is district is
a downcast-looking animal in spite of the fact that it is stalled
under the same roof as its owner and is thus able to share to some
extent in his family life.

At the town at which we at last arrived, the comfort of the hot bath
was enhanced by a sturdy lass of the inn who unasked and unannounced
came and applied herself resolutely to scrubbing and knuckling our
backs.

The next day I went to the principal school. There were in the place
three primary schools, one with a branch for agricultural work. The
"attendance" at the principal school, where there were 379 boys and
girls, was 98 per cent, for the boys and 94 per cent, for the
girls.[115] The buildings were most creditable to a small place fifty
miles from a railway station. The community had met the whole cost out
of its official funds and by subscriptions. More than half the
expenditure of many a village is on education, which in Japan is
compulsory but not free. One cannot but be impressed by the pride
which is taken in the local schools. The dominating man-made feature
of the landscape is less frequently than might be supposed a temple or
a shrine: where the picture which catches the eye is not the vast
expanse of the crops of the plain or the marvels of terracing for hill
crops, it is the long, low school building, set almost invariably on
the best possible site. The poorly paid men and women teachers are
earnest and devoted, and their influence must be far-reaching. They
are rewarded in part, no doubt, by the respect which pupils and the
general public give to the _sensei_ (teacher).[116] At the school I
visited, the children, as is customary, swept and washed out the
schoolrooms and kept the playground trim. Above one teacher's desk
were the following admonitions:

Be obedient.
Be decent.
Be active.
Be social.
Be serious.

"Be serious"!--graver small folk sit in no schools in the world. Here,
as usual, corporal punishment was never given. I suggested to teachers
all sorts of juvenile delinquencies, but their faith in the
sufficiency of reprimands, of "standing out" and of detention after
school hours was unshaken.

A new wing, a beautiful piece of carpenter's work, had cost 4,000 yen,
a large sum in Japan, where wood and village labour are equally cheap.
It was to be used chiefly for the gymnastics which are steadily adding
to the stature of the Japanese people. At one end there was an
openin