venerable professor, "that you
have no religious instruction in your schools?" On my replying in the
negative he suddenly halted in astonishment, and in a voice which I
shall not easily forget, he repeated "No religion! How do you impart
moral education?" The question stunned me at the time. I could give no
ready answer, for the moral precepts I learned in my childhood days,
were not given in schools; and not until I began to analyze the
different elements that formed my notions of right and wrong, did I find
that it was Bushido that breathed them into my nostrils.

The direct inception of this little book is due to the frequent queries
put by my wife as to the reasons why such and such ideas and customs
prevail in Japan.

In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to M. de Laveleye and to my
wife, I found that without understanding Feudalism and Bushido,[1] the
moral ideas of present Japan are a sealed volume.

[Footnote 1: Pronounced _Boo-shee-doh'_. In putting Japanese words and
names into English, Hepburn's rule is followed, that the vowels should
be used as in European languages, and the consonants as in English.]

Taking advantage of enforced idleness on account of long illness, I put
down in the order now presented to the public some of the answers given
in our household conversation. They consist mainly of what I was taught
and told in my youthful days, when Feudalism was still in force.

Between Lafcadio Hearn and Mrs. Hugh Fraser on one side and Sir Ernest
Satow and Professor Chamberlain on the other, it is indeed discouraging
to write anything Japanese in English. The only advantage I have over
them is that I can assume the attitude of a personal defendant, while
these distinguished writers are at best solicitors and attorneys. I
have often thought,--"Had I their gift of language, I would present the
cause of Japan in more eloquent terms!" But one who speaks in a borrowed
tongue should be thankful if he can just make himself intelligible.

All through the discourse I have tried to illustrate whatever points I
have made with parallel examples from European history and literature,
believing that these will aid in bringing the subject nearer to the
comprehension of foreign readers.

Should any of my allusions to religious subjects and to religious
workers be thought slighting, I trust my attitude towards Christianity
itself will not be questioned. It is with ecclesiastical methods and
with the forms whic