eone happened to quote the
proverb, "Richer after the fire." It means, of course, that after the
fire the neighbours are so ready with help that the last state of the
victim of the fire is better than the first. The view was expressed
that hitherto charitable institutions of some Western patterns had not
been so much needed in Japan as might be supposed.[48] "Those who go
to Europe from Japan are indeed much surprised by the number of
institutions to help people." Here, however, is the story of an
institution coming into existence in a village: "There was a man who
was thought to be rich, but he lived like a miser. His _shoji_ were
made of waste paper and his guests received tea only. So he was
despised. But many years afterwards it was found that for a long time
he had been collecting books. Then, to the surprise of everybody, he
built a library for his village. He is not at all proud of this and
those who ridiculed him are now ashamed."

I was invited to a "Rural Life Exhibition." Some agricultural produce
was shown, but three hundred of the exhibits were manuscript books or
diagrams. One diagram illustrated the development in a particular
county of the use of two bactericides, formalin and carbon bisulphide.
The formalin was in use to the value of 2,000 yen. Then there was a
wall picture, a sort of Japanese "The Child: What will he Become?" The
good boy, aged fifteen, was shown spending his spare time in making
straw rope to the value of 3 sen 3 rin nightly, with the result that
after thirty years of such industry he became a rural capitalist who
possessed 1,000 yen and lived in circumstances of dignity. In contrast
with this virtuous career there was shown the rural rake's progress. A
youth who was in the habit of laying out 3 sen 3 rin riotously in
sweet-shops was proved to have wasted 1,000 yen in thirty years: the
prodigal was justly exhibited fleeing from his home in debt.

One of the books on exhibition mentioned the volumes most in demand at
some village library. I translate the titles:

Physical and Intellectual Training
About being Ambitious
The Housewife of a Peasant Family
The Management of a Farm
The Days when Statesmen were Boys
Culture and Striving
Essence of Rural Improvement
A Hundred Beautiful Stories
The Art of Composition
The Preparation of the Conscript
A Medical Treatise
A Translation of "Self-