the bench at his side. One day in Kyoto I watched
a mere boy gradually develop a beautiful design of several hundred
butterflies gradually becoming smaller and smaller until they vanished
at the top of the vase. What he proposed to make of this was shown in a
finished design that was exquisite in the gradation of form and color.
The same skill of hand and eye was seen in the shops of Kyoto where
damascene ware is made. Gold and silver is hammered into steel and other
metals, so that the intricate designs actually seem to become a part of
the metal. In carving in wood the Japanese excel, and in such places as
Nikko and Nara the tourist may pick up the most elaborate carvings at
absurdly low prices.

CONCLUSIONS ON JAPANESE LIFE AND CHARACTER

In summing up one's observations of Japanese life and character, after a
brief trip across the empire, it is necessary to exercise much care and
not to take the accidental for the ordinary incidents of life.
Generalizations from such observations on a hurried journey are
especially deadly. To guard against such error I talked with many
people, and the conclusions given here are drawn from the radically
different views of missionaries, merchants, steamship agents, bankers
and others. Generous allowance must be made for the prejudices of each
class, but even then the forming of any conclusions is difficult. This
is due largely to the fact that the Japanese a half-century ago were
mediaeval in life and thought, and that the remarkable advances which
they have made in material and intellectual affairs have been crowded
into a little more than the life of two generations.

The most common charge made against the Japanese as a race is that their
standard of commercial morality is low as compared with that of the
Chinese. The favorite instance, which is generally cited by those who do
not like the Japanese, is that all the big banks in Japan employ Chinese
shroffs or cashiers, who handle all the money, as Japanese cashiers
cannot be trusted. This ancient fiction should have died a natural
death, but it seems as though it bears a charmed life, although its
untruth has been repeatedly exposed by the best authorities on Japan.

The big foreign banks in all the large Japanese cities do employ Chinese
shroffs, because these men are most expert in handling foreign money and
because they usually have a large acquaintance all along the Chinese
coast among the clients of the banks. The large J