Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



449 



THE WOMEN OF JAPAN. 



The Treasury for October has an article, by 

 Vera C. Collum, on the Japanese Schoolgirl of 

 To-dav. 



At all schools ethics is one of the subjects 

 taught. This teaching may be elementary very 

 often, but it is based upon the Imperial Rescript 

 of 1890, which, among other things, exhorts 

 the subjects to be filial to their parents and 

 affectionate to their brothers and sisters, and as 

 husbands and wives to be harmonious, and as 

 friends to be true. Addressed to men and 

 women alike, it is a great advance on the teaching 

 of Kaibnra, the seventeenth-century moralist, 

 who laid down that the great life-long duty 

 of a woman is obedience, and that a woman 

 should look on her husband as if he were 

 heaven itself. Such is the stupidity of her 

 character that it is incumbent on her in every 

 particular to distrust herself— so he argued. 



THE SECRET OF JAPANESE PATRIOTISM. 



In Japan, says the writer, it is a confirmed 

 habit of thought to consider the generations to 

 come after, even as it is the tradition to worship 

 those who have gone before. That is the potent 

 secret of Japanese patriotism. The next genera- 

 lion of schoolgirls will hold in their hands the 

 destiny of the nation, the writer asserts. After 

 the " Japanese Restoration " there was a sort of 

 wild scramble to assimilate as many Western 

 ideas as possible. One of these new ideas was 

 the higher education of women, and, swallowed 

 whole, it naturally produced acute symptoms. 

 Mistakes were made, but progress too, and the 

 fruit of those early years is now ripening. The 

 mothers of the present generation have decided 

 for a large measure of emancipation and higher 

 education, coupled with better domestic train- 

 ing. The schoolgirls of to-day are to be fitted 

 to be the mothers of the women of the next 

 generation, as well as comrades and helpmeets, 

 housekeepers, and mothers of men. 



EDUCATION AN'D PROFESSIONS. 



-Some interesting education statistics are 

 given. The girls who attend school form 96 per 

 cent. Primary schools for boys and girls num- 

 ber 27,125, and the teachers 122,038. There 

 are 133 higher girls' schools, with 2,011 

 teachers, and one girls' higher normal school 

 for the training of teachers. There is also one 

 women's university. Girls and boys are pretty 

 evenly divided in Japan. Nearly 6,000,000 

 children attend primary schools, so that about 

 half that number will be girls. But in the girls' 

 higher schools there are only 40,000 pupils, 

 against nearly three times that figure in similar 

 schools for boys. Under 500 students attend 



the girls' normal school, and about the same 

 number take the course at the women's uni- 

 versity. As to the subjects taught in the girls' 

 schools, they are reading, writing, history, 

 drill, music, singing, cooking, dressmaking, etc. 

 Having finished their education, it is interesting 

 to learn about the professions carried on by 

 women. The total number of working women 

 is 486,000. Of these 426,000 are engaged in 

 factories, for over 50 per cent, of the labour 

 employed in Japanese factories is female. The 

 professional and business women are the remain- 

 ing 60,000. In the former class are, according 

 to the statistics quoted, 34,000 teachers, but it 

 is not stated where they were trained ; also 

 16,000 nurses. The business women include 244 

 railway servants, 793 savings bank employees, 

 1,300 telephone girls, and 314 employees in the 

 Bank of Japan. The writer points out that only 

 about 50,000 out of over 2,000,000 schoolgirls 

 are thus engaged in pursuits open to women of 

 higher education ; but probably early marriage 

 prevents the girls obtaining the full benefits of 

 their education. 



A MANY-SIDED LADY. 



To the Eynpire Review for September Sir 

 Clement Kinloch-Cooke, M.P., contributes an 

 appreciation of the late Lady Lindsay. Her 

 poetic gifts, he says, entitle her to a lasting 

 place among the poets of our day : — 



Ilcr last work was called " Poems of Life and Death." 

 Requests for republication in volumes of selected verse 

 came from several quarters, among them being one 

 from the late Mr. Stead, asking permission to include 

 some of her work in his Library of Penny Poets, a 

 request which bears striking testimony to the popularity 

 of her writings. In most cases the desired permission 

 was readily given, but with one or two exceptions it 

 was her invariable practice to retain the copyright in 

 her own hands. 



Before resolving to devote her literary talents to 

 poetry Lady Lindsay wrote some charming short stories, 

 which appeared in various magazines, and were .after- 

 wards collected together in book-form and published 

 under the title of " A Philosopher's \Vi dow." 



Not only so, but " as a painter in water- 

 colours Lady Lindsay reached a high level, her 

 flower pieces and copies of old masters (in 

 water-colours) being quite excellent." Mr. 

 Charles Halld says of her : " She holds a dis- 

 tinguished place in music and painting." She 

 was an ideal hostess. .She delighted in the rest- 

 ful surroundings of the country, and would 

 spend hours watching and studying the habits of 

 birds. .Swallows were her particular favourites. 

 She had a splendid courage and a high sense of 

 dutv. Her religious convictions were clear and 

 strong, emphatically of the type known as 

 I'vangclical. 



