pan. This interpretation is not an
inference, but was publicly stated oil various occasions. The school
began with twenty-five boys, if my memory is correct, and never
reached as many as fifty. In less than three years it died an untimely
death through lack of patronage.

The young men of the island of Kyushu, especially of Kumamoto and
Kagoshima provinces, are noted for their ambitious projects. The once
famous "Kumamoto Band" consisted entirely of Kyushu boys. Under the
masterful influence of Captain Jaynes those high-spirited sons of
samurai, who had come to learn foreign languages and science, in a
school founded to combat Christianity and to upbuild Buddhism, became
impressed with the immense superiority of foreign lands, which
superiority they were led to attribute to Christianity. They
accordingly espoused the Christian cause with great ardor, and, in
their compact with one another, agreed to work for the reform of
Japan. I have listened to many addresses by the Kumamoto schoolboys,
and I have been uniformly impressed with the political and national
tendencies of their thought.

Accompanying ambition is a group of less admirable qualities, such as
self-sufficiency and self-conceit. They are seldom manifested with
that coarseness which in the West we associate with them, for the
Japanese is usually too polished to be offensively obtrusive. He
seldom indulges in bluster or direct assertion, but is contented
rather with the silent assumption of superiority.

I heard recently of a slight, though capital, illustration of my
point. Two foreign gentlemen were walking through the town of Tadotsu
some years since and observed a sign in English which read
"Stemboots." Wondering what the sign could mean they inquired the
business of the place, and learning that it was a steamboat office,
they gave the clerk the reason for their inquiry, and at his request
made the necessary correction. A few days later, however, on their
return, they noticed that the sign had been re-corrected to
"Stem-boats," an assumption of superior knowledge on the part of some
tyro in English. The multitude of signboards in astonishing English,
in places frequented by English-speaking people, is one of the amusing
features of Japan. It would seem as if the shopkeepers would at least
take the pains to have the signs correctly worded and spelled, by
asking the help of some foreigner or competent Japanese. Yet they
assume that they know all that is ne