KUMAMOTO, January, 1893.
DEAR NISHIDA,--I do not know how to thank you enough for your last
letter;--indeed I must tell you frankly that I felt ashamed of having
put you to such trouble involuntarily, for I had no idea how complicated
the matter was when I wrote to you for information about the origin of
the belief. And now let me beg of you never to take so much trouble
again on my account. I think I can hear you protesting that it was only
a pleasure. I am sure it was a pleasure to help me; but I am too much of
a literary man not to know exactly the time-cost of the work, especially
in a language not your own. So I will again beg you not to take so much
trouble for me at any future time--as it would cause me pain.
And now let me say something else about other letters. You spoke of
_mistakes_. Do you know that I think your letters are very wonderful?
There are extremely few mistakes; and there are very seldom even
incorrectnesses in the use of idioms. This is rare in Japan. Very few
Japanese, even among those who have been abroad, can write an informal
letter without mistakes of a serious kind. You write letters much as a
well-educated German or Frenchman would--showing only rarely, by some
unfamiliar turn of expression, by the elision of a preposition, or
(but this is very seldom indeed) by a sudden change of tense, that it
is not an Englishman who writes. And in a few years more, even these
little signs will disappear. It is very wonderful to me to see how a few
Japanese have been able to master English without ever leaving Japan.
A point of much value to me in your explanation was the fact that too
many souls are held to be as bad as too few. I had imagined the opposite
to be the case, and had so written. But as I put the statement into
the mouth of a story-teller, it will read all right enough; and I can
correct the erroneous impression by a footnote.
There is rejoicing here over the non-abolition of the school. Your
predictions have been well fulfilled. Several new books I recommended
have been adopted; but there were changes made in my list, I think for
the worse. Kingsley's "Greek Heroes" (Ginn, Heath & Co.'s school-text
edition) has been adopted for the younger class. I recommended this book
for the extreme purity and simplicity of its English, which reads like
a song. I tried to get "Cuore" adopted, but could not succeed: they
said it was "too childish." I tried Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome;"
and that I think they will get. Then some classic texts--Burke's Essays
(selected) were adopted instead of a volume of stories I proposed. They
adopted also "The Book of Golden Deeds," a volume of anecdotes of virtue
and courage. As for my own classes, they still give me no books at all;
and I teach entirely by word of mouth and chalk. Still, considering the
short time given to each class, I believe this is best. The main thing
is to teach them to express themselves in English without books to help
them. I have noticed that at one period of the course there is always a
sudden improvement, as if there had been also a sudden development of
intelligence,--between the third and fourth class. It corresponds to a
change of capacity I noticed also in the Jinjō Chūgakkō. It
might be indicated by lines, thus:--
[Illustration]
Between 3 and 4 the increase of power is like a leap. But after that (in
the higher schools) I don't think there is much progress. Thereafter
I fancy that in most cases the highest capacity has been reached, and
then the strain comes. The students attempt to do on rice and gruel
what foreign students can only do on beef, eggs, puddings, heavy
nutritious diet. In the eternal order of things the overstrain comes.
The higher education will not give the desired results for at least
another generation,--because the physique of the student must be raised
to meet it. The higher education requires a physiological change,--an
increase of brain capacity in actual development of tissue, an increase
of nervous energy, and consequently a higher standard of living. That
there have been wonderful exceptions in Japanese scholarship makes
no difference: it is a question of general averages. The student of
to-day is not sufficiently strong and sufficiently nourished to bear
the tremendous strain put upon him at the higher schools and the
university. Wherefore he loses some of his best qualities in mere
effort. The higher schools don't feed their boys well--not so well by
half as the Government feeds the soldiers. At least so I have been
assured.... Yours faithfully,