"THE GARDEN WHERE VIRTUES ARE CULTIVATED"
(FUKUSHIMA AND YAMAGATA)
BOSWELL: If you should advise me to go to Japan I believe I should.
JOHNSON: Why yes, Sir, I am serious.
In one of my journeys I went from Tokyo to the extreme north of Japan,
travelling up the west coast and down the east. Fukushima
prefecture--in which is Shirakawa, famous for a horse fair which lasts
a week--encourages the eating of barley, for on the northern half of
the east coast of Japan there is no warm current and the rice crop may
be lost in a cold season. "Officials of the prefecture and county,"
someone said to me, "take barley themselves; enthusiastic _gunchō_
take it gladly."
The prefectural station, by selecting the best varieties of rice for
sowing, had effected a 10 per cent. improvement in yield. In each
county an official "agricultural encourager" had been appointed. The
lectures given at the experiment station were attended by 18,000
persons. The studious who listen to the lectures had formed an
association that provided at the station a fine building where supper,
bed, breakfast and lunch cost 30 sen. It contained a model of the Ise
shrine with a motto in the handwriting of a well-known Tokyo
agricultural professor, "Difficulties Polish You."
"Some villagers," said a local authority, "want to make the Buddhist
temple the centre of the development of village life. In several
places agricultural products are exhibited at Shinto shrines. Farmers
offer them out of a kind of piety, but the products are afterwards
criticised from a technical point of view. This is done on the
initiative of the villagers encouraged by the prefecture."
Hereabouts the winter work of the people, in addition to basket, rope
and mat making, was paper making and smoothing out the wrinkles of
tobacco.[157] A considerable number of people had emigrated to South
America. The principal need of the villages, it was stated, was money
at less than the current rate of 20 per cent. In one place I found a
factory built on the side of a daimyo's castle.
I was told of crops of _konnyaku_ which had made one man the second
richest person in the prefecture and had therefore qualified him for
membership in the House of Peers. (The House includes one member from
each prefecture as the representative of the highest taxpayers of that
prefecture.)
During my journeys I picked up many odds and ends of information by
walking through the trains and having chats with country people. I was
also helped by county and prefectural agricultural officials who,
having learnt of my movements, were kind enough to join me in the
train for an hour or so. One head of an agricultural school which was
full up with students told me that there were already in Fukushima two
prefectural and five county agricultural schools.
Our train, half freight with a locomotive at each end, went over the
backbone of Japan through the usual series of snow shelters and
tunnels. Having surmounted the heights we slid down into Yamagata. I
should properly write Yamagataken, which we cannot translate
Yamagatashire, for a _ken_ (prefecture) is made up of counties. There
are eleven counties in Yamagataken.
Almost any sort of dwelling looks tolerable in August, but many of the
houses that first caught our attention must be lamentable shelters in
winter. Some farmers, I learnt, were "in a very bad condition." We
dropped from a silk and rice plateau and then to a region where the
main crop was rice. The bare hills to be seen in our descent were an
appalling spectacle when it was realised how close was their relation
to the disastrous floods of the prefecture. A man in the train had
lost 10,000 yen by floods, a large sum in rural Japan. In two years
the prefecture had spent in river-bank repairs nearly a million yen. A
flood some years ago did damage to the amount of 20 million yen. The
prefecture had a debt of 60 million yen, chiefly due to havoc wrought
by its big river. A yearly sum was spent on afforestation in addition
to what was laid out by the State and by private individuals. A
forestry association was trying to raise half a million yen for tree
planting. But the flooding of the plains was not the only water
trouble of the Yamagatans. In one district they had a stream which
contained solutions of compounds of sulphuric acid so strong that
crops fail for three years on ground watered from it. In other parts
of the prefecture, however, farmers had the advantage, enjoyed in many
parts of Japan, of being able to water from ammonia water springs.
Hereabouts I first noticed the device common to many districts of
having on the roof of a cottage a water barrel, tub or cistern, ready
to be emptied on the shingle roof when sparks fly from a burning
dwelling. Sometimes the wooden water receptacles are wrapped round
with straw.
In the prefectural city of Yamagata I heard of a primary school which
had a farm and made a profit, also of four landowners who had engaged
an agricultural expert for the instruction of their tenants. "A very
certain crop" round about the city was grapes. Some 25,000 persons
yearly visited the prefectural 12 _-chō_ experiment station, which
within a year had distributed to farmers 7,600 cyanided fruit trees
and 80 bushels of special seed rice.
Near the experiment station was a crematorium of ugly brick and
galvanised iron belonging to the city of Yamagata at which 1,000
bodies were burnt in a year in furnaces heated with pine blocks. A
selection might be made from four rates ranging from 35 sen to 5 yen.
The most expensive rate was for folk who arrived in Western-style
coffins.
The experiment station had another institution at its doors. This had
to do not with the dead but with the living. Its name was "The Garden
where Virtues are Cultivated." The director of it was the father of
the agricultural expert of the prefecture. The garden, which was not a
garden, was a home for bad boys, or rather for thirty bad boys and one
bad girl. The bad girl--the director, being a man of humanity, common
sense and courage, thought it most necessary that there should be at
least one bad girl--acted as maidservant to the director. The bad boys
"maided" themselves and the school. The lads were such as had fallen
into the hands of the police. They were being reformed in a somewhat
original way by a somewhat original director.
Early in the day they had their cold bath, which was itself a break
with Japanese custom, for, though most Japanese have a nightly hot
bath, they are content with a basin wash in the morning. Then the boys
"cleaned school." Next they were marched up one by one to a mirror and
required to take a good look at themselves, in order, no doubt, to see
just how bad they were. After this they were called on to "give thanks
to the Emperor and their ancestors." Finally came a half-hour lecture
on "morality." It was considered that by this time the boys were
entitled to their breakfast. For open-air labour they were sent to the
experiment station, but they had manual work also in their own school,
where, among other things, they "made useful things out of waste," the
income from which went to their families. On Sundays the master,
though he must be nearer sixty than fifty, fenced with every one of
the thirty boys in turn--no ordinary task, for Japanese fencing calls
not only for an eye and a hand, but for a muscular back. Some
wholesome-looking young fellows, members of a young men's association,
served as volunteer masters and lived in the bare fashion that was so
good for the boys.
The director did not believe that bad boys were hopeless. He said that
not only the boys but their parents were better for the work done in
"The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." He seemed to have become a
sort of consulting expert to primary school-masters who were at a loss
to know how to manage bad boys. Chastisement, as is well known, is
unusual in Japanese schools. The director of the human _hortus
inclusus_ confessed to me that though two of his boys whom he had
caught fighting might not have been separated without, in the Western
phrase, "feeling the weight of his hand," his heaviest punishment on
other difficult occasions was the moxa.
The moxa brings us back to real horticulture. Moxa is _mogusa_ or
mugwort. _Mogusa_ means "burning herb." The moxa is a great
therapeutic agent in the Far East. A bit of the dried herb is laid on
the skin and set fire to as a sort of blister. From the application of
the moxa as a cure for physical ills to its application for the cure
of bad boys is a natural step. One sees by the scars on the backs of
not a few Japanese that in their youth either their health or their
characters left something to be desired. The moxa, then, is the rod in
pickle in "The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." But I think it is
not brought out often. A wrestling ring in a mass of sand thrown down
in a yard, a harmonium, a blackboard for the boys to work their will
on, doors labelled "The Room of Patience," "The Room of Honesty," "The
Room of Cleanliness" and "The Room of Good Arrangement," not to speak
of a rabbit loping about the school premises--these and some other
touches in the management of the school spoke of an even stronger
influence toward well-doing than the moxa. But even if the moxa should
fail, the attention of the boys could always be drawn to the
crematorium.
One who knew the rural districts discoursed to me in this wise: "The
best men are not numerous, but neither are the worst. I doubt whether
the desire to enjoy life is as strong in the Japanese as in the people
of the West. Most farmers would no doubt be happy with material
comfort. Pressed as they have been by material needs, they have no
time to think. When they are easier, they may get something beyond the
physical. At present we must regard their material welfare as the most
urgent thing." But a man standing by, who was also a countryman,
strongly dissented. "Religion," he said, "is not only important but
fundamental."
I have been received by more than one prefectural governor at eight in
the morning. His Excellency of Yamagata sets a good example by rising
at five and by going to bed at nine. He told me that he thought the
farmer's chief lack was cheap money. Low interest and a long term
might convert into arable 25,000 acres of barren land in his
prefecture. In the old days, as I knew, the farmers drove tunnels
considerable distances for irrigation, but with modern engineering
better results would be possible if money were available. As to the
misdeeds of the rivers, it might almost be said that every village was
feeling the need of embanking and of going to the source of loss by
planting trees in the hills. Beautiful forests of feudal period had
been wasted in the early days of Meiji and the result was now plain.
But attention had to be given to the minds as well as the pockets of
the villagers. Families that were once reasonably content were now
discontented. A livelihood was harder to get, taxation was heavier and
there was an increase in needs. Country people imagined townspeople to
be comfortably off, "not realising how they were tormented." Villagers
envied townsmen their amusements. Some prefectures had forbidden the
_Bon_ dance and had supplied nothing in its place. It was easy to see
why farmers no longer applied themselves so closely to their calling
and were wavering in their allegiance to country life. Healthful
amusements were necessary for those whose minds were not much
developed. Also, country people should be taught the true character of
town life, and that agriculture, though it might not yield the profit
of commerce and industry, ensured a reasonably happy life in healthful
places where physical strength could be enjoyed. The right kind of
village libraries should be encouraged. Music might perhaps be forced
into competition with _saké_.
A mental awakening by education was the final solution of the rural
problem, the Governor thought. Religion was also important for the
development of the village. Believers not under the eyes of others
would avoid wrong-doing because watched by heaven. Lectures on
agriculture and sanitation had a good influence when delivered by
priests. Temples were often schools before the era of Meiji and so
priests were socially active. Under the new dispensation the work was
taken out of their hands. So they had come to care little for the
affairs of the world. But they were influential and the prefecture had
asked for their help. The merits of many priests might not be
conspicuous, but the number of them who were active was increasing and
the villagers deferred to them if they took any step.
The most hopeful thing in the villages was the awakening of the young
men: they were becoming "sincere," a favourite Japanese word. For the
most part the credit societies were not efficient, but in one county
credit societies had lessened the business of the banks. The best way
to furnish capital to farmers was out of the capital of their fellow
farmers.
Possibly the girls of the villages were not making the same advance as
the boys. They did not go to their field labour willingly. Sometimes
when a woman was asked by a neighbour on the road, "Have you been
working on the farm?" she would answer, "No, I have been to the
temple." The host of women's papers had a bad effect. With regard to
the _habutae_ (silk goods) factories, there was a bright side, for
they gave work to the girls in winter, when they were idle "and
therefore poor and sometimes immoral." On the other hand, factory
girls tended to become vain and thriftless and the stay-at-home girls
were inclined to imitate them.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] See Appendix XLV.