stricts of other countries, but the people
respect authority, and they are accustomed to accept instruction given
in the form of directions. Also the Japanese have an unending interest
in the new thing. Further, there is a continual desire to excel for
the national advantage and in emulation of the foreigner. The advance
in scientific knowledge in the rural districts is remarkable, because
it is in such contrast with the primitive lives of the country people.
Picture the surprise of British or American farmers were they brought
face to face with thermometers, electric light and a working knowledge
of bacteriology in the houses of peasants in breech clouts.

It was while I was trying to learn something of the sericultural
industry that I had the opportunity of visiting a noteworthy
institution. It is noteworthy, among other reasons, because I seldom
met a foreigner in Japan who knew of its existence. It is the great
Ueda Sericultural College in the prefecture of Nagano. I was struck
not only by its extent but by its systematised efficiency. On a level
with the director's eyes was a motto in large lettering, "Be diligent.
Develop your virtues."

[Illustration: TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL, p. 124.]

[Illustration: GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE, p. 136]

[Illustration: SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS, p. 158]

The Institute devotes itself to mulberries, silk-worms and silk
manufacture. There are 200 students, as many as it will hold. The
young men become teachers of sericulture, advisers in mills and
experts of co-operative sericultural societies. The institution, in
addition to the fees it receives and its earnings from its own
products, some 33,000 yen in all, has an annual Government subsidy of
about 114,000 yen. There are other sericultural colleges doing similar
work in Tokyo and Kyoto, and there is also in the capital the Imperial
Sericultural Experiment Station (with a staff of 87), where I saw
all sorts of research work in progress. This experiment station has
half a dozen branches scattered up and down the silk districts.

[Illustration: SOME OF THE SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA. p. 161]

[Illustration: VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM. p. 133]

At Ueda I went through corridors and rooms, sterilised thrice a year,
to visit professors engaged in a variety of enquiries. One professor
had turned into a kind of beef tea the pupae thrown away when the
cocoons are unwound; another had made from the residual oil two or
three kind