archal lines. The Emperors
themselves depend largely on the patriarchal spirit for their power,
claiming direct descent in unbroken line from the Sun-Goddess, while
the people are supposed to be themselves descendants of Emperors or of
minor gods. In family life the patriarchal idea is still more
prominent, the father being the virtual ruler until he abdicates in
favor of the eldest son.

Ancestor-worship is general, of course, and a typical case is that of
my young Nikko friend, who tells me that in his home are memorial
tablets to six of his most recently deceased ancestors, and that hot
rice is placed before these tablets each morning. Now the teaching is
that the spirits of the dead need the odor of the rice for
nourishment, and also require worship of other kinds. Consequently the
worst misfortune that can befall a man is to die without heirs to
honor his memory (the mere dying itself is not so bad); and if an
oldest son die unmarried such action amounts almost to treason to the
family.

Moreover, if a man be without sons (daughters don't count), he may
adopt a son; and the cases of adoption are surprisingly frequent.
Count Okuma, ex-prime minister of the empire, whom I visited last
Sunday, adopted his son-in-law as his {8} legal son. A distinguished
banker I visited is also an adopted son; and in a comparatively brief
list of eminent Japanese, a sort of abbreviated national "Who's Who,"
I find perhaps twenty cases in which these eminent officials and
leaders have been adopted and bear other family names than those with
which they were born.

The willingness to give up one's name in adoption, viewed in the light
of the excessive devotion to one's own ancestors and family name, is
only another illustration of Japanese contrariety. It is a land of
surprises.

Miyanoshita, Japan.

{9}

II

SNAPSHOTS OF JAPANESE LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY

"What is a Japanese city like?" Well, let us "suppose," as the children
say. You know the American city nearest you, or the one you live in.
Suppose then you should wake up in this city to-morrow morning and
find in the first place that forty-nine people out of every fifty have
put on such unheard-of clothing as to make you rub your eyes in wonder
as to whether you are asleep or awake; next, that everybody has become
six inches shorter, and that all these hundred-thousand five-foot men
and four-foot women have unanimously developed most violent
sunburn--have become bronze