, "Even in this good reign I
pray because I wish to make our country more glorious." There were
portraits of four deceased local celebrities and of Peter the Great,
Franklin, Lincoln, Commander Perry and Bismarck. Illustrated wall
charts showed how to sit on a school seat, how to identify poisonous
plants and how to conform to the requirements of etiquette. The
following admonitions were also displayed--a copy of them is given to
each child, who is expected to read the twelve counsels every morning
before coming to school:

1.--Do your own work and don't rely on others to do it.

2.--Be ardent when you learn or play.

3.--Endeavour to do away with your bad habits and cultivate good ones.

4.--Never tell a lie and be careful when you speak.

5.--Do what you think right in your heart and at the same time have
good manners.

6.--Overcome difficulties and never hold back from hard work.

7.--Do not make appointments which you are uncertain to keep.

8.--Do not carelessly lend or borrow.

9.--Do not pass by another's difficulties and do not give another
much trouble.

10.--Be careful about things belonging to the public as well as
about things belonging to yourself.

11.--Keep the outside and inside of the school clean and also
take care of waste paper.

12.--Never play with a grumbling spirit.

There was stuck on the roofs of many houses a rod with a piece of
white paper attached, a charm against fire. One house so provided was
next door to the fire station. Frequently we passed a children's
_jizo_ or Buddha, comically decked in the hat and miscellaneous
garments of youngsters whose grateful mothers believed them to have
been cured by the power of the deity.

Speaking of clothes, it was the hottest July weather and the natural
garment was at most a loin cloth. The women wore a piece of red or
coloured cotton from their waist to their knees. The backs of the men
and women who were working in the open were protected by a flapping
ricestraw mat or by an armful of green stuff. The boys under ten or so
were naked and so were many little girls. But the influence of the
Westernising period ideas of what was "decent" in the presence of
foreigners survives. So, whenever a policeman was near, people of all
ages were to be seen huddling on their kimonos. I was sorry for a
merry group of boys and girls aged 12 or 13 who in that torrid
weather[125] were bathing at an ideal spot in the ri