o Detroit, Michigan, and except that there is less coal smoke,
the description hits it off. This is said to be literally an
international city, but I haven't learned yet just what the technique
is; every country seems to have its own post office though, and its own
front-door yard, and when we were given a little auto ride yesterday, we
found that the car couldn't go into Chinatown because it had no license
for that district.

I shall be interested to find out whether in this really old country
they talk about "ages eternal" as freely as they do in Japan; the
authentic history of the latter begins about 500 A.D., their mythical
history 500 B.C., but still it is a country which has endured during
myriads of ages. In spite of the fact that they kept the emperors shut
up for a thousand years, and killed them off and changed them about with
great ease and complacency, the children are all taught, and they repeat
in books for foreigners, that the rule of Japan has been absolutely
unbroken. Of course, they get to believing these things themselves, not
exactly intellectually but emotionally and practically, and it would be
worth any teacher's position for him to question any of their patriotic
legends in print. However, they say that in their oral lectures, the
professors of history of the universities criticise these legends. In
the higher elementary school we visited in Osaka, we saw five classes in
history and ethics, in each of which the Emperor was under
discussion--sometimes _the_ Emperor and what he had done for the
country, and sometimes _an_ Emperor in particular. Apparently this
religion has been somewhat of a necessity, as the country was so divided
and split up, they had practically nothing else to unite on--the Emperor
became a kind of symbol of united and modern Japan. But this worship is
going to be an Old Man of the Sea on their backs. They say the
elementary school teachers are about the most fanatical patriots of the
country. More than one has been burned or allowed the children to be
burned while he rescued the portrait of the Emperor when there was a
fire. They must take it out in patriotism in lieu of salary; they don't
get a living wage, now that the cost of living has gone up.

SHANGHAI, May 2.

We have been taken in hand by a reception committee of several Chinese
gentlemen, mostly returned American students. The "returned student" is
a definite category here, and if and when China gets on its