ey be told about the purest,
most high-minded, and most honorable of Japanese women. Our maidens, as
they grow to womanhood, are taught that anything is better than personal
dishonor, and their maidenly instincts side with the teaching. With us,
a virtuous woman does not mean a brave, a heroic, an unselfish, or
self-sacrificing woman, but means simply one who keeps herself from
personal dishonor. Chastity is the supreme virtue for a woman; all other
virtues are secondary compared with it. This is our point of view, and
the whole perspective is arranged with that virtue in the foreground.
Dismiss this for a moment, and consider the moral training of the
Japanese maiden. From earliest youth until she reaches maturity, she is
constantly taught that obedience and loyalty are the supreme virtues,
which must be preserved even at the sacrifice of all other and lesser
virtues. She is told that for the good of father or husband she must be
willing to meet any danger, endure any dishonor, perpetrate any crime,
give up any treasure. She must consider that nothing belonging solely
to herself is of any importance compared with the good of her master,
her family, or her country. Place this thought of obedience and loyalty,
to the point of absolute self-abnegation, in the foreground, and your
perspective is altered, the other virtues occupying places of varying
importance. Because a Japanese woman will sometimes sacrifice her
personal virtue for the sake of father or husband, does it follow that
all Japanese women are unchaste and impure? In many cases this sacrifice
is the noblest that she believes possible, and she goes to it, as she
would go to death in any dreadful form, for those whom she loves, and to
whom she owes the duty of obedience. The Japanese maiden grows to
womanhood no less pure and modest than our own girls, but our girls are
never called upon to sacrifice their modesty for the sake of those whom
they love best; nor is it expected of any woman in this country that she
exist solely for the good of some one else, in whatever way he chooses
to use her, during all the years of her life. Let us take this
difference into our thought in forming our judgment, and let us rather
seek the causes that underlie the actions than pass judgment upon the
actions themselves. From a close study of the characters of many
Japanese women and girls, I am quite convinced that few women in any
country do their duty, as they see it, more nobly,