and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone
of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close
acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently
small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to
be precious in the rural life of my own land.

An interest in rural problems cannot be simulated. As I journeyed
about the country the sincerity of my purpose--there are few words in
commoner use in the Far East than sincerity--was recognised and
appreciated. I enjoyed conversations in which customary barriers had
been broken down and those who spoke said what they felt. We
inevitably discussed not only agricultural economy but life, religion
and morality, and the way Japan was taking.

I spoke and slept in Buddhist temples. I was received at Shinto
shrines. I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings
of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more
persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so
many _gaku_[5] for school walls and for my kind hosts that my memory
was drained of maxims. I attended guileless horse-races. I was present
at agricultural shows, fairs, wrestling matches, _Bon_ dances, village
and county councils and the strangest of public meetings. I talked not
only with farmers and their families but with all kinds of landlords,
with schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, policemen, shopkeepers,
priests, co-operative society enthusiasts, village officials, county
officials, prefectural officials, a score of Governors and an Ainu
chief. I sought wisdom from Ministers of State and nobles of every
rank, from the Prince who is the heir of the last of the Shoguns down
to democratic Barons who prefer to be called "Mr.", I chatted with
farmers' wives and daughters, I interrogated landladies and mill
girls, and I paid a memorable visit to a Buddhist nunnery. I walked,
talked, rode, ate and bathed with common folk and with dignitaries. I
discussed the situation of Japan with the new countryman in college
agricultural laboratories and classrooms, and, in a remote region,
beheld what is rare nowadays, the old countryman kneeling before his
cottage with his head to the ground as the stranger rode past.

I made notes as I traversed paddy-field paths, by mountain ways, in
colleges, schools, houses and inns. It can only have been when
crossing water on men's backs that I did not make notes. I jotted
things dow