster.
~Skirting the Balkan Peninsula.~ _Robert Hichens_
IV. Delphi and Olympia. 224
Pictures by Jules Guérin and
from photographs.
~Noosing Wild Elephants.~ _Charles Moser_ 240
Pictures from photographs.
~John Quincy Adams in Russia.~
(Unpublished letters.)
Introduction and notes by Charles
Francis Adams. Portraits of John
Quincy Adams and Madame de Staël 250
~The Century’s American Artists
Series.~
Frank W. Benson: My Daughter. 264
~Sigiriya, “The Lion’s Rock” of
Ceylon.~ _Jennie Coker Gay_ 265
Pictures by Duncan Gay.
~Noteworthy Stories of the Last
Generation.~
Belles Demoiselles Plantation. _George W. Cable_ 273
With portrait of the author,
and new pictures by W. M.
Berger.
~Colonel Watterson’s Rejoinder to
Ex-Senator Edmunds.~ _Henry Watterson_ 285
Comments on “Another View of ‘The
Hayes-Tilden Contest.’”
~A Paper of Puns.~ _Brander Matthews_ 290
Head-piece by Reginald Birch.
~T. Tembarom.~ _Frances Hodgson Burnett_
Drawings by Charles S. Chapman. 296
~Under which Flag, Ladies, Order or
Anarchy?~ _Editorial_ 309
~Newspaper Invasion of Privacy.~ _Editorial_ 310
~The Changing View of Government.~ _Editorial_ 311
~The Two-billion-dollar Congress.~ _Editorial_ 313
~On the Lady and her Book.~ _Helen Minturn Seymour_ 315
~On the Use of Hyperbole in
Advertising.~ _Agnes Repplier_ 316
~After-Dinner Stories.~
An Anecdote of McKinley. _Silas Harrison_ 319
VERSE
~Off Capri.~ _Sara Teasdale_ 223
~At the Closed Gate of Justice.~ _James D. Corrothers_ 272
~Finis.~ _William H. Hayne_ 295
~Invulnerable.~ _William Rose Benét_ 308
~A Cubist Romance.~ _Oliver Herford_ 318
Picture by Oliver Herford.
~Old Daddy Do-funny’s Wisdom Jingles.~ _Ruth McEnery Stuart_ 319
~Limericks.~:
Text and pictures by Oliver Herford.
XXIX. The Kind Armadillo. 320
THE GREAT ST. BERNARD
BY ERNST VON HESSE-WARTEGG
WITH PICTURES BY ANDRÉ CASTAIGNE
In a popular guide-book to Switzerland, it is stated that of all Alpine
passes the Great St. Bernard is the least interesting. With this view
the traveling public does not seem to agree, for the St. Bernard is
crossed every year by more people than any other pass. On an average,
twenty thousand annually arrive at the hospice on the summit, and nine
tenths of them during the short summer season, from the beginning of
July to the end of August, which means over three hundred daily.
Now, the whole district of the St. Bernard for many miles around
possesses not one of the vast caravansaries characteristic of the
picturesque mountain-tops in Switzerland,--indeed, not even a modest
inn,--where tourists may find shelter for a few days. Why, then, should
these armies of tourists invade the pass every summer, if it really
offers little of interest?
To me, who have seen almost all the passes from one end of the Alps
to the other, the trip over the Great St. Bernard was most enjoyable.
Though the scenery may not be so beautiful as that of the St. Gotthard,
for instance, it surpasses by far even that and most of the others in
wild grandeur; for nowhere else in the Alps can be found mountains
of bolder aspect and greater height. On the west, near the French
boundary, I need only mention Mont Blanc and Mont Dolent; on the east,
the glacier-covered peaks of Mont Velan, and the towering masses of the
Grand Combin.
The valley of the river Dranse, which is followed by the traveler from
Martigny, in the Rhone valley, to very near the summit, more than eight
thousand feet above the sea, is full of romantic beauty and wildness,
closed in by snow-covered mountains of fantastic shapes, their steep
slopes partly covered with dark pine forests. Nestling on the rocks or
sleeping in the valleys there are a few straggling settlements, with
heavy-visaged natives, apparently of a different race from the Swiss,
and entirely untouched by modern life. They live in tottering, wooden
houses of the quaintest shapes, dark brown with age, and with wooden
barns on stilts attached to them. Only a few villages, as Orsières,
Liddes, and Bourg St. Pierre on the Swiss side, and St. Rémy on the
Italian side, have stone houses along their narrow main thoroughfares.
During the summer months these roads are daily traversed by a motley
crowd of tourists from all parts of the world, traveling on foot, or
in private carriages or postal diligences, for the road is kept in
capital order. Many wayfarers stop at the modest inns to rest and take
a glass of _kirsch_, or even to seek shelter in the old houses when
storms spring up suddenly, blowing furiously down the valleys; or they
may repose on the rotten thresholds of the houses side by side with old
matrons working at their spinning-wheels or with young girls knitting
stockings, and converse with them in their French patois. The men are
frequently employed as guides, and all are in constant intercourse with
modern people from the great capitals of both continents, yet they do
not depart from their ancient manners and ways.
The uncommon tenacity of these mountaineers is surprising, as the
St. Bernard traffic is by no means new. True, the new carriage-road
connecting central Europe, by way of Switzerland, with Italy was
opened only in the first days of August, 1905, when the King of Italy
himself was present, together with the authorities of the neighboring
countries. But the St. Bernard has been a highway for thousands of
years; it has seen many armies in war-time and many caravans with
merchandise in times of peace. More than two hundred years before
Christ, the great Hannibal passed over it with his Carthaginian
legions; over the winding road which Hannibal had constructed Julius
Cæsar led his Roman army down the valley of the Dranse for the conquest
of Gallia and Germania. Emperor Augustus II improved and rebuilt
the road, portions of which are still seen by the side of the new
carriage-road wherever the latter has not been built on the foundation
of the Roman highway.
At the beginning of the Christian era, the summit of the pass was
crowned with a temple in honor of Jupiter, with rest-houses for
travelers. Vestiges of this temple still exist, and in the large and
well-stocked library of the present Hospice of St. Bernard the prior of
the religious order in charge showed me a number of gold and silver
coins, ex-voto figures, tablets, vessels, statuettes, and other objects
found by the priests on the temple site. Indeed, owing to its situation
on the direct geographical line between Italy and the North, the St.
Bernard has been crossed in the course of time by more people than has
any other pass.
The traveler of to-day, arriving at the hospice in a comfortable
carriage within ten hours from the nearest railway-station, and
provided with all the luxuries of modern life, can hardly picture to
himself the terrible privations of the traveler in ancient times, when
settlements were scarce. Provisions had to be carried along for many
miles to these icy regions, most of the time covered with deep snow
which obliterated every trace of roads.
On the evening of my arrival, I went to the plateau where once Jupiter
was worshiped. The small lake beyond which it is situated had still
some ice-cakes floating on its placid surface. Resting there on a
stone, my fancy enlivened this scene of solitude and desolation with
the savage soldiers of heathen times. I imagined that I heard the
cracking and screaking of heavy cart-wheels, the clattering of armor,
the clanking of spears, as the legions toiled wearisomely upward to the
beating of drums and blowing of trumpets. My eyes pictured strange,
stalwart warriors, exhausted from the arduous pull up those steep
valleys, shivering with intense cold, fainting, sinking into the deep
snow. And then an avalanche, breaking loose from the towering mountains
above, came thundering down, dispersing this glittering array, and
burying many under the soft, white, yet deadly, mass.
It was with the object of offering shelter to the weary and of rescuing
those who succumbed to the inclemencies of these forbidding heights
that in the year 962 a pious monk, Bernard, Count of Menthon, whose
home was in Savoy, near Annecy, resolved to devote his life and fortune
to the founding of a hospice on the summit of the pass. He succeeded
in persuading other monks to share with him the dreary life, and thus
founded a holy order, named to-day “Les Chanoines reguliers de St.
Augustin.” Bernard of Menthon himself, afterward canonized by the pope,
was elected first prior, and lived forty years at the hospice. His
tomb is still standing in the Italian town of Novara. According to the
keeper of the royal archives at Turin, whom I consulted on the history
of the hospice, it is first mentioned in a document in the year 1108.
[Illustration: Drawn by André Castaigne. Half-tone plate engraved by R.
Varley
AN AVALANCHE ON THE ST. BERNARD PASS]
In the Middle Ages the hospice, being of great importance in the
intercourse between the north and south of Europe, enjoyed the powerful
support and protection of the great rulers of that period, notably
the German emperors. In return for valuable services, the order was
richly endowed, and became in time exceedingly wealthy and prosperous.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century it possessed no fewer than
ninety-eight livings. The Reformation, however, ended this prosperity,
and since then various misfortunes have carried away most of its once
very large revenues. Its total income is now about eight thousand
dollars, and without the aid received from the Italian and Swiss
governments it would be impossible to offer hospitality to the large
number of tourists that come every year. As many as five hundred have
received free board and lodging in a single day.
It is to be regretted that so few visitors take notice of the
collection-box in the pretty little church. Many well able to pay for
the hospitality they receive do not give even so much as they would pay
for their entertainment in a third-rate inn. The total amount given by
tourists is only a small fraction of the actual expense incurred in
entertaining them. The present King of England, who visited the hospice
when Prince of Wales, sent a piano, and I could not help wondering
how this bulky instrument was brought up the steep mountains. Emperor
Frederick of Germany, with his consort, came in 1883, and the prior
showed me one of their valuable gifts--a volume of Thomas à Kempis,
bearing their signatures.
One must bear in mind that provisions, wood, and all other necessities
of life have to be brought up eight thousand feet from the valleys
below. For miles about the hospice there is not a tree, not a bush or
a single blade of grass, and the view from my window offered nothing
but barren rocks, bleak mountains, glaciers, and snow-fields. The mean
annual temperature is below the freezing-point, being about the same
as Spitzbergen, within the Arctic Ocean! One cannot help admiring the
little group of monks, about twelve in number, who, with an equal
number of lay brothers and servants, live here, in this highest human
habitation of Europe, summer and winter, year after year, till they
die. They do not wear the monk’s capouch, but the ordinary black
sacerdotal robe, with a white cord falling from the neck as a special
distinction.
Their sufferings are sometimes intense. The climate is so severe, and
their duties are so arduous, that their constitutions would soon be
broken down if they were not allowed to recuperate temporarily at their
house in Martigny, their places being taken by other members of this
brave and devoted brotherhood.
On the St. Bernard summit the seasons are unknown. Winter is, so
to speak, perpetual, without spring or autumn or summer, the only
indication of our warm seasons being the melting of the snow, which
sometimes drifts about the three tall stone buildings to a height of
forty feet. The cold is often twenty degrees below zero Fahrenheit and
has been in one instance twenty-nine degrees. When I stayed at the
hospice early in August, the lake behind it was frozen over during the
night, and the monks told me that there have been years when the ice on
its surface did not melt.
Under these conditions, I was not surprised to find among the occupants
of the hospice mostly young men, only one of them being over fifty, and
he had spent twenty consecutive years on the St. Bernard. The hardest
labors of these pious men are during the winter months, notably in
November and February, when numerous poor laborers from Italy venture
to cross in search of work. Unfamiliar with the hardships and dangers
they have to face, they ascend from Aosta over St. Rémy, plodding
wearily through the deep snow, which obliterates all traces of the
road, sometimes covering even the telegraph-poles. At last their
strength gives out, or they are buried under an avalanche, or they lose
their way and cannot proceed from sheer exhaustion. Those who do not
perish owe their lives to the zeal of the monks and the alertness of
the famous dogs of St. Bernard.
Day after day all the monks are out on their beat through the “Valley
of Death” on the north side opening immediately below the hospice, and
the steep snow-fields to the south, each accompanied by a servant and
a dog. They search the surroundings, where every dell, every rock is
familiar to them, with powerful field-glasses. Breaks or dark spots are
detected at once on the white surface, but the surest and never-failing
discoverers of unfortunate victims are the dogs. Their extraordinary
fine scent indicates to them the exact direction in which it is
necessary to search, and the men follow on snow-shoes. Arrived at the
supposed spot, the dogs begin to bark and to scratch in the snow, the
men take to their shovels, and soon the poor wayfarer is discovered.
If life has fled from him, the body is carried up to the hospice and
placed in the little low, desolate stone hut standing at a short
distance from the buildings, the abode of the dead. In this “morgue”
rest the victims of the Alps till their bodies crumble to ashes. There
is no other way of disposing of the dead, since for miles about the
hospice not enough soil can be found to furnish a grave.
[Illustration: Drawn by André Castaigne
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL IN THE HOSPICE]
At the time of my visit, only one body of the preceding winter was
lying among the remains of the victims of former years. The others who
had been found had been restored to life.
Many thousands have been rescued from certain death, principally
owing to the cleverness of the dogs, carefully trained to their work.
According to the register kept at the hospice, these dogs, originally
a cross between Newfoundland and Pyrenean, were employed first in the
fifteenth century, and the present breed is undoubtedly descended from
them. To preserve it pure, several dogs are also kept at the two other
settlements of the brotherhood, the Simplon hospice and Martigny. The
expediency of this is shown by the accident of 1825, when nearly all
the dogs at the St. Bernard hospice, together with three lay brothers,
perished in a terrible avalanche on the Swiss slope near the present
“Cantine de Proz,” the highest inn on the way to the hospice, kept
by the Swiss Government as a postal station. Only two or three dogs
survived, and they perpetuated the race.
Now there are about fifteen dogs at the hospice. They are objects of
much petting on the part of travelers, especially ladies, to which they
indulgently submit. In appearance they differ considerably from what
we picture them to be. They are much smaller than the St. Bernard dog
of other countries, but heavier-set and stronger. The hair is white,
coarse, and tight to the skin, with large yellow or reddish-brown
spots, the chest and the lower part of the body being always white.
The long tail is heavy and shaggy, the neck short-set and uncommonly
strong, carrying a large head, with the muzzle short and broad.
The front teeth are mostly visible, and the dogs would look rather
ferocious without the intelligent and withal docile expression of their
large, bright eyes. Many of them have been reproduced on postal cards,
for sale in the large reception-room, one of the few rooms furnished
with a stove. The prior, who is also Swiss postmaster, told me that
on the average one thousand postal cards, mostly with pictures of the
dogs, are daily sent “with hearty greetings” to all parts of the world.
But in the “season,” as many as fifteen hundred have been mailed in a
single afternoon, especially when snow-storms or rain keep the tourists
indoors with nothing to do.
[Illustration: Drawn by André Castaigne
A ST. BERNARD DOG]
The best type of a St. Bernard dog was famous Bary, who, after saving
thirty-nine lives, was unfortunately shot by an English traveler he was
trying to rescue, who mistook him for a wolf. His stuffed skin is now
in the museum at Bern. Since then there has always been a “Bary” among
the dogs. The present dog of that name has already saved three lives,
while Pallas and Diana have saved two each.
St. Bernard dogs, imported mostly from England in recent years,
have become decidedly popular in America. They are chiefly of the
long-haired kind, much larger and with rather flatter heads and longer
muzzles than the dogs at the St. Bernard hospice. Nevertheless, they
are genuine St. Bernards, and are descended from those originally
brought to England from Switzerland for Lord Dashwood, about one
hundred years ago.
In their home country this breed of dogs is by no means confined to the
St. Bernard mountain. Raised in most Alpine valleys, they have become,
so to speak, the national dog of Switzerland, and are foremost in
public favor. While the long-haired type prevails in the lower cantons,
nothing but the short-haired variety are employed at the hospice, the
former type being unfitted for the peculiar mountain work. Enormous
snowfalls in spring and autumn force them sometimes to dig their way
under the snow for two or three days; on occasions they remain in the
icy fields for a week or two, returning to the hospice reduced to mere
skeletons. The coat of the long-haired dogs dries much slower, and the
dripping from the fur congeals, causing rheumatism and other ailments
and making them soon unfit for their work.
[Illustration: Drawn by André Castaigne
THE ST. BERNARD HOSPICE]
The general belief that the original St. Bernard race died out long ago
is unfounded. There can be no doubt that the present dogs are descended
from those kept at the hospice in the Middle Ages, crossed with Danish
bulldogs and Pyrenean dogs about five centuries ago, that they might
inherit size and strength from the former and intelligence and keen
scent from the latter. St. Bernard, the founder of the hospice, is
represented in ancient pictures accompanied by a large white dog. The
insecurity of the much frequented route between Italy and the North in
early times caused the monks to keep dogs for their own protection,
till their usefulness for life-saving purposes made them indispensable
companions.
[Illustration: Drawn by André Castaigne. Half-tone plate engraved by H.
C. Merrill
A BAND OF GIPSIES TRAVELING ALONG THE ST. BERNARD PASS]
Unfortunately, most of the early documents in regard to the dogs were
destroyed by fire, but the existing traditions of the antiquity of the
race are confirmed by the escutcheon of an ancient Swiss family which
I discovered in the archives of the city of Zurich. Four families
of the fourteenth century have dogs as ornaments of the escutcheon
helmet. They are Stubenweg, Aichelberg, Hailigberg, and the counts
of Toggenburg, the latter famous in history and still flourishing
in Austria. The escutcheons are most carefully painted, and show
four distinct and clearly defined types of dogs. The type over the
escutcheon of the family of Hailigberg shows a striking resemblance
to the St. Bernard dog of to-day, with all the characteristic signs.
Mountains crowned by hospices used to be called sacred mountains or
Hailigberg (present style Heiligberg) during the Middle Ages, and from
this it may safely be deducted that the knights of Hailigberg, took the
picture of a hospice dog for their helmet ornament.
For ages the St. Bernard dogs have been trained for their service in a
peculiar manner: one old and one young dog are sent together daily down
the Valley of Death toward the nearest human habitation; two others on
the south side toward St. Rémy, their footprints in the snow indicating
to lost travelers with unfailing certainty the exact line of the road
buried under the snow. The younger dogs are taught by the older ones
to show to travelers the way to the hospice by barking and jumping and
running ahead of them toward the summit of the pass. If they happen
to find a poor half-frozen victim, they try to restore animation by
licking the hands and face. Then they hasten back to the hospice and
announce their discovery by barking.
Great credit is due to the Kynological Society of Switzerland for the
preservation, improvement, and popularization of the hospice dogs in
their pure type. In the latter part of the last century the English
type, as described above, threatened to become generally established as
the correct one. At an international Kynological Congress convened by
that society in Zurich in 1887, the characteristic marks of the pure
hospice type were laid down and acknowledged by the delegates of all
countries, England included. In 1885 the first pure St. Bernard dogs
were introduced into Germany by Prince Albrecht of Solms-Braunfels, and
as they became very popular in a short time, a St. Bernard Club was
organized in Munich in 1891 for the express purpose of improving the
St. Bernard breed by organizing an exposition with competent judges,
and publishing annually a book of genealogy.
The first Napoleon, who crossed the St. Bernard with his army, cavalry,
artillery, and all, between the fifteenth and twenty-first of May,
1800, was very fond of these dogs and kept some in his room while
resting at the hospice. Near the entrance of the largest building,
erected in the seventeenth century, there is a big bell, rung by
travelers to announce their arrival. Opposite the bell a large
marble tablet commemorates the passage of Napoleon, dedicated by the
government of the then republic, now the Swiss canton of Valais. His
army was the last to cross the St. Bernard, and in the place of armies
of soldiers, those of tourists invade the historic pass every year.
They are most numerous in August, for the snow rarely melts before
July and begins to fall again early in September, to stay till the
following July. The poor priests are then left to themselves for about
ten months, when the next summer’s sun makes the carriage-road again
practicable.
The founder of the hospice, with its brotherhood, has at last received
a monument, which he well deserved. His statue was unveiled during the
summer of 1905, and stands on the spot which the many thousands have
had to pass who, after being rescued by his successors, have resumed
their journey to the valleys below and to renewed life.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE TRAINING OF A JAPANESE CHILD
BY FRANCES LITTLE
Author of “The Lady of the Decoration,” “The Lady and Sada San,” etc.
The stork has no vacation in Japan, neither does he sleep; and if he
rests, the time and place are known of no man. On the stroke of the
hour, nay, of the quarter, he is faithfully at his work distributing
impartially among rich and poor small bits of humanity. He may be a
wise bird, but if he thinks by the swiftness of his wings to find a
home beneath roof of straw or palace tile unprepared for his coming, he
is mistaken. He will discover that he has failed utterly to comprehend
the joy of the mother to be. A childless woman is of no value in a
land where the perpetuation of the family name is the most vital law
prescribed in its religious and moral teachings. For a Japanese woman,
therefore, the pinnacle of desire is reached when the white bird taps
at her door and lays its precious bundle in her outstretched arms. For
a time at least she has been able to forget the great terror of her
life, divorce, and to make ready for the coming of the child with high
hope and tender joy.
Only two little garments are prepared previously. For the inside, a
tiny kimono of bright yellow, the color supposed to give health and
strength to the body; and for an outer covering, a coat of red, which
color means congratulation. Until the sex of the baby is known, the
wardrobe is thus limited as a matter of economy in time and cloth. If
a boy, he has the sole right to every shade of blue. To the girl fall
the softest pinks and reds. Whichever the sex, every available member
of the family lends a willing hand to the busy task of cutting and
stitching into many shapes the flowered cloth necessary to decorate the
small body.
The tiny wardrobe complete, the household turns its attention to the
preparation of the feast with which to make merry and give thanks to
the gods for so good a gift as a little child, whether it be boy or
girl. The house is swept and garnished. Out in the kitchen, maids run
hither and thither, hurrying the boiling pot, cleansing the already
spotless rice, and scampering to bring the best wine. It is glad
service. The happiness in the coming of the baby is shared by everybody
from the parents to the water-coolie. Hence the eagerness with which
the little house shrine is decorated and offerings of food and sake set
before the benign old image who is responsible for this great favor.
For days preparations go joyfully on, and though the small guest cannot
indulge, a special table is set for him at the feast given in his
honor, when neighbors and friends assemble to offer congratulations
and presents. Later, each present must be acknowledged by the parents
sending one in return.
[Illustration: JAPANESE GIRLS PLAYING THEIR FAVORITE GAME, _ONIGOTO_]
[Illustration: SUPPER-TIME]
[Illustration: DRAWING ON A NEW WHITE SHOJI]
The baby is excused from being present at the festival, but custom
demands that no other engagement interfere with the shaving of his head
on the third day. In the olden days styles in hair-cutting were as
rigidly adhered to as the wearing of a samurai’s sword, but progress
must needs tamper even with the down on a baby’s head. Now the fashion
has lost much of its quaintness, and is mostly uniform. The sides and
back of the head are shaved smooth, while from the crown a fringe is
left to sprout like the long petals of a ragged chrysanthemum. The
length and seriousness of the hair-cutting ceremony depend upon the
self-control of the young gentleman. Regardless of conduct, however, or
of the cost to the nervous system, certain fixed rules are enforced,
which are virtually the only training the child receives in early years.
After the little stranger, all shaven and shorn, is returned to his
private apartments, the elders of the family consult on the grave
matter of choosing a name for him. Often the naming of the baby is a
simple matter, the father or grandfather speaking before the company
the name of some famous man, if the child is a boy, or of some favorite
flower, if it is a girl. For girls, _Hana_, flower, _Yuki_, snow,
_Ai_, love, are the favorites of parents with a poetical strain. The
sterner country-folk choose for their daughters, _Matsu_, pine, _Take_,
bamboo (the bamboo joints are exact; hence the exactness of virtue),
_Ume_, plum, since the plum bears both cold and snow bravely. For boys,
_Ichiro_, first boy, _Toshio_, smart, _Iwao_, strong, and _Isamu_,
brave, are very popular.
Where belief is strong in the power of a name, the family, in holiday
dress, often assembles in a large room. Each writes a name upon a slip
of paper and lays it reverently before the house shrine. From the group
a very young child is chosen and led before this shrine, and the fate
of the name is decided by the small hand which reaches out for a slip.
Though it is a festive occasion, the selection of a name is made with
a seriousness worthy the election of a bishop. Many believe devoutly
that this rite influences the baby’s entire future, and therefore
the one whose slip is chosen incurs from the moment of choice great
responsibility for the child’s welfare.
The next great event in the baby’s existence is on the thirtieth day,
when he is taken to the temple to be offered to the god that rules
over that particular village or city. Dressed in his best suit of
clothes, he is strapped to the back of his mother or nurse, with his
body wrapped almost to suffocation, and usually with his head dangling
from side to side with no protection for face or eyes. Why all Japanese
babies are not blind is one of the secrets of nature’s provision. With
tender women for mothers and affectionate servants for nurses, it is
strange that the little face is seldom shielded from the direct rays of
the sun or the piercing winds of winter. Possibly it is a training for
physical endurance that later in life is a part of his education.
Arrived at the temple, the child is presented to the priest. This
dignitary, with shaven head and clad in a purple gown, reads very
solemnly a special prayer to the god whose image, enshrined in gilt
and ebony, rests within the deep shadows of the temple. He asks his
care and protection for the helpless little creature that lies before
him. At the end of the reading the priest shakes a _gohei_ to and fro
over the child. A _gohei_ resembles nothing so much as a paper feather
duster. Its fluffy whiteness is supposed to represent the pure spirit
of the god, and through some mysterious agency a part of this spirit is
transferred to the child by the vigorous shaking.
For a few more coins, further protection can be purchased for the
little wayfarer. The guaranty of his success and happiness comes in two
small paper amulets on which the priest has drawn curious characters
decipherable only to the priest and the god. Both amulets are given
to the mother, who, with the baby on her back, trots home on her high
wooden geta, or clogs, her face aglow with the contentment possible
only to one whose faith in prayer and priest is sublime. One amulet,
carefully wrapped with the cuttings of the first hair and with the
name, is laid away safely in the house shrine, that the god may not
forget. The other is carried in a gay little bag of colored crape,
which is tied to the sash of the child; for it is believed that it will
ward off sickness and hold all evil spirits at bay.
It must be with a sigh of relief that the baby comes to this stage of
his existence. The numerous rites necessary to a fair start on life’s
highway have been conscientiously performed, the watchful care of the
spirits invoked. Now it is his sole business to kick and grow and feed
like any small healthy animal, to be served as a young prince and to
be adored as a young god. He is the pivot on which the whole household
turns. Often, in the soft shadows of evening, on the paper doors of a
Japanese house is silhouetted a picture where the child is the center
about which the family is grouped in the great act of adoration. It is
a bit of inner life that finds a tender response in the heart of any
beholder.
[Illustration: “SEEKING SOME OBJECT ON WHICH TO BESTOW HIS ADORABLE
SMILE”]
[Illustration: FERTILE SOIL FOR MISCHIEF]
The attitude of the usual family is that obedience is not to be
expected of one so young, consequently nobody is disappointed, and
the effect on the child is telling. He quickly learns his power, and
becomes in turn the trainer and the ruler of the household. In fact, he
is a small king, with only a soft ring of dark hair for a crown, and
a chop-stick in his chubby fist for a scepter. His lightest frown or
smile is a command to all the house, from the poodle with the ingrown
nose to the bent old grandmother. But more willing subjects never bent
before a king of maturer growth. Father and mother, with a train of
relatives, yield glad obedience and stand ever ready for action at the
merest suggestion of a wish.
Alas! for the tried and true theories on early training that have
held for generations in other countries! Alas! for the scores of
learned volumes on child culture! Useless the work of the greatest
psychologists, who sound grave warning as to the direful results should
one fail to observe certain hard-and-fast rules in the training of mind
and body. Grant a few months to a fat, well-fed Japanese baby, and with
one wave of his pink heels he will kick into thin air every tested
theory that scholarly men have grown gray in proving. He snaps in twain
the old saw, “As the twig is bent,” and sends to eternal oblivion
that oft-repeated legend, “Give me a child till its seventh year, and
neither friend nor foe can change his tendencies.” Even the promise of
old, “Children, obey your parents,” loses its value as a recipe for
long life when applied to the baby citizen of old Nippon. It is a rare
exception if he obeys. He lives neither by rule nor regulation, eats
when, where, and what he pleases, then cuddles down to sleep in peace.
[Illustration: “SPECIAL LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG IN HOW TO BOW”]
To the specialist, one such ill-regulated day in a baby’s life
would augur a morning after with digestion in tatters and a ragged
temper. He does not take into account the strange mental and physical
contradictions of the race. Unchecked, the baby has been permitted to
shatter every precept of health, but he awakens as happy as a young
kitten. Fresh, sweet, and wholesome, he crawls from his soft nest of
comfortables and goes about seeking some object on which to bestow his
adorable smile. He is ready to thrive on another lawless day.
There is a mistaken, but popular, belief that a Japanese baby
never cries. There is really no reason why he should. Replete with
nourishment and rarely denied a wish, he blossoms like a wild rose on
the sunny side of the hedge, as sweet and as unrestrained. His life is
full of rich and varied interests. From his second day on earth, tied
safely to his mother’s back under an overcoat made for two, he finds
amusement for every waking hour in watching the passing show. He is the
honored guest at every family picnic. No matter what the hour or the
weather, he is the active member in all that concerns the household
amusements or work. From his perch he participates in the life of the
neighborhood, and is a part of all the merry festivals that turn the
streets into fairy-land. Later, his playground is the gay market-place
or the dim old temples.
[Illustration: “UNDER AN OVERCOAT MADE FOR TWO”]
Up to this time the child has had no suggestion of real training. His
innate deftness in the art of imitation has taught him much. Continual
contact with a wide-awake world has effectively quickened the growth
of his brain, but the strings that have held him steadily to his
mother’s back have stunted the growth of his body. The result is that
when the time comes for that wonderful first day in the kindergarten,
into the play-room often toddles a self-confident youngster whose legs
refuse to coöperate when he makes his quaint bow, but whose keen brain
and correspondingly deft hand work small miracles with blocks and
paint-brush.
In Japan only a blind child could be insensible to color, after long
days under the pink mist of the cherry-blossoms and the crimson
glory of the maples, in the sunny green and yellow fields, or with
mountain slopes of wild azalea for a romping-place and a wonderful
sky of blue for a cover. By inheritance and environment he is an
artist in the use of color. Form, too, is as easy, for when crude toys
have failed to please, it is his privilege to build ships, castles,
gunboats, and temples with every conceivable household article from the
spinning-wheel to the family rice-bucket.
His instinct for play is strong, and after his legs grow steady he
quickly masters games, and to his own satisfaction he can sing any song
without tune or words. In the kindergarten he finds at first new joys
in a play paradise of which he is, as at home, the ruler. Alas! for the
swift coming of grief! For the first time in his life his will clashes
with law, and for the first time he meets defeat, though he rises to
conquer with all his fighting blood on fire. The struggle is swift and
fierce, then behold the mystery of a small Oriental! After the first
encounter, and often before the tears of passion have dried, he bends
to authority, and with only occasional lapses soon becomes a devotee
of the thing he has so bitterly fought. Henceforth _kisoku_, or law,
becomes his meat and drink, the very foundation of living.
[Illustration: ARRANGING FLOWERS]
[Illustration: CHILDREN IN A CHRYSANTHEMUM ARBOR
F · C · G]
It is difficult to say whether this sudden change of heart comes from
an inherited belief in the divine right of rulers or is the first
cropping-out of that Eastern fatalism forcibly expressed in the word
“Shikataganai” (“There is no help for it”). A partial explanation might
be found in the attitude of most Japanese parents to the teacher in
both kindergarten and school. By some strange reasoning they argue
that it is the teacher’s business in life to train children; therefore
from its earliest days the teacher is held before the child as a power
from whose word there is no appeal. Frequently a mother says to her
unmanageable offspring:
“What will happen when the _sensei_ [teacher] hears of your rudeness?”
or, “I shall speak to your teacher to command you to obey me.” Often
the appeal is made direct to the teacher: “My daughter does not bow
correctly,” or “She is neglectful of duty. Please remind her.”
The value of using the teacher as a prop or commander-in-chief lies in
the fact that most of the profession realize their responsibility and
earnestly endeavor to live up to the trust. They seek to share every
experience of the pupil’s life, and are faithful leaders to the highest
ideals they know.
There is a tendency in most Japanese kindergartens to make of them
elementary schools in which much of the spirit of play is lost in an
effort on the part of the teachers to give formal instruction. The
inclination is to fit the child to the rule; to follow to the last
detail a written law, at the sacrifice of spontaneity. Formality finds
steady resistance in the buoyancy of youth; and how childhood will have
its fling, refusing to wear the shackles till it must, is expressed in
the despair of a little Japanese teacher who had worked in vain to make
an unessential point in posture: “I have the great trouble. They just
_will_ kick up their heels spiritually [spiritedly].”
In addition to the gifts, games, and songs usually found in the
kindergartens, there is a specific training in patriotism, loyalty,
and physical endurance by the constant repetition of certain stories
emphasizing these virtues that have been told from generation to
generation. Stories of brave men and women are dramatized. Day after
day the child takes part in these simple plays. So earnest is the
acting, so unwavering are the ideals presented at this very early age,
that the mind is saturated with the principle of the sacrifice of the
individual for the good of the whole.
In all circumstances, stress is laid upon outward courtesy, regardless
of time or consequences. The key-note in the mimic plays is kindness
to a fallen foe. Often there is an organized band of tiny Red Cross
workers, who in full uniform are ever on the alert in the games to
render quick aid to the supposedly wounded. The play is very real and
sincere, and it fosters a spirit of kindness and sympathy never wholly
lost in later years.
From babyhood the diminutive subject hears stories of his glorious
ruler; but sometimes it is in the kindergarten that he is trained to
perform his first great act of reverence to the throne in bowing before
the picture of the emperor. It is a ceremony that touches deeply the
most skeptical heart. On certain days groups of little children, many
still unsteady on their feet, dressed in gay holiday clothes, come
before the pictured image and pay homage to his Majesty by a low,
reverent bow. It is like a flower-garden bending before the greater
brilliancy of the sun. It is the tribute of innocence to power, and no
sovereign lives who would not be a better man for having seen it.
As the first day in the kindergarten is wonderful, so to the child
is the last. He is leaving babyhood behind, and half a day is barely
sufficient for the imposing ceremonies. For weeks he has been patiently
drilled. At the proper hour, with the precision of a mechanical doll
and the dignity of a field-marshal, he graciously accepts from the hand
of the teacher a roll of parchment only slightly shorter than himself.
It is his certificate of graduation, stamped with a large seal, which
inspires a deeper joy than comes later with the Order of the Rising Sun.
The transition from the kindergarten to the primary grade is
accomplished easily, and as the pupil is never supposed or expected to
take the initiative, he has only to follow where he is led. A Japanese
child is as responsive as are the strings of a samisen to the fingers
of a skilled musician, and the leader has only to touch the notes to
create the harmony desired.
During the period of elementary school, the training for boys and
girls is much the same except in special cases when very young boys
are instructed in fencing and jiu-jutsu. In these first years it is a
sharing of all experiences, and the girls pluckily take their chances
in the rough-and-tumble games with the boys. Then comes the parting
of the ways. The sign-post for each points to a difference in school
and subjects. For the boys, the road leads to the sterner things of
life. Every step of the girls’ path is trained for the inevitable
end--marriage. Whatever the future, it never yields--to the girl,
at least--the same golden hours of freedom and equal right to joy
and pleasure as in the glory days of youth. Every boy in Japan is a
prospective soldier or sailor, every girl, a wife; and a training
toward the end best fitting each for the duties involved is the
principal aim of the carefully planned curriculum. In all grades the
teaching is en masse; individual attention is rare.
From the first year of the primary course, through every grade,
the study of morals heads the list. This rather formidable subject
is presented to the very youthful in a most attractive way. Large
pictures are shown illustrating in a charming manner the virtues to be
emphasized. The teacher tells a set story. It is short, but so dramatic
is the manner of telling it, so alluring the trick of hand and voice,
the child’s interest is held as if by magic. The subjects of these
early moral lessons are the “Teacher,” the “Flag,” “Attitude.” Later,
family relations are studied; as, for instance, that of father and
mother, grandparents, etc.
Training in pronunciation and simple lessons in drawing are included
in the first year, with manual work for the boys. The girls begin
preparation for their calling with the first principles of sewing and
the first stitches of crocheting or knitting. In the latter part of the
year practice begins in writing the _kana_, gradually intermixed with
the Chinese ideographs. There are many thousands of these characters,
and they are usually difficult. Necessarily the first steps are simple.
The awkward little fist must be trained to lightness and poise of
brush, delicacy and sureness in touch, for one false stroke in the
intricate structure brings grief. Ignorant of the difficulties in store
for him, the child begins his task merrily, delighted with the lines,
big and bold at first, which resemble funny pictures more than an
alphabet. He practises on everything at hand, from the fresh sand on
the playground to the nearest new, white shoji.
A system of calisthenics, too, is begun early with the child, and
only the unconquerable grace of childhood saves it from a permanent
stiffening of bone and muscle. Happily, studies and gymnastics are
interspersed with generous hours for free play. In all the training
of Japanese children a great deal of outdoor life is planned. There
are historical excursions, geographical excursions for practical
instruction, and jolly ones merely for pleasure, when with a luncheon
of cold rice and pickled plum tied in a _furoshiki_, or handkerchief,
everybody scampers away to the river or mountain for a long happy day.
Every year at school means increased hours and more difficult studies.
Added to these long periods are special lessons for the young in how
to bow, how to stand, how to enter a room, how to lower the eyes,
the placing of each finger on a book when reading, and endless other
regulations. These rules are published in a text-book for the teacher,
who is expected to drill them into the student to the minutest detail.
It seems folly to expect anything from such training but a group of
automata; but underlying this fixed formality is an air of controlled
freedom that is really the foundation of the tremendous respect for
law cherished by the entire nation. Nor is it to be imagined that
continuous training in repression means permanent suppression of high
spirits. This light-hearted race takes joy in the simplest pleasures,
and the imp of mischief finds fertile soil in the brain of any healthy
boy or girl.
During these years the hand of discipline is lightly laid in the home.
The attitude of father and mother is kindly indulgent, and punishments,
if any, cause neither pain nor inconvenience. Current topics involving
the welfare of the country and intimate matters of family life are
freely discussed in the child’s presence. At an early age he absorbs
much information, both wholesome and other. But whatever else may be
neglected in his training, so insistently is held before the heir
day by day the requirements necessary as a man to bear the honors of
the family name, it often works something of a miracle in regulating
conduct.
Next in reverence for the emperor is veneration for ancestors. There
is one form of entertainment and instruction in the home which as an
educative factor plays a large and delightful part in the life of
the children. In the evenings, after the books have been put away,
they gather around the glowing hibachi to hear the grandfather or
grandmother weave the nondescript tales of gods and goddesses, of
loyal, wise, and brave men. If any deed of the day calls for emphasis,
it is skilfully marked by a special story cleverly worded by the aged
narrator. Thus reward or punishment is effectively recited rather than
administered.