vided for. First the schools established by the various missionary
societies, and then the government schools, offered to girls a broader
education than the old instruction in Chinese, in etiquette, and in
accomplishments. Now, every morning, the streets of the cities and
villages are alive with boys and girls clattering along, with their
books and lunch boxes in their hands, to the kindergarten, primary,
grammar, high, or normal school. Every rank in life, every grade in
learning, may find its proper place in the new school system, and the
girls eagerly grasp their opportunities, and show themselves apt and
willing students of the new learning offered to them.

By the new system, at its present stage of development, too much is
expected of the Japanese boy or girl. The work required would be a
burden to the quickest mind. The whole of the old education in Japanese
and Chinese literature and composition--an education requiring the best
years of a boy's life--is given, and grafted upon this, our
common-school and high-school studies of mathematics, geography,
history, and natural science. In addition to these, at all higher
schools, one foreign language is required, and often two, English
ranking first in the popular estimation. Many a headache do the poor,
hard-working students have over the puzzling English language, in which
they have to begin at the wrong end of the book and read across the page
from left to right, instead of from top to bottom, and from right to
left, as is natural to them. But in spite of its hard work, the new
school life is cheerful and healthful, and the children enjoy it. It
helps them to be really children, and, while they are young, to be merry
and playful, not dignified and formal little ladies at all times. Upon
the young girls, the influence of the schools is to make them more
independent, self-reliant, and stronger women. In the houses of the
higher classes, even now, much of the old-time system of repression is
still in force. Children are indeed "seen but not heard," and from the
time when they learn to walk they must learn to be polite and
dignified. At school, the more progressive feeling of the times
predominates among the authorities, and the children are encouraged to
unbend and enjoy themselves in games and frolics, as true children
should do. Much is done for the pleasure of the little ones, who often
enjoy school better than home, and declare that they do not like
holidays.[*52]