by her
equally rapid adoption of Western ones in their place. Yet this appeal
to happiness seems to me a misleading because vague, if not altogether
false, standard of progress. Those who use it insist that the people
of Japan are losing their former happiness under the stress of new
conditions. Now there can be no doubt that during the "Kyu-han jidai,"
the times before the coming in of Western waves of life, the farmers
were a simple, unsophisticated people; living from month to month with
little thought or anxiety. They may be said to have been happy. The
samurai who lived wholly on the bounty of the daimyo led of course a
tranquil life, at least so far as anxiety or toil for daily rice and
fish was concerned. As the fathers had lived and fought and died, so
did the sons. To a large extent the community had all things in
common; for although the lord lived in relative luxury, yet in such
small communities there never was the great difference between classes
that we find in modern Europe and America. As a rule the people were
fed, if there was food. The socialistic principle was practically
universal. Especially was emphasis laid on kinship. As a result, save
among the outcast classes, the extremes of poverty did not exist.

Were we to rest our inquiries at this point, we might say that in
truth the Japanese had attained the summit of progress; that nothing
further could be asked. But pushing our way further, we find that the
peace and quiet of the ordinary classes of society were accompanied by
many undesirable features.

Prominent among them was the domineering spirit of the military class.
They alone laid claim to personal rights, and popular stories are full
of the free and furious ways in which they used their swords. The
slightest offense by one of the swordless men would be paid for by a
summary act of the two-sworded swashbucklers, while beggars and
farmers were cut down without compunction, sometimes simply to test a
sword. In describing those times one man said to me, "They used to cut
off the heads of the common people as farmers cut off the head of the
daikon" (a variety of giant radish). I have frequently asked my
Japanese friends and acquaintances, whether, in view of the increasing
difficulties of life under the new conditions, the country would not
like to return to ancient times and customs. But none have been ready
to give me an affirmative reply. On detailed questioning I have always
found that the