of this sort, more than
one generation of experience is required of a nation. For some time to
come Japan is sure to give signs of unsteadiness, of lack of perfect
balance.

A pitiful sight in Japan is that of boys not more than five or six
years of age pushing or pulling with all their might at heavily loaded
hand-carts drawn by their parents. Yet this is typical of one aspect
of Japanese civilization. The work is largely done by young people
under thirty, and vast multitudes of the workers are under twenty
years of age. This is true not only of menial labor, but also in
regard to labor involving more or less responsibility. In the post
offices, for instance, the great majority of the clerks are mere boys.
In the stores one rarely sees a man past middle age conducting the
business or acting as clerk. Why are the young so prominent? Partly
because of the custom of "abdication." As "family abdication" is
frequent, it has a perceptible effect on the general character of the
nation, and accounts in part for rash business ventures and other
signs of impetuosity and unbalanced judgment. Furthermore, under the
new civilization, the older men have become unfitted to do the
required work. The younger and more flexible members of the rising
generation can quickly adjust themselves to the new conditions, as in
the schools, where the older men, who had received only the regular
training in Chinese classics, were utterly incompetent as teachers of
science. Naturally, therefore, except for instruction in these
classics, the common-school teachers, during the earlier decades, were
almost wholly young boys. The extreme youthfulness of school-teachers
has constantly surprised me. In the various branches of government
this same phenomenon is equally common. Young men have been pushed
forward into positions with a rapidity and in numbers unknown in the
West, and perhaps unknown in any previous age in Japan.

The rise and decline of the Christian Church in Japan has been
instanced as a sign of the fickleness of the people. It is a mistaken
instance, for there are many other causes quite sufficient to account
for the phenomenon in question. Let me illustrate by the experience of
an elderly Christian. He had been brought to Christ through the
teachings of a young man of great brilliancy, whose zeal was not
tempered with full knowledge--which, however, was not strange, in view
of his limited opportunities for learning. His instruction was