erely resting while we Caucasians have been having our
brief innings, is now to the bat again. And there was a lot more to
the same effect.

This is of course the Asiatic way of looking at things. There may be
something in what he says about the continuity of female influence
softening our Western civilization. Certainly the present war shows
that the Japanese women, who were only yesterday altogether Oriental
in habits and ideals, have produced a race of strong men, so far as
physical daring and hardihood is concerned. The influence of women on
these men ceased with childhood--even then it was a Spartan influence.

More than this, the Japanese generals and statesmen, nearly all of
whom are above sixty, were the product of Japanese civilization before
modern ideas had even been sown in the Island Empire. Oyama and
Kuroki, Ito and Katsura, and all the rest, are the offspring of purely
Asiatic conditions, uninfluenced in the slightest degree by Western
thought or custom; and yet the state of society which brought forth
these men is unfamiliar to American and European peoples.

But even if what this Oriental assailant of our customs terms the
overcharge of femininity in Occidental society does mellow us, it does
not follow that it weakens us. Anyhow it does not affect what I say
about the influence of the mother upon the purposes and "principles"
of young men. And, in any event, our Western civilization constitutes
those human conditions in which you, young man, must spend your life,
and you must be in harmony with it if you are going to accomplish
anything.

Don't try to be an Oriental in the midst of Occidental surroundings.
The yellow theory and the white theory of life must fight for the
mastery, and the one which is nearest the truth will prevail.
Meanwhile, stick to your own race and the ideals of it. I do not mean
that you should ignore any true thing you may learn from the East.
Welcome knowledge from every source. Light is light, no matter whence
it comes.

And this brings back to us the little mother and the old home. If she
wishes it, be her companion. In any event, make her your confidant.
For a young man there is no source of safety and wisdom so abundant,
pure, and unfailing as the making his mother his confessor. Tell her
everything. I mean just that, tell her literally everything.

Do not fear her reproof. Chemistry has no miracle a fraction as
wonderful as the patience and forgiveness of a mother fo