een seems essential in Japan. That
vexatious delays and misunderstandings are frequent may be assumed.

The system, however, has its advantages. In case of disagreeable
matters the go-between can say the disagreeable things in the third
person, reducing the unpleasant utterances to a minimum.

I recall the case of two evangelists in the employ of the Kumamoto
station. Each secured the other to act as go-between in presenting his
own difficulties to me. To an American the natural course would have
been for each man to state his own grievances and desires, and secure
an immediate settlement.

The characteristic of "roundaboutness" is not, however, confined to
Japanese methods of action, but also characterizes their methods of
speech. In later chapters on the alleged Japanese impersonality we
shall consider the remarkable deficiency of personal pronouns in the
language, and the wide use of "honorifics." This substitution of the
personal pronouns by honorifics makes possible an indefiniteness of
speech that is exceedingly difficult for an Anglo-Saxon to appreciate.
Fancy the amount of implication in the statement, "Ikenai koto-we
shimashita" which, strictly translated, means "Can't go thing have
done." Who has done? you? or he? or I? This can only be inferred, for
it is not stated. If a speaker wishes to make his personal allusion
blind, he can always do so with the greatest ease and without the
slightest degree of grammatical incorrectness. "Caught cold," "better
ask," "honorably sorry," "feel hungry," and all the common sentences
of daily life are entirely free from that personal definiteness which
an Occidental language necessitates. We shall see later that the
absence of the personal element from the wording of the sentence does
not imply, or prove, its absence from the thought of either the
speaker or hearer. The Japanese language abounds in roundabout methods
of expression. This is specially true in phrases of courtesy. Instead
of saying, "I am glad to see you," the Japanese say, "Well, honorably
have come"; instead of, "I am sorry to have troubled you," they say,
"Honorable hindrance have done"; instead of "Thank you," the correct
expression is, "It is difficult."

In a conversation once with a leading educator, I was maintaining that
a wide study of English was not needful for the Japanese youth; that
the majority of the boys would never learn enough English to make it
of practical use to them in after-life, and