[Illustration: IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY. p. 142]

[Illustration: GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A WESTERN SCYTHE. p. 367]

I had the privilege of visiting the adjoining nunnery. As I was
specially favoured by a general admission, I asked to be permitted to
see some nuns' cells. They showed a Buddhist advance on Western ideas.
The word "cells" was a misnomer for beautiful little flower-adorned
rooms of a cheerful Japanese house. The fragile, wistful nun who was
so kind as to speak with me had a consecrated expression. Her dress
was white, and over it was brocade in a perfect combination of green
and cream. Her head was shaven; her hands, which continually told
her beads, were hidden. Religious services are conducted and sermons
are delivered here and in other nunneries by the nuns themselves. I
could not but be sorry for some girl children who had become nuns on
their relatives' or guardians' decision. Adult newcomers are given a
month in which, if they wish, they may repent them of their vows; but
what of the children? The head of this nunnery was a member of the
Imperial family. The institution, like the temple from which I had
just come, stores thousands of wooden tablets to the memory of the
dead. There are many little receptacles in which the hair, the teeth
or the photographs of believers are preserved. I found that both at
the nunnery and the temple a practical interest was being shown in the
reformation of ex-criminals.

[Illustration: THE CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS. p. 230]

[Illustration: NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL" BY THE AUTHOR. p. 142]

[Illustration: STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. p. 50]

While in the highlands of Nagano I spent a night at Karuizawa, a hill
resort at which tired missionaries and their families, not only from
all parts of Japan but from China, gather in the summer months beyond
the reach of the mosquito.[133] I stayed in the summer cottage of my
travelling companion's brother-in-law. The family consisted of a
reserved, cultivated man with a pretty wife of what I have heard a
foreigner call "the maternal, domestic type." In their owlishness
newcomers to the country are inclined to commiserate all Japanese
housewives as the "slaves of their husbands." They would have been
sadly wrong in such thoughts about this happy wife and mother. The
eldest boy, a wholesome-looking lad, had just passed through the
middle school on his way to the university, and spoke to me