the dictates of the Japanese authorities. They might permit him to go
away for a year or so for study, but he must serve the country his
father had adopted, in some capacity, or renounce his nationality.
Meantime, the boy is receiving a first-class education at the Waseda
University; he is perfectly happy, and would be most reluctant to
separate from his relations. As to his mother, it would break her heart
if any idea of his leaving Tokyo was suggested.

In the spring of 1903 as Hearn had anticipated, he was forced out of the
Imperial University, on the pretext that as a Japanese citizen he was
not entitled to a foreign salary. The students, as we can see by Yone
Noguchi's last book, made a strong protest in his favour, and he was
offered a re-engagement, but at terms so devised that it was impossible
for him to re-engage. He was also refused the money allowed to
professors for a nine months' vacation after a service of six years; yet
he had served seven years. On this subject Hearn was very bitter. "The
long and the short of the matter is that after having worked during
thirteen years for Japan, and sacrificed everything for Japan, I have
been only driven out of the service and practically vanished from the
country. For while the politico-religious combination that has
engineered this matter remains in unbroken power, I could not hold any
position in any educational establishment here for even six months."

In judging the controversy between Hearn and the authorities at this
juncture, it is well to remember that Japan was struggling for
existence. She was heavily in debt, having been deprived by the allied
powers of her indemnity from China. She could not afford to be
soft-hearted, and her own people, students, professors, every one
official, were heroically at this time renouncing emolument of any kind
to help their country in her need. Hearn's health precluded the
possibility of his fulfilling the duties of his engagement, and the
means at the disposal of the government did not permit of their taking
into consideration the possible payment of a pension. It seems hard,
perhaps, but the Japanese are a hard race, made of steel and iron, or
they never could have accomplished the overwhelming task that has been
set them within the last ten years. At the time when the war with Russia
was raging, and Hearn got his discharge, her resources were strained to
the utmost, her own people were submitting to almost incredible
pri