etrates the house. (_Engawa_ [edge or border] is
the passage which faces to the open; _roka_ is a passage inside a
house between two rooms or sometimes a bridgelike passage in the open,
connecting two separate buildings or parts of a house.) Emptying day
is particularly trying. This much must be said, however, that the
farmers' tubs are washed, scrubbed and sunned after every journey and
have close-fitting lids. And primitive though the _benjo_ is, it is
scrupulously clean. Also, if it is always more or less smelly, it is
contrived on sound hygienic principles. There is no seat requiring an
unnatural position. The user squats over an opening in the floor about
2 ft. long by 6 ins. wide. This opening is encased by a simple
porcelain fitting with a hood at the end facing the user. The top of
the tub is some distance below the floor. In peasants' houses there is
no porcelain fitting. Manure is so valuable in Japan that farmers
whose land adjoins the road often build a _benjo_ for the use of
passers-by. Although the traveller in Japan has much to endure from
the unpleasant odour due to the thrifty utilisation of excreta, the
Japanese deserve credit for the fact that their countryside is never
fouled in the disgusting fashion which proves many of our rural folk
to be behind the primitive standard of civilisation set up in
Deuteronomy (chap, xxiii. 13). The Western rural sociologist is not
inclined to criticise the sanitary methods of Japan. He is too
conscious of the neglect in the West to study thoroughly the grave
question of sewage disposal in relation to the needs of our crops and
the cost of nitrogenous fertilisers. See also Appendix XX.

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS [V]. In Mr. Yamasaki's school there was dormitory
accommodation for 200 youths, some 40 lived in teachers' houses,
another 15 were in lodgings, and 45 came daily from their parents'
homes. Lads were admitted from 14 to 16 and the course was for 3
years. The students worked 30 hours weekly indoors and the rest of
their time outside. Upper and lower grade agricultural schools number
280 with 23,000 students. In addition there are 7,908 agricultural
continuation schools with more than 430,000 pupils. The ratio of
illiteracy in Japan for men of conscription age (that is, excluding
old people and young people), which had been over 5 per cent. up to
1911, was reported to be only 2 per cent. in 1917.

CRIME [VI]. In 1916 the chief offences in Japan were:

Dealt wit