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diff --git a/35511.txt b/35511.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37e6c74 --- /dev/null +++ b/35511.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3296 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Working Women of Japan, by Sidney Lewis Gulick + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Working Women of Japan + + +Author: Sidney Lewis Gulick + + + +Release Date: March 7, 2011 [eBook #35511] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKING WOMEN OF JAPAN*** + + +E-text prepared by Meredith Bach, Delphine Lettau, Ernest Schaal, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 35511-h.htm or 35511-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35511/35511-h/35511-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35511/35511-h.zip) + + + + + +WORKING WOMEN OF JAPAN + + * * * * * * + +[Illustration: LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS] + +_Volumes Issued_ + +The Church a Community Force. _By Worth M. Tippy_ +The Church at the Center. _By Warren H. Wilson_ +The Making of a Country Parish. _By Harlow S. Mills_ +Working Women of Japan. _By Sidney L. Gulick_ +Social Evangelism. _By Harry F. Ward_ + +_Cloth, 50 Cents, Prepaid_ + + +ADDITIONAL VOLUMES TO BE ISSUED + + * * * * * * + +[Illustration: A FARMER'S HOME] + + +WORKING WOMEN OF JAPAN + +by + +SIDNEY L. GULICK + +Twenty-five years a missionary in Japan, Professor in +Doshisha University, Late Lecturer in the +Imperial University of Kyoto + +Author of +_Growth of the Kingdom of God; Evolution of the Japanese; +The White Peril in the Far East; The American +Japanese Problem; The Fight for Peace_ + + + + + + + +1915 +Missionary Education Movement of the +United States and Canada +New York + +Copyright, 1915, by +Missionary Education Movement of the +United States and Canada + + + + + Dedicated + to + SHINJIRO OMOTO + in appreciation of more than a decade + of untiring service + for the + Working Women of Japan + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + PREFACE ix + + I SOCIAL CLASSES IN JAPAN, OLD AND NEW 1 + + II FARMERS' WIVES AND DAUGHTERS 8 + + III DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES IN FARMING FAMILIES 24 + + IV SILK WORKERS 32 + + V WIVES AND DAUGHTERS OF ARTIZANS AND MERCHANTS 36 + + VI _KOMORI_ (BABY-TENDERS) 42 + + VII HOUSEHOLD DOMESTICS 48 + + VIII HOTEL AND TEA-HOUSE GIRLS 52 + + IX FACTORY GIRLS AND WOMEN 61 + + X GEISHA (_HETAERAE_) 87 + + XI _SHOGI_ (LICENSED PROSTITUTES) 104 + + XII AMELIORATIVE EFFORTS 118 + + XIII THE MATSUYAMA WORKING GIRLS' HOME 137 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + A FARMER'S HOME _Frontispiece_ + + SEPARATING THE WHEAT HEADS FROM THE STRAW 16 + + AT THE LOOM 16 + + A FAMILY AT WORK IN A RICE-FIELD 28 + + TRANSPLANTING YOUNG RICE PLANTS 28 + + SPINNING COTTON THREAD FOR WEAVING 32 + + AT WORK IN A KITCHEN 32 + + CARRYING FAGOTS 44 + + BABY-TENDERS 44 + + AT WORK IN A SILK FACTORY 82 + + O HAMAYU (GEISHA) 92 + + MATSUYAMA WORKING GIRLS' HOME 156 + + GIRLS IN THE MATSUYAMA HOME 156 + + + + +PREFACE + + +Japan is rapidly swinging into the current of an industrial civilization +imported from the West. How is this movement modifying her ancient +civilization? And, especially, what effect is it having on her homes and +on the character of her manhood and womanhood? These are questions of +profound interest to students of national and social evolution. + +While many works on Japan consider these questions more or less fully, +they do so almost exclusively from the standpoint of the effect on men. +So far as is known, no work studies the problem from the standpoint of +the effect on women, who, it may be incidentally remarked, constitute +one half of the population. + +One book, indeed, that by Miss Alice M. Bacon, on _Japanese Girls and +Women_, describes the homes, lives, and characteristics of Japanese +women. This important work should not be overlooked by any who wish to +know Japan thoroughly. Yet Miss Bacon's study is largely confined to the +higher and upper middle classes, who, though important, constitute but +one section of the women of Japan. To understand Japan it is also +needful to know the lives and characteristics of the working classes. +Especially important in the eyes of those who study social development +is the transformation that is taking place in the Japanese home because +of the influx of Occidental industrialism. + +The purpose of this book is to give some information as to conditions +prevailing among working women, which conditions have called for the +establishment of institutions whose specific aim is the amelioration of +the industrial and moral situation. Two classes of workers have not been +considered--school-teachers and nurses. + +The reader will naturally ask what the native religions have done to +help women meet the modern situation. The answer is short; practically +nothing. They are seriously belated in every respect. For ages the +native religions have served by doctrine and practise to hold women down +rather than to elevate them. The doctrine of the "triple obedience" to +father, to husband, and when old to son, has had wide-reaching and +disastrous consequences. It has even been utilized for the support of +the brothel system. Popular Buddhism, especially during the feudal era, +has emphasized the inherent sinfulness of woman; some have even taught +that her lightest sins are worse than the heaviest sins of man. The +brothel system flourishes in certain districts where Buddhism is most +strongly entrenched. Brothels abound in the immediate vicinity of famous +and popular temples. I have yet to hear of a Buddhist anti-brothel +movement or a Buddhist rescue home for prostitutes. Japanese +philanthropy, under the impulse of Buddhism, did indeed start early and +attain striking development at the hands of Imperial and princely +personages. Men and women of lowly origin also attained high rank in +the annals of Buddhist philanthropy. With the decay of Buddhism in +recent centuries, however, little philanthropic activity has survived. +With the revival of Buddhism Buddhists have again undertaken +philanthropic work; they have established orphan asylums, schools, +ex-convict homes, and various benevolent enterprises for the poor, the +old, and invalids; but not yet do they seem to appreciate the moral and +industrial situation, or undertake anything commensurate with their +numbers and resources. The conception of private enterprise for the +amelioration of industrial difficulties and moral need is still the +almost exclusive possession of Christians. + +The closing chapter describes one institution in which the Christian +ideal is applied to the moral and industrial situation in one small +town. It serves as an illustration of what is being done by Christians +in other places and along many other lines as well. Christianity is +being accepted in Japan, not so much because of its doctrine, as +because of its practical methods of inspiring and uplifting manhood and +womanhood. While the purpose of this book is, as stated, to describe the +industrial condition and the characteristics of Japanese working women, +back of this purpose is the desire to show how the Christian gospel, +when concretely expressed, takes hold of Japanese working women in +exactly these conditions and becomes to them "the power of God unto +salvation." + +The problems of life are substantially the same the world around, for +human nature is one; and the heart with its needs, desires, temptations, +defeats, and victories is essentially the same, East or West. The +problems created by industrialism do not differ, whether in Germany, +England, and America or in Japan and China. And their fundamental +solution likewise is the same. + +Let not the reader assume that the discussions of this volume give +adequate acquaintance with the working women of Japan. It deals with +only a few specific classes and inadequately even with them. A more +comprehensive treatment would doubtless be enlightening. Limitations, +however, of time and space forbid a more adequate discussion. + +And let the reader be wary of generalizing certain criticisms herein +made and applying them universally to all classes of women. Many years +of life in Japan have led the writer to a high estimation of the +character as well as the culture of Japanese women. + +Especial thanks are due to Colonel Yamamuro for valued criticisms and +suggestions in the preparation of this work. The responsibility, +however, for its statements rests upon the writer. The limitations of +this book none can feel more than he. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SOCIAL CLASSES IN JAPAN, OLD AND NEW + + +In old Japan, next to the Imperial family and court nobles, came the +feudal lords (_Daimio_), upheld by the warrior class (_Samurai_), below +whom in turn were ranked the three chief working classes,--farmers, +artizans, and tradesmen. These three classes produced and distributed +the nation's wealth and paid taxes to their respective feudal lords by +whom the warriors were supported. Below all were day laborers and +palanquin bearers,--in those days a large and important though a +despised class, for they lived entirely by bare, brute strength, lacking +all special skill. Still lower were the _eta_ or pariah class, excluded +from towns and villages, except when they entered to do the foulest +work, such as digging the graves of criminals and the slaughtering of +animals, and curing their skins. And lowest of all were _hi-nin_, +literally translated "non-humans." These were beggars and criminals, who +would not or could not work. The name, popularly given, well indicates +how they were regarded. + +With the fall of the feudal system, in the early seventies, society was +reorganized. Those above the Samurai were divided in 1886 into five +grades, not counting the Imperial princes, namely: prince, marquis, +count, viscount, and baron. These constitute to-day the hereditary peers +of Japan, and possess considerable wealth and, of course, overwhelming +prestige. + +They numbered, in 1903, 1,784 families. Besides the 1,784 heads of these +families, there were 1,786 male and 2,485 female members of these +families of rank. The number of these peers is constantly being +increased by Imperial favor, the conferring of rank being the customary +method of rewarding distinguished service. According to the _Japan Year +Book_ for 1914, the number of peers in 1911 was 919, there being 17 +princes, 37 marquises, 101 counts, 378 viscounts, and 386 barons. +Promotion from one rank to another causes constant change in the numbers +of the various ranks. + +The _Samurai_, deprived of their swords and military privileges, were +given the name _shizoku_ (Samurai families) and were paid off in lump +sums, thereafter being thrown on their own resources. There are 439,154 +shizoku families, numbering altogether 2,169,018 individuals. The +remaining classes were designated as _heimin_ (common people). +Statistics show that they number 8,471,610 families, totaling 44,558,025 +individuals. The eta were elevated, hence popularly called _shin-heimin_ +(new common people) and allowed to live anywhere and take up any +desirable calling. The hi-nin also were classed along with the rest of +humankind. As a matter of fact, the eta and hi-nin were but a small +fringe of the whole population, the descendants of the former being now +estimated at something less than one million, and those of the latter +amounting to about 35,000. + +With the national reorganization it was inevitable that the new +executive offices from the highest to the lowest should be given to men +of experience. At first, therefore, the reorganization amounted to +little more than a great shuffle of names and titles. Peers took the +highest governmental positions, while Samurai and their sons as a rule +filled the lower posts. Many Samurai, however, received no appointments +and had to go to work. In time, as education has progressed, sons of +farmers and merchants have become qualified and have been appointed to +government offices. The new departments, such as the educational, the +postal and telegraph offices, the railroads, and especially the army and +navy, call for large numbers of efficient men. These posts are filled +almost entirely on the basis of fitness. While ancestry is not entirely +ignored in the making of appointments, nevertheless old class +distinctions are gradually being obliterated. + +The fortunes of the women have naturally followed those of the men. All +families that lost their hereditary income had to go to work; this was +true chiefly of the Samurai. Where the men were fortunate, the women +could maintain the old customs, limiting themselves to their familiar +domestic work, with a servant or two to help, but tens of thousands of +Samurai families found themselves reduced to the direst poverty; women +having generations of genteel ancestry were forced to enter the ranks of +the workers. + +Let us define what we mean by a working woman. Women whose husbands or +parents provide the support of the family are not to be included in this +term. These women may, and indeed doubtless do, labor abundantly and +fruitfully in the home; their time is fully occupied. Probably no +working women toil more diligently or for longer hours than do these +wives and mothers in hundreds of thousands of homes, in most of which +there are no servants. All the cooking, sewing, and housecleaning is +done by them, so that they are indeed workers. But they are not +"working women." They are the true gentlewomen of Japan, whose culture, +graces, and charms are not easily described. + +By "working women" we mean only those women who, in addition to the +regular duties of the home, must share in the labor of earning the daily +bread. In Japan the number of such is exceptionally large, if compared +with that of some countries of the West. They may be divided into eleven +classes, according to the nature of their occupations, namely: +school-teachers, nurses, clerks and office girls, farmers, home +industrial workers, factory hands, domestics, baby-tenders, hotel and +tea-house girls, geisha, and prostitutes. Omitting the teachers and +nurses, these are the classes whose conditions, numbers, education, and +character we are now to study. Taken as a whole we do not hesitate to +say that the working women of Japan, while probably lower in point of +moral and physical energy and personal initiative than corresponding +classes of the West, are not inferior to them in point of personal +culture. And if civilization is defined, as it should be, in terms of +personal culture rather than in those of mechanical contrivances and +improvements, then Japan will surely take her place among the highly +civilized nations of the world. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FARMERS' WIVES AND DAUGHTERS + + +Japan has three leading wealth-earning occupations: agriculture, +sericulture, and factory work. In each of these women take an important +part. In the cultivation of the soil farmers' wives and daughters share +equally with men the toil of planting and reaping the crops. For +instance, in the cultivation of rice, the most important and the hardest +work of the farmer, it is often the women who plant it spear by spear in +regular rows, and it is they who "puddle" the paddy-fields with their +hands four or five times in the course of the season. In some districts, +however, men and women do this work together. The toil and the weariness +involved cannot be appreciated by one who has not actually shared it. +Fancy, if you can, the fatigue of standing more than ankle deep in mud, +stooping all day long as you set out the tiny rice plants in regular +lines! And at short intervals of a few days each you must repeatedly +puddle the whole paddy-field: that is, stir up the mud with your hands +in order to destroy the sprouting weeds and prevent the soil from caking +and hardening around the tender rice roots, preventing their best +growth. And remember that you must do all this regardless of the +broiling summer sun, or the pelting rain, for the planting must be done +at exactly the right time, and the successive puddlings must follow in +due order. So severe is the strain that, after the planting and each +puddling, the whole village takes a rest. My gardener, an ex-farmer, +speaking of those summer days of toil in the rice-fields, expatiates on +the extreme fatigue and the joy of the rest days, and as women take the +brunt of the stooping-work, theirs is the lion's share of the weariness. +He says that, during the rice-planting season, the women are so +important that those days are called the "women's daimio days," and +adds that we must not forget how during that time the regular work of +the women must also go on, for they must cook the food and care for the +children. For this, indeed, young girls and grandmothers are pressed +into service as far as possible, but the responsibility and care rest +nevertheless on the wives and mothers. + + [Illustration: SEPARATING THE WHEAT HEADS FROM THE STRAW AT THE LOOM] + +Also in the harvesting and threshing of the rice, barley, wheat, and +millet, women take an important part. But it is needless to enter into +details. Enough to say that, in general farming, women share with +husbands and brothers the heavy toil and fatigue of agriculture. It +should be added that this is not because men shirk heavy work, but only +because Japanese agriculture is so largely done by hand that every +possible worker is pressed into service. As a fact, men do the heaviest +part of the work, preparing the soil for the successive crops and +carrying the heavy loads. + +So varied are the modes of agriculture in different parts of Japan that +general statements are dangerous, but I know that in some districts the +weariness and drudgery of rice-planting and puddling are relieved by the +singing or chanting of old folk-songs. The chorus leader intones a +descriptive phrase, oftentimes improvising his own story, and is +answered with a refrain from a dozen or a score of women. A story slowly +evolves as the hours pass, and thus the work is lightened and the time +beguiled. + +In spite of fatigue, rice-planting has its charm for those who have been +reared in farmers' homes. It is a time of hope, of social intercourse, +of rest days and festivals, so that even the drudgery of the farmer has +its compensations. Miss Denton, of the Doshisha Girls' School, says it +is interesting to note how country girls get restless at rice-planting +time, and for one reason or another usually succeed in getting excused +from school work, to be off to the homes and share in the toils and joys +of the season. + +Tea-picking is probably the pleasantest form of toil undertaken by +farmers' wives and daughters. The labor comes in the spring and early +summer, when the temperature is delightful. It gives opportunity for +social intercourse that is highly appreciated. Rice-planting and +tea-picking constitute the two extremes of laborious and delightful toil +engaged in by Japan's agricultural women. + +How many are the women engaged in agriculture? The _Japan Year Book_ for +1914 says that in 1912 there were 5,438,051 farming families, +constituting about 58 per cent. of the entire nation. According to the +_Resume Statistique_ for 1914 the total number of females in Japan +proper, in 1908, was 24,542,383. Omitting those under fifteen years of +age, 8,364,000, and those over sixty years of age, 2,216,000, we have +13,962,000 as the number of able-bodied women, of whom 58 per cent., or +8,077,000, are the farmers' wives and daughters. + +In regard to their education it may be said that until the most recent +times they have had practically none. In recent decades, however, +farmers' children have begun to go to school. Until 1908 the elementary +course (compulsory) covered four years, but the results were so poor +that the period has now been extended to six. Four years' schooling does +not give ability to read easily even a simple daily paper, much less an +ordinary book. Our cook, an intelligent and able farming woman, when she +came to us twelve years ago, could not read even the simplest Japanese +characters, and thinks that at present relatively few farmers' wives +have enough education to read papers or write letters. Whether or not +six years' schooling will give this ability remains to be seen. It is +safe to say that to-day Japanese adult farming women, as a whole, lack +book education and have received little, if any, systematic training. +They are accordingly largely controlled by tradition, and it goes +without saying that their level of mental, moral, and spiritual life is +low. The Shinto and Buddhist religions, as they exist among the farmers, +are largely lacking in ethical content; they are rituals rather for +burying the dead and through the use of charms and magic rites they +promise future happiness and present, temporal blessings. Priests, as a +rule, do not seek to cultivate the minds of the people, to strengthen +their wills for moral life, or to elevate their personalities. + +Yet it must not be inferred that farming women are without mental +ability or common sense. They are indeed not inferior to the men with +whom they share the burdens and toil of life. As a rule they are a +sturdy, intelligent, self-respecting folk, having ideals of conduct +which include cleanliness, gentleness, and politeness, and in comparison +with the peasant classes of Europe are much to be commended. The women +not seldom appear to better advantage than their husbands in point of +intelligence and common sense, which I have thought might be due to the +greater variety of their daily occupation. + +In her excellent work on _Japanese Girls and Women_ Miss Bacon writing +of this class says: "There seems no doubt at all that among the +peasantry of Japan one finds the women who have the most freedom and +independence. Among this class, all through the country, the women, +though hard-worked and possessing few comforts, lead lives of +intelligent, independent labor, and have in the family positions as +respected and honored as those held by women in America. Their lives are +fuller and happier than those of the women of the higher classes, for +they are themselves breadwinners, contributing an important part of the +family revenue, and are obeyed and respected accordingly. The Japanese +lady, at her marriage, lays aside her independent existence to become +the subordinate and servant of her husband and parents-in-law, and her +face, as the years go by, shows how much she has given up, how +completely she has sacrificed herself to those about her. The Japanese +peasant woman, when she marries, works side by side with her husband, +finds life full of interest outside of the simple household work, and, +as the years go by, her face shows more individuality, more pleasure in +life, less suffering and disappointment than that of her wealthier and +less hard-working sister."[1] + + [1] Pp. 260, 261. + +The home of the average tenant farmer is a small, single-storied, +thatch-roofed building, having usually two or three small rooms +separated by sliding paper screens, and a kitchen with earthen floor. +The smoke escapes as it can, passing through the roof or pervading the +whole house. No privacy of any kind is possible, nor is any need of it +felt. The house is free of furniture, save for one or two chests of +drawers. A closet or two affords a place for the _futon_ (bedding) by +day, and for the little extra clothing. Of course no books are found in +such homes. The main room often has a board floor, with a fire box in +the center, over which is a kettle suspended from the roof. Here the +family eat, and friends gather to chat after the day's work is over. The +food is of the poorest grade in the empire, though usually adequate in +amount. Of course there are well-to-do farmers, not a few, who own +their farms, employ fellow farmers, and cultivate large areas. Their +homes are larger and better, but still in arrangement and structure they +are practically the same. Their sons attend the middle schools and books +and the daily paper are familiar objects. + +The economic condition of the farming class may be judged from the fact +that the land cultivated by each family averages three and one-third +acres, which must provide food and clothing for five or six persons. The +great majority of farmers live in little, compact villages, having +populations ranging from 500 to 5,000. There are 12,706 villages under +5,000, and only 1,311 villages, towns, and cities over 5,000. These +facts suggest the nature of the social conditions of the farming +population. They live under the severest limitations of every kind, +physical, intellectual, and spiritual. Yet during the recent era of +Meiji (enlightened rule), from 1868 to 1912, the economic condition of +the agricultural classes made great improvement. My gardener, a man of +sixty, who remembers Japan before the reformation, 1868, says that +farmers now live in luxury. The taxes they pay to-day are slight +compared with what was required of them in former times, when, in his +section, farmers had to give to their Daimio about five twelfth of the +rice crop, while taxes to-day require but one fifth or less. He adds +that families owning three and one third acres of land are well-to-do, +seeing many families have to make their entire living from only one +acre! + +Of course, farmers, without education or social demands, require little +beyond the simplest food and shelter. The clothing needed by their +families is the cheapest cotton, with cotton wadding added in the winter +for warmth. The heat of the summer renders much clothing a burden. A +farmer is adequately dressed for the field or his own home if he has on +his loin-cloth. His wife or grown-up daughter, when in the house with +only the immediate members of the family or most intimate acquaintances +present, is satisfied with the _koshimaki_--a strip of cloth some two +feet wide tied around the waist and covering the lower part of the body. +But on the street both men and women conform to the national customs and +wear the kimono. + +The Japanese household and bathing customs have served to prevent the +development of that particular type of modesty characteristic of Western +lands. It is difficult for Occidentals to understand this feature of +Japanese civilization, but such an understanding is essential if one +would do justice to the moral life of this people. We may not apply to +them Occidental standards in matters of modesty or dress. They have +standards of their own, to understand and appreciate which requires no +little study. + +At this point, I venture a second quotation from Miss Bacon, for she has +studied carefully this subject, which all foreigners seeking to estimate +the nature of Japanese civilization and moral character should not fail +to master. "As one travels," she writes, "through rural Japan in summer, +and sees the half-naked men, women, and children that pour out from +every village on one's route, surrounding the _kuruma_ (wheeled vehicle) +at every stopping place, one sometimes wonders whether there is in the +country any real civilization, whether these half-naked people are not +more savage than civilized. But when one finds everywhere good hotels, +scrupulous cleanliness in all the appointments of toilet and table, +polite and careful servants, honest and willing performance of labor +bargained for, together with the gentlest and pleasantest of manners, +one is forced to reconsider the judgment formed only upon one +peculiarity of the national life, and to conclude that there is +certainly a high type of civilization in Japan, though differing in many +particulars from our own. A careful study of Japanese ideas of decency, +and frequent conversation with refined and intelligent Japanese ladies +upon this subject, has led me to the following conclusion. According to +the Japanese standard, any exposure of the person that is merely +incidental to health, cleanliness, or convenience in doing necessary +work is perfectly modest and allowable; but an exposure, no matter how +slight, that is simply for show, is in the highest degree indelicate. In +illustration of the first part of this conclusion, I would refer to the +open bath-houses, the naked laborers, the exposure of the lower limbs in +wet weather by the turning up of the kimono, the entirely nude condition +of the country children in summer, and the very slight clothing that +some adults regard as necessary about the house or in the country during +the hot season. In illustration of the last point, I would mention the +horror with which many Japanese ladies regard that style of foreign +dress which, while covering the figure completely, reveals every detail +of the form above the waist, and, as we say, shows off to advantage a +pretty figure. To the Japanese mind, it is immodest to want to show off +a pretty figure. As for the ballroom costumes, where neck and arms are +frequently exposed to the gaze of multitudes, the Japanese woman who +would with entire composure take her bath in the presence of others, +would be in an agony of shame at the thought of appearing in public in a +costume so indecent as that worn by many respectable American and +European women."[2] + + [2] _Japanese Girls and Women_, 257-260. + +This completes our study of the homes and characteristics of five +eighths of Japan. Here the brawn of the nation is reared. Hence come the +sturdy, docile, patient, and courageous soldiers. Here are raised boys +and girls by the hundreds of thousands who must at an early age begin to +earn a living. This is the hunting-ground of those who seek for builders +of railroads, factory hands, domestics, hotel girls, baby-tenders, and +occasionally geishas, concubines, and prostitutes. Considering the +severe economic conditions under which Japan's agricultural classes +live, who can fail to admire their courage and grit, their personal +culture, their even temper and cheerful faces, their innate habits of +courtesy and good breeding, their mutual patience and forbearance, and +their simple artistic tastes and pleasures! Do they not compare well +with the peasant classes of any other nation? + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES IN FARMING FAMILIES + + +Before passing on to study the various classes of workers constantly +recruited in no small numbers from the homes of farmers, we should first +consider the high development of industrial occupations within these +homes themselves. To appreciate both the opportunity and the need for +this, we turn to the official statistics of marriage and education. +Until 1908 compulsory education, as has been already stated, covered +four years from the age of six to ten. According to governmental +statistics (1912) 98.8 per cent. of the boys and 97.5 per cent. of the +girls were actually fulfilling the requirement. This percentage seems +high to American statistical students, but investigations show that, +while Japanese rules for the attendance of pupils and methods of +counting the same differ in some respects from those that prevail in +the United States and Canada, yet, as a matter of fact, in school +attendance Japan compares well with other lands. It should be +remembered, however, that the nature of the Japanese written language is +such that even six years of elementary education is probably not equal +to four years of similar schooling in Western lands. American children, +at the close of their elementary education, possess a mastery of the +tools of civilization and a degree of general intelligence considerably +in advance of Japanese children who have enjoyed the same number of +years of school life. As we have already seen, this amount of compulsory +education is insufficient to give children ability to read and write +with freedom. + +The question for us however is as to the number of girls above school +age and still unmarried who, because of family poverty, must find some +form of wage-earning occupation. Turning to the vital statistics +provided by the government (1914), we find that in 1908 there were +2,496,142 girls between ten and fifteen years of age, and 2,180,408 +young women between fifteen and twenty years of age. But how many of +these are married? Again relying on government statistics for the same +year, we learn that only 199 girls under fifteen had been married, +whereas 193,978 had married under twenty years of age. In view of the +fact that 709,021 marriages took place between twenty and twenty-five +years of age, it is altogether probable that, of those married under +twenty, a large majority were married in their nineteenth year. +Remembering that many do not marry until the twenty-third or +twenty-fourth year, we can confidently assert that there are over +4,000,000 unmarried girls and young women between the ages of ten and +twenty-five; and, as 58 per cent. belong to the farming class, we have +in the vicinity of 3,000,000 girls who belong to families of such +economic state that they, no less than the boys, must contrive in some +way to earn a share at least of their own living. Girls of fifteen and +upwards in farmers' families help their fathers in the lighter forms of +agriculture, planting the rice, as we have seen, and reaping and +threshing the crops. But the small acreage to each family barely +provides work enough for the man, much less for the half-grown boys and +girls, hence the need of finding something besides the agricultural work +for the growing family. The younger children (under fifteen) are pressed +into lighter farming, and such household duties as are within their +strength and ability, as cooking and caring for the still younger +children; while the older children and the mother help the father, or +take up some domestic industry, such as the rearing of silkworms, +reeling of silk, spinning of thread, and weaving of silk and cotton +fabrics, or similar work which can be easily and profitably done in the +house in spare hours. Hence has come the widespread practise of +household industries, by which the female members supplement the family +income. There were, in 1907, 1,628,000 members of farming families who +were earning a part of their living in this way. This condition has +prevailed for many generations, and is the secret of the wonderful +development of the arts and home industries in Japan. + + [Illustration: A FAMILY AT WORK IN A RICE-FIELD + TRANSPLANTING YOUNG RICE PLANTS] + +From of old Japan's industrial system, like that of other lands, has +been domestic--carried on in the house. There have been families and +gilds which have made their entire livelihood by these manual +industries. There have also been hundreds of thousands of farming +families which have supplemented their meager income from their farms by +taking up some of these domestic industries, and those who have +displayed or developed special aptitude for such work have naturally +drifted into this wholly industrial life. This has doubtless been the +origin of industrial families and gilds. But the point to be especially +noted is that this wide development of domestic industries is due to the +skill and diligence of Japan's working _women_. Japanese men have +produced the food by which the nation has been fed; her women have +produced industries by which the nation has been clothed, as indeed is +the case of all great civilized nations. Their long-continued drill, +from generation to generation, in home industrial occupations, has +produced a high degree of manual dexterity; the eye and hand +instinctively move accurately and rapidly in the work, and the result is +that Japan's leading industries to this day are dependent on female +labor. "Sericulture, silk-reeling, cotton spinning, _habutae_ (a +particular variety of silk fabric), and other woven goods, tea-picking, +straw and chip braids, etc., are practically dependent on female labor," +says the _Japanese Year Book_ for 1910. "But an industry depending on +female labor has this peculiarity, namely: it is not compatible with the +factory system, but thrives best on the domestic plan. Generally +speaking it is in industries which admit of being carried on +independently at separate homes by housewives and mothers that skilled +female labor is seen to the best advantage. As operatives of family +industries Japanese women show an efficiency rarely reached by their +foreign sisters." But in this connection we may remind ourselves of the +great skill and industry of our grandmothers and preceding generations +of women, who lived before the great factory system made their home +industrial occupations unnecessary. Japan is merely several decades +behind Western lands in her industrial development. + + [Illustration: SPINNING COTTON THREAD FOR WEAVING + AT WORK IN A KITCHEN] + +We are to understand, then, that a large portion of these 3,000,000 +unmarried Japanese women and girls are engaged more or less continuously +in some sort of industrial work, either in their own homes or in small +groups in their immediate vicinity. The introduction into Japan of +Occidental mechanical civilization, with its great machinery run by +steam power, and the great factory system, taking girls and young women +away from their home industries, home restraints, and home training, is +producing mighty changes in Japan's traditional civilization. The real +consequences of these new modes of life and labor are still little +appreciated. There is taking place a rapid readjustment of population, +which indeed is easily seen, but the disastrous results to the mental, +moral, and religious life of the people, even to the maintenance of the +ideals and standards that controlled the older arts and industries, are +yet little realized, for the great changes have only begun within the +past two decades. A generation or two must pass before we can see +clearly what it all really means. Meanwhile it is for those who foresee +coming evils to sound aloud the call, and, as prophets, to do that which +in them lies to meet the threatened disasters, and turn new conditions +into blessings. Japan has the advantage of a century of European +experience from which to learn wisdom. It is to be hoped that she will +avoid many of the perils and evils into which the West has fallen, but +the signs of the times are not altogether reassuring. There are, as we +shall see later on, ominous clouds on Japan's industrial horizon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +SILK WORKERS + + +The chief wealth-earning domestic industry carried on by farmers' wives +and daughters is the rearing of silkworms and the reeling, spinning, and +weaving of the silk. Japan supplies about 28 per cent. of the total silk +of the world and 60 per cent. of that used in the United States. The +value of the silk exported in 1913 was $63,000,000. Women are the chief +workers, contributing 90 per cent. of the labor. Here again the toil is +taxing beyond belief. + +The brunt of the work consists first in filling the mouths of the worms, +which must be fed at regular intervals night and day for about three +weeks, during the last few days of which they eat continuously and +voraciously. It has been found that the rearing of worms can best be +done only on a small scale, where minute attention can be given to +each tray, almost to each worm. This means that worms are reared in the +homes of the people, rather than in large establishments. During the +silkworm season everything else must give way; the house is filled with +trays of ravenous worms; rest, recreation, and sleep, for old and young +alike, are neglected in order that the precious worms may get their +fill. Men and boys bring in the mulberry leaves from the hills and +fields, while women and girls strip the branches, chop the leaves and +feed them to the magic creatures that transform worthless green leaves +into costly silk. The leaves must not be damp, nor old, and every +condition of weather and temperature must be watched with the closest +care. Otherwise there is loss. This heavy work comes twice each year, in +some places three times. That is to say, there are two or three crops of +silkworms. + +Then, after the cocoons have been formed, comes the reeling off of the +silk, as much as possible before the sleeping grub wakens and eats its +way out, destroying the silk it has spun for its nest. So again there is +pressure, and again women do the work--I never heard of a man reeling +silk. It takes the deft hand and quick eye of a girl to catch the thread +in the boiling water, connect it with the wheel, and unroll without +breaking the almost invisible thread so wonderfully wound up by the +worm. This work is often done in the homes, but increasingly now, +because more profitably, in factories where the girls can be closely +watched by inspectors and paid according to the skill and the amount of +their work. + +The number of families engaged exclusively in raising silk in the nine +principal districts is reported (1911) at 370,332. In addition however +there are many tens of thousands of families which make this only a +secondary business. Many merely raise the worms, selling the cocoons to +the factories, and in such cases the work and strain are over in a few +weeks. The value of the cocoons raised in 1911 was estimated at +$89,001,988, which gives some idea of the great importance of this +industry to the families engaged in it. But it must be remembered that +the industry demands heavy expense and the most taxing of toil while it +lasts. + +As this industry is carried on chiefly in the homes, the personal +conditions of the workers are relatively favorable, as favorable as +those of the homes. This requires therefore no special consideration. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +WIVES AND DAUGHTERS OF ARTIZANS AND MERCHANTS + + +In old Japan, among the workers the highest rank was held by farmers, +next by artizans, and last came the merchants, for they were regarded as +resorting to means somewhat degrading for making their living. In fact +they were not producers of positive wealth, but lived by cunning wit on +what others had made. + +Artizans, such as carpenters, masons, and professional weavers, as well +as merchants, naturally live in towns and cities. The first work of the +wife is of course in the home, but when the husband's work is of such a +nature that it is possible the wife naturally helps him. Merchants' +wives and daughters, for instance, keep the shops while the husbands +peddle the goods or secure fresh supplies. Weavers' wives and daughters +aid directly, the whole family sharing in the work and acquiring skill. +Carpentry and masonry however are trades in which women take no part, so +women of these classes also seek some suitable domestic industry. In the +smaller towns especially, in recent years, rearing of silkworms is a +common occupation for all classes of moderate means, but in the cities +it is impossible to secure the necessary mulberry leaves, so straw +braiding, the making of fans, embroidery, and similar occupations are +here sought; and there are produced the thousand and one articles used +by the middle and wealthy classes and for export. As a means of +increasing the income the wives of artizans often open their front rooms +as shops and carry on a small retail business. + +In times of prosperity these classes flourish and grow luxurious, but +hard times occasionally come, when they are reduced to dire poverty and +even to the verge of starvation; for, living away from the land, they +are more dependent than farmers on the continuous success of their +labors and secondary industries. + +The school education of the women of these classes is in general the +same as that of the farming class. But inasmuch as they live, for the +most part, in the larger villages, towns, and cities, they enjoy many +advantages over their farming sisters. Along with their husbands they +have more need of ability to read and write, and, becoming quick-witted +through the stimulus of city life, they learn more easily. In recent +decades, especially the last, many of their children, naturally those of +the more successful families, are pressing up into the higher schools of +learning. As a body, therefore, from the standpoint of mere intellect +and wit, this class surpasses the farming class. From the standpoint +however of moral character, of conjugal fidelity, of industry, and of +trustworthiness in all relations the farming class, along with the +shizoku, surpasses all others, and probably even the peers themselves. +But in these higher classes we must distinguish between the men and the +women; for while the wives are, as a rule, beyond praise in the matter +of conjugal fidelity, the same may not be said of the husbands. + +Among the many classes of working women named on a previous page are the +"clerks." This is a new feature of Japanese life worthy of note, +although the class is still small. Under this name we include ticket +sellers in railway stations, assistant barbers, and saleswomen and +shopgirls. Members of this class have of course enjoyed a relatively +large amount of education, and are therefore above the average in +general intelligence and ability. These girls are recruited from the +families of city artizans and merchants. + +The descendants of palanquin bearers, day laborers, eta, and hi-nin form +to-day the lowest stratum of society, dwelling on the outskirts of large +cities, in wretchedness, filth, and poverty, getting their living from +day to day and breeding criminals, geisha, and prostitutes. The +stone-breakers, gravel gatherers, coolies, and most irregular of city +day laborers come from this class. Many of these men have illustrious +pedigrees. Some fell to this estate through wanton lust and reckless +expenditure of inherited wealth; some are descendants of disinherited +sons; the ancestors of some have met political reverses and found refuge +and safety only among the "non-humans," where they could live +unrecognized and unknown. Thus all grades of blood course through the +veins of this, the lowest class in Japan. The wives and daughters of +these men share their fate and fortune, living from hand to mouth. Their +life is so low and uncertain that it is absurd to speak of secondary +occupations--they lack even a primary occupation; and their homes, which +constitute the slums of the cities, are no places in which to carry on +any domestic industry. + +With the coming to Japan however of modern industrialism and the +building of large factories in or near the cities, the wives and +daughters of this class have opportunity for regular work, earning +enough and more than enough to support themselves while actually at +work. But when attacked by laziness, fickleness, or disease, they easily +slump back into the same economic pit. From this lowest class comes one +of the serious dangers threatening the better life of modern Japan. The +insufficiency of these laborers, their unreliable character, and the +inferior quality of their work, have forced the factories to search +elsewhere for hands. These they have found in the relatively workless, +but industrious and comparatively moral farming class. These farmers' +girls have been brought to the cities and thrown into intimate relations +with the lowest, most dissolute, despised, and really despicable +classes, and the results have naturally been disastrous in many ways, as +we shall see in a later chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +_KOMORI_ (BABY-TENDERS) + + +The great poverty of the majority of the people renders necessary, as +already noted, not only the utmost economy in the home, but also a high +degree of industry, and the beginning of productive labor at an early +age. As soon as the child has completed the elementary education, and, +in cases of exceptional poverty, even before that, he or she must begin +to do something of value and earn a living, at least in part. In the +case of farming families, younger children care for the youngest and +share in the household duties, thus relieving the mother and elder +children, enabling them to aid the husband and father in the field. But +the positive agricultural or industrial work which girls of from ten to +fifteen can do is insignificant, yet they eat as much as a grown +person, and hence comes the search for suitable openings for such +workers. This is found for many of the younger girls in the homes of the +middle and upper classes, where they go as _komori_ (baby-tenders). + +Girls even as young as ten leave their homes and go out to service. They +receive food and lodging, in some cases a garment in summer and one in +winter, and sometimes in addition a small cash stipend. A komori thus is +usually the daughter of a poor family who goes into a well-to-do family +to aid the mother in the care of her infant. Her chief duty is to carry +the infant, sleeping or waking, on her back for many consecutive hours +during the day. In addition to this she aids a little in the household +work, washing dishes and cleaning the house, her hours of service being +unlimited. In some families she may be called on at any hour of the +night to carry the baby, if it is restless or fretful and needs to be +"jiggled" to sleep! A komori is employed by the year, but usually +without specific contract, her parents sometimes receiving a few yen[3] +when she enters upon service. Her time is entirely at the disposal of +her mistress and she goes to no school, receives no regular instruction, +and no training other than that which comes incidentally from +association with members of the family. Long hours each day are spent on +the street with an infant on her back, playing hop-scotch and other +games with other komori. + + [3] A yen has the value of forty-nine cents. + +In a few places efforts are being made, I am told, to provide these +baby-tenders with educational advantages, but the movement is as yet +small. Buddhists are said to be particularly active in this matter. + + [Illustration: CARRYING FAGOTS BABY-TENDERS] + +A blind man in Matsuyama, a Christian of my acquaintance, put out one of +his daughters to service as a komori. After two years of such life, +poverty-stricken though the family was, he brought her home again, for +the child of fourteen, so far from learning anything good, was learning +many things bad on the street, and was being dwarfed in mind by the +long hours when she was wholly without mental stimulus. The life of a +komori will of course vary much with the nature of the family by which +she is employed, but at best the service cannot fail to stunt the growth +of both body and mind. + +I heard not long since of a boy who became a komori. His father had died +a drunkard, leaving the family ruined financially. The mother and +children were accordingly distributed among the creditors to work off +his debts. The little boy of eight went with his mother, and, so long as +she lived--some three years--life was endurable for him, but after her +death he was made increasingly miserable. Long hours by day and many +interrupted nights, unkind words, and unutterable loneliness vexed his +orphaned spirit, until he could endure it no longer, and planned to run +away. The stern master however discovered him doing up his bundle, and, +to prevent his escape, ordered his few possessions, even his clothing, +to be taken away. In spite of this he slipped out one night in the +darkness and hid in a barn in a neighboring village until morning, when +he was taken pity on by some children who shared a kimono or two with +him, and so he got away. With increasing years he led a wild, roving +life; at eighteen he became a murderer and was imprisoned for life, +escaping the death penalty on account of being a minor. In prison he +first heard the Christian gospel of God's forgiving love, of peace and +hope and joy. This "good news" he accepted, and learned to read, that he +might read the New Testament, which he committed to memory. Upon the +death of the Empress Dowager, in 1896, his penalty, with that of many +other prisoners, was remitted, and now for fourteen years he has been +living a life remarkably fruitful in Christian service. + +But, to return to our subject, we note that not all komori are children. +Superannuated old women who have neither strength nor brains for +anything else also act in this capacity, their conditions of service +and wages being the same as those of girls. I have tried to get some +idea as to the number of komori in Japan, but have been able to find no +statistics. One gentleman assures me that at least one family in five of +the middle and upper classes employs a komori. As the number of families +in Japan, exclusive of farmers, is 3,981,940 (1912), this would make +about 796,000 komori; but many well-to-do farming families also employ +komori, so the total number in Japan would be not far from 1,000,000. A +lady however assures me that this estimate is altogether too high, and +thinks that not more than one family in twenty has the means to employ a +komori. If this is true, then the number is in the vicinity of 250,000. +In either case, the system and its nature are clear, and the numbers of +children sent out to service at a tender age is not inconsiderable. The +attention of educators and parents is being directed to the dangers to +infants of this komori system, to say nothing of the harm it does to the +girls themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HOUSEHOLD DOMESTICS + + +By the time a girl is fifteen or sixteen she is regarded as sufficiently +large, strong, and mature to enter on more responsible work. Among the +several fields open to her is that of _gejo_, or domestic service, of +which we may distinguish two varieties: those who serve in private +families and those who become maids in hotels and tea-houses. A komori +may gradually work into the position of a domestic; indeed, in the +majority of homes a komori not only tends the baby but aids the mother +in her household work. It is only in the homes of the well-to-do that +both gejo and komori are to be found. The work of a gejo consists in +taking the brunt of the cooking, housecleaning, and washing, serving +from daybreak, that is, from five or six in the morning, till ten or +eleven at night. Her status is somewhat better than that of the komori. +Her hours of service however are long and taxing. Her time for rest is +after the family has retired for the night and before they rise in the +morning. Frequently her private room is the front hall, or entrance +room; she accordingly is the last person to retire and the first to +rise. It is to be noted however that in the houses of the middle classes +in the large cities there is usually now a small room for the +servant-girl. The gejo draws the water from the well, washes the rice, +lights the fires, cooks and lives in the dingy and usually smoky +kitchen, washes the clothes, aids in the sewing, and has no relaxation +but an occasional festival. Her lot is truly pitiful. + +Besides her living (eating what is left from the family meal), she +usually receives some two to three yen per month. Recently however some +have been receiving even as much as five yen. The drudgery and monotony +of the life are usually such that the opportunity to become a factory +hand is quickly taken, especially as the cash earnings are relatively +large. I am told by Japanese ladies that the problem of securing +domestics in the cities or in the vicinities of factories is becoming +serious. + +Of course the average domestic has no opportunity nor desire for mental +improvement. Having enjoyed no education to speak of, she can read +neither papers nor books, nor may she attend meetings fitted to +cultivate the mind or promote her higher life. Thus she is controlled by +the culture and mental and moral traditions of the home in which she was +reared. + +Household domestics are recruited from farming and industrial families. +They earn their living for from four to six years, until their parents +or guardians find them husbands; for in Japan the girl has practically +nothing to say as to whom she marries. Marriage is based, not on mutual +acquaintance, much less on mutual attraction, but wholly on the judgment +of parents or go-betweens, and is from first to last--if it is +proper--a utilitarian affair. + +It thus comes to pass that in Japan domestics are, as a rule, young +unmarried women. A domestic in her thirties, or over, is rare, and is +almost certain to be a widow or a divorced woman. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +HOTEL AND TEA-HOUSE GIRLS + + +A distinct class of domestics is that which serves in hotels, +tea-houses, and restaurants. Here the hours of labor are longer,--from +four or five in the morning till midnight, or later. My attention was +early called to their hard lot by observing that the poor girl who was +serving rice for my meal, sitting before me as I ate, often fell into a +sleep, from which I had to awaken her to get my rice. Inquiry would show +that she had risen at four o'clock that morning, and further questioning +would bring the information that she had retired the previous night at +midnight or later, sometimes even not till two o'clock! Rarely do these +girls get five hours of rest; frequently there are not more than three. +They must open all the _amado_ (sliding wooden shutters which protect +the paper "windows"), and get the general cleaning done before the first +guest rises, and must continue their service until late into the night, +answering the calls of the guests, till the last one has retired. In +addition to the usual cleaning of the rooms, which is really not much of +an undertaking, these girls carry all the meals of all the guests from +the kitchen on the ground floor to their rooms on the second or third +floors, serve them while they eat, and carry away the trays when the +meal is completed. In preparation for the night the girls bring out the +heavy _futon_ (quilts) and make the "beds" on the floor; and in the +morning remove, fold, and lay them all away in closets. The work of a +Japanese hotel is relatively heavy for the number of guests, but that +which is most taxing is the long hours of service and the insufficient +time for rest. As in the poorer homes, so in the poorer and smaller +hotels, the girls have no private rooms, but sleep in entryways and +reception-rooms. Of course they have neither time nor opportunity for +personal culture, nor even for recreation; and from the nature of their +occupation, is it strange if they sometimes yield to the solicitations +of guests? + +These girls are of course neither professional prostitutes nor geisha. +Yet I was assured by a provincial chief of police, some years ago when +making investigations, that, in the eyes of the police, three fourths or +four fifths of the girls in hotels and tea-houses are virtually +prostitutes, though of course they have no licenses and are subject to +no medical inspection. Occasionally they are arrested for illegal +prostitution, at the instance however of brothel keepers. Hotels and +tea-houses take pains to secure pretty girls for servants, in order to +make their service attractive. It is a dreadful statement to make, but, +if I am justified in judging from such facts as have come to my +knowledge, it would appear that few traveling men in Japan feel any +special hesitation in taking advantage--with financial compensation of +course--of such opportunities as are afforded them. Hotels give the +girls their food, perhaps two gowns yearly, and generally a small +payment in cash, but their principal earnings come from tips. This makes +them attentive to the wants of the guests. + +There are many first-class hotels throughout the country, but chiefly in +the principal cities, to which geisha are not admitted, but in those +hotels to which they are admitted the green country girls soon learn +from them the brazen ways and licentious talk that are evidently +pleasing to many of the guests. All in all the life and lot of the hotel +and tea-house girl are deplorable indeed. She does differ from the +geisha and licensed prostitute, however, in that she can leave her place +and retire to her country home at any time, being held by no contract or +debt. Hotel and tea-house girls are recruited largely from the families +of artizans and small tradespeople, living in interior towns and +villages; they do not often come from farming families, since they would +lack the regular features and light complexion desired by hotels. Their +family pedigree explains in part this easy virtue. They are saved from +more disaster than they actually meet, because geisha and prostitutes +abound and are more attractive. + +I remember, one summer at a little country hotel, a girl rushed into my +room from a neighbor's in order to escape from the urgency of a guest. +She told me the following day quite freely of her troubles, of the +horrid men that came to the hotel, and of the fact that most of the +girls did not mind what she found unendurable. She had been there but a +few weeks and was resolved to go home as soon as possible, claiming it +was better to starve than to lead such a hard and especially such a +disgusting life. Realizing that I had an exceptional opportunity for +sociological study, I improved the occasion and asked many questions. +When asked for her reasons for not responding to the solicitations of +the men, she replied that it was the fear of being laughed at should +she have a child. I could not learn that she had ever been taught to +regard loose sexual relations before marriage as immoral or as +intrinsically wrong. In her mind the question had no connection with +religion, so far as I could discover. Her refusal was based wholly on +utilitarian grounds. + +At another hotel where I often stopped I noticed on one of my tours that +an especially attractive girl of eighteen or nineteen, who usually +waited on me, was no longer there. On asking her substitute what had +become of her, I was told she had become a regular prostitute, having +found she could earn much more money that way than at the hotel. I asked +if the parents had not opposed. "O no!" replied the girl, "the parents +were the ones who proposed it and arranged for it." I asked the +substitute if she herself did not regard the business as shameful and +immoral. She looked at me with apparent surprise, hardly understanding +what I meant, evidently regarding the matter entirely as a financial +one. + +Here is another case. A number of Young Men's Christian Association +secretaries, tramping in the Japanese Alps, were convinced by the noises +one night at the hot springs that the five or six guides and porters +were indulging in licentiousness. The next night it came out around the +camp-fire that these guides and porters had paid the hotel girls five +sen[4] (two and one-half cents) each. + + [4] A sen has the value of one-hundredth of a yen, or almost + half a cent. + +Of course one may not generalize from three cases. But three such cases, +together with the statement of the chief of police, and the experience, +closely corresponding with my own, of many missionaries who have +traveled in all parts of Japan, are strong evidence. I myself do not +think that guests often solicit the girls, nor that hotel girls commonly +yield to the requests of guests, but there can be no doubt that it +occasionally happens, and is not regarded in any such way by either the +men or the women as an Occidental would expect. As said above, there +are many hotels in the cities from which geisha are rigidly excluded, +and where without doubt the relations of guests with hotel girls are +above criticism. + +It is an impressive fact of Japanese civilization that the "greenest" +country girls can in but a few short weeks of hotel service become so +graceful and attractive. That in their lives which to the Occidental is +so deep a sin is nothing to them. Their calm, innocent eyes, winning +ways, and gentle conversation can hardly fail to impress the foreigner. +But compared with the girls in their homes they have lost that air of +modesty and reserve which is so important an element in the charm of +Japanese womanhood. The hotel and tea-house girl belongs rather to the +geisha class, whose loud, harsh voices and artificial, coarse laughter +are distinguishing characteristics. Girls of both these classes however +have an advantage enjoyed by no other women in Japan, namely: that of +meeting large numbers of men of various occupations and interests. They +hear varied conversation and thus become somewhat acquainted with the +affairs of the outside world, which makes them more intelligent than the +average Japanese woman, so that it is possible to carry on some sort of +a conversation with them--a thing practically impossible with the +average young woman of Japan. + +In regard to the numbers of hotel domestics, I have found no statistics, +but have no hesitation in venturing an estimate of many tens of +thousands. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +FACTORY GIRLS AND WOMEN + + +As already stated, many girls prefer factory work to that of domestic +service, either in private families or in hotels. From ancient times +there have been small industrial enterprises, employing each a few hands +in various lines of work, such as the reeling and spinning of silk and +cotton thread and the weaving of cloth; but since the war with China +there have arisen enormous factories, after the fashion of Western +lands, which have introduced great changes in the industrial situation +and in the condition of the working classes. + +The government report for 1912 shows that there were 863,447 individuals +employed in 15,119 factories having ten or more hands each. Of these, +348,230 were men and 515,217 were girls and women. In addition it +reports 427,636 weaving houses, having 733,039 looms and employing +697,698 operators. No statement is made as to the proportion of the +sexes. Remembering that the government statistics take no account of +industrial enterprises employing less than ten hands, it is probably +safe to estimate the number of women employed in exclusively +non-domestic occupations at not less than a million. + +We are not concerned however with the industries themselves, but rather +with the conditions under which the operatives work and the effect of +the work on their lives and characters. To begin with the more pleasant +side of the question, there are factories which come well up toward the +ideal. The terms of employment, the wages paid, the provisions for ill +health, for accident, for long service and old age; the rooms for +sleeping, eating, and recreation; the bathing establishments; the +education given to those who need it; the public lectures and religious +and ethical instruction given at fixed times in the public halls of the +factories, Buddhist and Christian teachers being impartially invited; +the provisions for marriage of employees and arrangements that each +couple have a separate suite of rooms, and that the infants are cared +for while the mother is in the mill; these and other provisions show +that the best in Japan is up to a high level of excellence. Such is the +policy of the Kanegafuchi Company, which owns a score of mills in +different parts of Japan, and whose success moreover is so great that it +is now buying up less successful competitors. + +For several years this company has set aside annually 20,000 yen +($10,000) for its relief and pension fund for operatives. In June, 1913, +in addition to its regular appropriation, it voted an extra $50,000 for +a "welfare promotion fund." + +The president of the Fuji Cotton Spinning Company was given in 1913 a +retiring grant of $50,000, inasmuch as the great success of this company +had been due to his skill and energy. He however presented the entire +amount to the "employers' relief fund, and it was decided to make this +gift the nucleus of a permanent endowment fund." + + [Illustration: AT WORK IN A SILK FACTORY] + +There is a silk factory in Ayabe, the Gunze Seishi Kwaisha, whose record +is the most wonderful of all. It is managed by a Christian, who runs it +entirely with a view to the benefit of the workers and the district. No +girls of that district go elsewhere for work. Once enrolled as members +of the working force they are regularly instructed, both in general +education and in their particular duties; they earn good wages, keep +good health, receive Christian instruction, have their regular rest +days, remain the full number of years, help support the family and earn +enough besides to set themselves up in married life, and are now +beginning to send their daughters to the same factory. This Christian +factory is Christianizing the district. The rising moral and religious +life is transforming even the agricultural and other interests of the +region. So high is the grade of silk thread produced, and so uniform +and reliable is the quality, that it alone of all the factories in Japan +is able to export its product direct to the purchasing firm in the +United States, which buys the entire output at an annual cost of about +$500,000, and without intermediate inspection at Yokohama. Here we have +a splendid illustration of the way in which Christian character is +solving the problem arising from the low moral and economic ideals of +the masses of Japan's working classes. As a rule the modern industrial +worker does not put moral character into his work; and a wide complaint +of Occidental importers of Japanese products is that goods are not made +according to contract or sample. This is one of the greatest obstacles +to the continuous prosperity of any Japanese industry; for as soon as a +large demand has arisen in foreign lands for any given article, its +quality, as a rule, has rapidly deteriorated. It is this unreliability +of Japanese workmen that makes so difficult direct exportation to +foreign lands without the supervision of Occidental middlemen. The +Christian Gunze Seishi Kwaisha is one of the splendid exceptions which +shows what Japanese workmen and manufacturers can do, when controlled by +high ideals and motives. + +Unfortunately however not all factories and their managers have the same +spirit, aim, or skill. Many factories are the exact opposite in every +respect to those owned by the Kanegafuchi and Gunze Seishi companies. My +personal attention was first called to the heartrending condition of +servitude imposed on vast numbers of girls by reading, a score of years +ago, of a fire in the dormitory of an Osaka factory. The dormitory was +in a closed compound, whose doors and gates were carefully locked to +keep the girls from running away. The result was the death, if I +remember correctly, of every inmate, of whom there were several score. + +My personal knowledge in regard to the conditions of life and work of +factory operatives was secured in Matsuyama, Shikoku, a small inland +city of some forty thousand inhabitants, having but a single cotton +thread spinning factory. It had no dormitories of its own, but sent +its operatives to certain specified boarding-houses in the town. +Through a Mr. Omoto, who was at that time working in the factory, and +whose life story is given in the final chapter, I became intimately +acquainted with the conditions prevailing in Matsuyama. In 1901, when +Mr. Omoto began to work in the factory, he was amazed to see how many +were the children taking their turns in work along with the older +girls by day and by night. Large numbers ranged from seven to twelve +years old, the majority, however, being from fifteen to twenty. They +worked in two shifts of twelve hours each, but as they were required +to clean up daily they did not get out till six-thirty or seven, +morning and night. The only holidays for these poor little workers +came two or three times a month, when the shifts changed; but even +then there was special cleaning, and the girls who had worked all +night were kept till nine and even ten in the morning. He was also +deeply impressed with their wretched condition and immoral life. The +majority of them could neither read nor write; their popular songs +were indecent, and they were crowded together in disease-spreading and +vermin-breeding, immoral boarding-houses, where they were deliberately +tempted. Some of the landlords were also brothel keepers. + +Mr. Omoto, having opportunity as official "visitor" to become accurately +acquainted with their life, told me in detail the conditions which have +been briefly summarized above. The boarding-houses were only for girls +from out of town. They had to be "recognized" by the factory, and the +girls had to live in the houses to which they were assigned. Of course +the purpose of these houses was to make money. The financial, hygienic, +intellectual, and moral interests of the girls were wholly ignored. They +were crowded into ill-ventilated, sunless rooms, the two shifts +occupying the same rooms alternately. Personal extravagance was +purposely stimulated, for girls in debt to the keepers were compelled to +stay to work off their debts. Drinking and immoral carousings were their +only recreation. As might be expected, sickness was common and epidemics +frequent. Many girls returned to their homes after a few months in the +"city" ruined not only in health but in character,--premature mothers of +illegitimate children. + +The conditions of the factory girls in Matsuyama were not unique. Miss +J. M. Holland, a Church of England missionary in Osaka, recently told me +some of her observations and experiences. She has devoted the larger +part of her time for fifteen years to work among factory girls, and on +the whole can report improvement. When she began her visits to the +factories, the conditions were often appalling. It was not uncommon for +girls working on the night shift to be kept, on one pretext or another, +till noon the next day, making eighteen hours of work. The conditions +of work and life were such that the girls frequently ran away, to +prevent which the dormitories were virtually prisons within the factory +compounds. The girls were not allowed to go out on the streets, were +given no opportunity for recreation, and of course no education. They +were underfed, overworked, and punished in various ways by their +overseers, cuffed and sometimes whipped, for disobedience or blunders. +The daily papers of those days had frequent items reporting oppression +and ill treatment; to be deprived of wages as punishment was a common +experience; police occasionally discovered girls working in cellars and +vaults as punishment for misdeeds; girls sometimes escaped in their +night clothes, and on a few occasions the girls rebelled and did +personal violence to the overseers. + +But, as already stated, the general conditions are now much better, for +it was gradually found that such ill-treated labor was not profitable. +"Most of the superintendents in Osaka are now splendid men, who on the +whole take good care of the girls and wish to treat them honorably." The +crying evils of the past have been largely done away. Rest, recreation, +education, wages, and health are receiving careful consideration at all +the leading factories. Still, no true parent would send a daughter to +work in such a place, unless under the stress of dire poverty. There are +still many small children under ten years of age, whose parents make +false statements in regard to their ages. The work is from six in the +morning to six in the evening. This means rising at four-thirty every +morning for work on the day shift. Some factories have abolished the +night shift. Fifteen minutes are allowed for rest in the middle of the +forenoon, thirty minutes for lunch, and fifteen minutes again in the +afternoon, giving thus eleven hours of steady work per day and the same +per night. On pay days the girls, after standing eleven hours, have to +stand in file from one to three hours more, according to their luck, and +Miss Holland says that such long hours of standing result in serious +organic difficulties. One half of the girls fail to work out their three +years' contract, returning to their homes before time for marriage, +seriously injured, if not completely ruined, physically. So long as this +system continues, she adds, skilled labor is impossible. While some +factories take great care that girls are carefully guarded from evil, +others exercise no control whatever over their goings and doings. One +factory she named as allowing its girls to be out on the streets till +two o'clock in the morning. It insists on only two and a half hours of +sleep! The difficulties connected with private boarding-houses for +factory girls have proved so great that most of them have been closed. + +One of the tragic aspects of factory life in Japan is the large number +of what would seem to us avoidable accidents, due to the fact that the +girls know nothing whatever about machinery. Large factories accordingly +keep surgeons on hand to care for the wounded. Miss Holland says that in +one Osaka factory where there are a thousand operatives, the +kind-hearted surgeon told her they had an average of fifty accidents +daily which needed his attention. The little children especially suffer, +often losing fingers. Not long since five fingers were clipped off in a +single day! Miss Holland added that, improved though the conditions are, +factory life for children is a "murder of the innocents." As a rule the +food provided in factory dormitories is still inadequate. When asked +whether corporal punishment is still inflicted, she expressed a doubt, +having heard of none for a long time. + +In her conversation Miss Holland expressly limited her report to the +factories she knows in Osaka. The question arises whether the conditions +there may not be peculiar. May not factory conditions in Yokohama and +Tokyo, where government inspection and control would theoretically be +most complete, be better than elsewhere? The facts do not seem to +justify such a surmise. The Kanegafuchi Company and some others have +good factories everywhere, but there would seem also to be bad ones +everywhere. + +A Japanese book on _Industrial Education_ has recently been published by +a Mr. R. Uno, who, for fifteen years, has been a devoted student of +Japan's industrial problems. A summary of the statistics there given +appeared in May, 1914, in the _Tokyo Advertiser_, from which I cull the +following facts and figures. + +In the cotton thread and spinning factories of Japan, there are 81 girls +to 19 men. Out of 1,000 girls, 386 are over 20 years of age, 317 are +from 17 to 20, 191 are from 15 to 16, 73 are from 12 to 14, while 7 +girls out of a thousand are under 12 years of age. The vast majority of +factory girls live in the factory dormitories, which are of enormous +size. In the region of Osaka there are more than 30,000 girls working in +30 factories; in these same factories there are less than 7,000 men. +Three of these factories employ over 3,000 girls each, while three more +employ 2,000 and upward. These girls are herded together in enormous +dormitories, disastrous both to health and morals. Statistics covering a +number of years show that out of every 1,000 girls, 270 work less than +six months at the same place; 200 less than one year, 179 less than two +years; 121 less than three years; 141 less than five years, and only 89 +pass the five-year period. The usual reason for this extraordinary +fluctuation of workers is that the girls break down in health. +Government statistics declare that out of every 100 girls to enter upon +factory work 23 die within one year of their return to their homes, and +of these 50 per cent. die of tuberculosis. But it is also asserted that +60 per cent. of the girls who leave home for factory work never return. +Of the criminal girls arrested in Osaka for a certain period, 49 per +cent. had been factory hands. As to the education of factory girls it is +stated that, out of 1,000, the number that had completed the required +number of years of schooling (six) was 450, while 385 were entirely +without education. Out of 1,000 girls, 453 were orphans. Of 1,000 girls, +611 came from farmers' homes, 166 from those of fishermen, and 55 from +merchant homes, the remaining 168 being scattering. Factory girls earn +and can save more than almost any other class. The average earnings per +month are stated to be $4.67. The girl pays $1.20 per month for food, +which is less than the actual cost, the factory providing the balance, +namely, $1.30. The average girl sends home fifty cents per month. Three +out of ten girls spend the balance entirely on clothes, five out of ten +on cakes and theaters, while two out of ten save it. Such are some of +the statements made by Mr. Uno in his enlightening book. + +In the September, 1910, number of the _Shin Koron_, a monthly magazine +published in Tokyo, is an article by Professor Kuwada (of the Tokyo +Imperial University) entitled "The Pitiful Environment of Factory +Girls." He gives a detailed statement of the conditions of factory +workers, in which he estimates the number of female laborers in +factories containing ten or more hands at 700,000, of whom ten per cent. +are under fourteen years of age. In tobacco factories ten per cent., in +match factories twenty per cent, and in glass factories thirty per cent. +of the girls are under ten years of age. He vigorously condemns the +situation as threatening the future of the working class, whose +prospective mothers are thus being destroyed. The efforts of the +government during recent years to enact factory laws have been +successfully thwarted thus far, says Professor Kuwada, by shortsighted, +selfish capitalists. The girls are brought in from their country homes +by false promises. They are told of the beautiful sights to be seen, +theaters to be visited, the regular Sunday rest, and even of the +splendid care and education they will receive from the factory. There is +also stealing of expert workers from one factory by the artful +stratagems of another. There are factories which resort to devices for +defrauding helpless operatives. In one town where there are many +factories, it is customary to work overtime by setting back the hands of +the clock. To conceal this from the operatives, no factory blows its +whistles! Some factories do not give time for the girls to rest even +while they eat, but require them to work with the right hand while they +eat with the left. Night work in which both male and female operatives +are engaged together is most demoralizing. Punishment of various kinds +is administered. In addition to fines, in some places the girls are +imprisoned in dark rooms, rations are reduced, their arms are bound and +the lash applied freely, and in extreme cases they are stripped to the +waist and marched through the factory among young men and girls, bearing +a red flag tied to the back! Superintendents are invariably men. + +So appalling was the statement made by Professor Kuwada that I could +scarcely believe him in all the details, particularly in regard to the +use of the lash and the stripping to the waist. I accordingly wrote +both to him and to Professor Abe of Waseda University, who has made +special study of the social problems and conditions of industry. +Professor Kuwada, I learned, has been a careful student of social and +industrial conditions for nearly twenty years, and is one of the leaders +in the Society for the Study of Social Politics, composed of one hundred +and fifty university professors and high government officials. This +society was organized to aid the government in its efforts to secure +social and industrial reforms. In reply to my inquiries Professor Kuwada +says that most of the facts given concerning silk factories he has +himself observed. Those concerning cotton spinning factories he has +derived from reliable sources, chiefly from the officers of the +Department of Agriculture and Commerce, who are especially engaged in +making investigations in regard to industrial conditions. Much of the +testimony rests on the statements of the girls themselves. Some of the +facts come from local police and some from the published reports of the +Department of Agriculture and Commerce. "The article in the _Shin +Koron_ may therefore be regarded as semi-official," says Professor Abe. +Since the appearance of the article referred to above, no reply has been +made to it by factory owners or managers. As to the stripping of a girl +to the waist and marching her through the factory filled with +operatives, male and female, Professor Kuwada was told this by the girl +herself. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to doubt the +testimony. Nor is it probable that the cases cited are absolutely +unique, although I think it highly probable that such extreme +indignities and punishments are rare,--they are so out of keeping with +the whole trend of Japanese civilization and culture. Mrs. Binford, a +missionary in Mito, assures me, however, that altering the hands of the +clock is a practise known to her. Testimony is widespread that girls are +secured for factories by all kinds of false statements. + +In view of the frightful conditions of industrial labor thus indicated +by Mr. Uno and Professor Kuwada, it is amazing that the Diet has +refused on several successive occasions to enact suitable laws. The +government began to realize in 1898 the need for legislation on these +matters. A bill which was drafted and presented in 1902 was rejected, as +were also three subsequent bills. The chief feature of the bill +presented during the winter of 1910-11 was the provision that no factory +may employ girls under twelve, and that girls of any age and youth under +sixteen may not be kept at work for more than twelve hours per day, nor +be made to do night work without "special reason." While some provisions +of this bill were enacted and others amended, those considered most +important by social reformers and by the government were virtually +rejected. The bill was indeed passed, but with the added provision that +the important clauses, relative to ages and night work, be inoperative +for a period of fifteen years (!) in order to give time to the factories +involved to adjust themselves to the new conditions. Since that time no +further factory legislation has been enacted. Is it not astounding that +in a land on the whole so progressive as Japan the difficulty of +securing reform should be found in the Diet? The administration at this +point is ahead of the representatives of the people, as it is indeed in +many other respects. The fact is, as Professor Kuwada points out, that +the "representatives" in both the lower and upper houses represent the +financial interests of capitalists, rather than the human interests of +the masses. + +But the reader, in his indignation over the situation of factory workers +in Japan, should remember that Japan is no exceptional sinner among the +nations. Christian England and America have had conditions equally bad, +and possibly worse. Dr. Washington Gladden, in his article on "The +Reason for the Unions," in the New York _Outlook_ for March, 1911, makes +the following statements in regard to the condition of labor in England +in the early part of the nineteenth century. Men and women stood daily +at their tasks, from twelve to fourteen and fifteen hours; a working +day of sixteen hours was not an unheard-of thing. Government reports of +this period show that children of five and six years of age were +frequently employed in factories. "Nor was this unmeasured abuse of +child labor confined to the cotton, silk, and wool industries.... The +report of 1842 is crammed with statements as to the fearful overwork of +girls and boys in iron and coal mines, which doubtless had been going on +from the end of the eighteenth century;... Children could get about +where horses and mules could not. Little girls were forced to carry +heavy buckets of coal up high ladders, and little girls and boys instead +of animals dragged the coal bunkers. Women were constantly employed +underground at the filthiest tasks. Through all this period the wages +gravitated downward and family income was steadily lowered, while the +cost of food increased. The homes of the workers were ruined. In a +certain congested district there lived 26,830 persons in 5,366 +families, three fourths of which possessed but one room each. The rooms +were without furniture, without everything; two married couples often +shared the same room. In some cases there was not even a heap of straw +on which to sleep. In one cellar the pastor found two families and a +donkey; two of the children had died and the third was dying." And these +conditions existed, not in days of industrial depression, but in flush +times; business was booming and wealth accumulating in the hands of +factory owners and employers. + +Many of the conditions of industrial workers even in the United States +to-day are heartrending in the extreme. Who could read of the strike of +the shirt-waist makers of New York in the winter of 1909-10 without deep +indignation over the conditions under which those brave girls worked, +and against which they rebelled? The National Committee on Child Labor +reported in the spring of 1911 that there were over 60,000 children in +the factories of the United States, mostly in the South. Before +condemning Japan unduly, Occidentals should remember that their own +record is none too bright. + +If comparison is to be made however between Japan and the West, it may +be made along other lines. The West fell into its industrial +difficulties with no example from which to learn. But this is not true +of Japan. She can easily learn the lesson of a century of Western +experience; but she seems slow to do it. Then again in Japan it is the +government that is feebly leading, and the official popular +representatives who are both blind and resisting, whereas in the West +the great movements for industrial reform are movements of the people +themselves, backed up and oftentimes led by enlightened humanitarian and +Christian popular opinion. In the West, the churches are fairly in line +with forward social movements, whereas in Japan, Shintoism, +Confucianism, and even Buddhism are apparently wholly indifferent to the +economic and even ethical condition of the nation's toilers. +Furthermore, we are seeing to-day in Japan the strange phenomenon of +one section of the government seeking to ameliorate social and economic +conditions, and at the same time another, seemingly mortally afraid of +allowing the people either to discuss these matters or to attempt reform +movements themselves. Labor unions are strictly forbidden, and any +person advocating socialism is under strict police surveillance. Strikes +are illegal and their promoters are liable to criminal punishment. +Anomalous as it may be, the government seems to be seeking to destroy +that enlightened popular opinion on which it must rely for the efficient +enforcement of its own plans for social betterment of the working +classes. + +I have dwelt at considerable length on the conditions of factory +workers, for later on I shall describe a sociological experiment among +this class. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GEISHA (HETAERAE) + + +The word _geisha_ means an "accomplished person." A geisha is invariably +a young woman who has had years of training fitting her to provide +social entertainment for men. The _gei_ acquired are skill in playing +the samisen (a three-stringed guitar), singing catching ditties, taking +part in conversation and repartee, and in "dancing," which is to the +Western mind rather a highly conventional posturing, with deft +manipulations of the inevitable fan. Years of exacting and diligent work +are required for proficiency in these "gei,"--the Geisha School in Kyoto +provides a course of six or seven years. + + [Illustration: O HAMAYU (GEISHA) + Most celebrated in Tokyo] + +According to the Japanese ideal, geisha singing must be shrill, and to +secure this quality the voice is purposely strained till it is +"cracked." Girls eight to ten years old are sometimes given their +"singing lessons" in the frosty air of winter mornings before sunrise, +or late at night, in order that they may take cold in the throat and +then, by persistent, vigorous use, the voice is "broken" for life. +Training in dancing and samisen playing is also prolonged and severe, +for no pains are spared in efforts to excel. These efforts however are +due, not to the will or desire of the _maiko_, the poor little girl who +is being trained, but to the persistence of her owner. + +Only daughters of the very poor are secured for this outwardly beautiful +and attractive, but inwardly repulsive, soul-destroying life. +Practically speaking, geisha are the property of the old women who +support and educate them through the years of their childhood, and who +rent them out by the hour for the entertainment of men at social +functions. Such functions would, indeed, be inane without geisha to +serve the meals in their dainty ways, to fill the sake[5] cups for +guests, to share in conversation by adding the spice, to provoke +laughter, themselves laughing loudly and often, and at the proper time, +to present their music, their singing, and their dancing. Dressed in +faultless style, in richest silks and brilliant colors, geisha are +moving pictures which have charmed generations of Japanese men and, in +recent decades, many foreigners. Japanese political party dinners and +consultations are often held in restaurants, where geisha make the fun +and pour the wine. If foreign guests are to be entertained by wealthy +individuals, by companies, or even by cities, the inevitable geisha is +there, and is presented as a characteristic product of Japan--which she +truly is. But while there is about her a certain charm of manner and +dress, to one who watches her face, looking for traces of a soul, the +story is all too plain--behind the harsh laugh and stoical face it is +impossible not to recognize that there is an empty and often a bleeding +heart. + + [5] Sake (pronounced sah'-ke) is the fermented liquor of Japan, + made from rice. + +The lives of these girls are pitiful in the extreme. Chosen from among +the families of the poor on the basis of their prospective good looks +and ability to learn, they leave their homes at an early age and are +subjected to the severe drill already outlined. They go through their +lessons with rigid, mechanical accuracy. In public they appear in +gorgeous robes, their faces painted and powdered, artificiality +dominating everything about them,--clothing, manners, and smiles. As a +rule nothing is done to develop their minds, and of course the +cultivation of personal character is not even thought of. They are +instructed in flippant conversation and pungent retort, that they may +converse interestingly with the men, for whose entertainment they are +alone designed. The songs learned, some of the dances performed, and the +conversational repertoire acquired are commonly reported to be highly +licentious, but these are the gei that best please the men, to whom +they are open for private engagements from the time they are eighteen +years of age. If, however, a geisha is exceptionally beautiful, her +owner does not allow her to enter on such duties, for experience has +shown that her beauty is soon lost in this way, and with it her highest +earning capacity. + +Many geisha undoubtedly develop considerable personal ability. The +severe drill undergone could hardly fail to call forth their powers of +mind, and intimate association with educated and quasi-cultured men +serves further to stimulate their mental faculties. In native ability +too they are not lacking, though drawn from the lowest classes of +society, for, as will soon be more fully explained, they sometimes +possess strains of high lineage. The national custom, which represses +the normal intellectual development and social instincts of cultured, +respectable women, is removed from this one class, which is favored by +many circumstances. They are not subjected to the debauching excesses +usual with the ordinary prostitute, nor to humiliating medical +inspection. They are not conscious of popular disapproval, but on the +contrary are the beauties of the town, their photographs for sale on +every street. Indeed one well-informed gentleman told me that probably +ten per cent. of the geisha enter the calling by their own choice. No +wonder that from time to time the tale is told of some Japanese man of +social position falling under the spell of an accomplished geisha, whom +he prefers to any of the silent, passive, timid, incompetent girls +selected for him, who in all probability have never talked with any man +except immediate relatives or tradesmen. The national custom which +predetermines the social incompetence of the majority of cultured women +compensates for the loss by providing this geisha class. Not until +Japanese ladies can hold their own in social life will the vocation of +the geisha be ended. + +Among the surprises one meets in studying the geisha question is the +fact that not a few of the girls have features which indicate +distinguished ancestry. My explanation for this fact is the further fact +that for ages the standards of moral life in Japan have allowed large +freedom of sexual relations. The result is that in the lowest classes, +from which geisha are recruited, there run strains of gentle blood. It +thus comes to pass that now in the midst of coarse surroundings and in +deep poverty there are born of parents manifestly belonging to the +lowest class, children of exceptional beauty, fitted, so far as +individual appearance indicates, to belong to the highest ranks of +society. Whether or not this suggested explanation is correct as a +matter of historic fact I am not able to say, but I offer it as the most +plausible that has occurred to me. + +Parents in this class of society much prefer daughters to sons, for they +are likely to become valuable sources of income. At eight or nine, those +destined for the "accomplished" calling are put into the care of some +experienced geisha and a mutual contract is given for a specific period +(five or six years), during which the child is termed a _maiko_ +(dancing girl). As a rule the parents receive a small sum at the +beginning of this first period. The owner undertakes to support and +train the girl, and expects to profit by her earnings. By the time the +girl is fifteen or sixteen she has finished her apprenticeship, when, if +she has exceptional graces and charms likely to win her a place in the +highest social gatherings, she will secure quite a competency (many +hundreds of yen, and in some cases even a few thousand) for the keeper +and parents. On the expiration of the first contract a new one is made, +and so on, until the girl has passed her prime and is no longer sought +for entertainments. If in the interval she has not become the concubine +of some rich man, she then either returns to her poor home or, what is +more usual, becomes a servant in a hotel or tea-house. If her ability is +exceptional, she may set up as geisha keeper, train other maiko, employ +younger geisha, and so make her living. + +The great ambition of a geisha is to "catch" some wealthy man of rank +with her charms and become his concubine. My informant estimates that +this is what happens to perhaps one half of the geisha. In such cases +the man pays down a handsome sum to the owner, who sends part of it to +the parents. Thus he buys his concubine, whom he usually keeps in a +villa, not his home. I have asked if geisha ever become true, legal +wives and am told "only very rarely." But, if they do, are they +cordially received by the man's kindred? "Oh, no! that is not possible," +is the repeated answer. The effects of her training can never be +obliterated, and the new relatives cannot forget the despicable class +from which she comes, and the calling by which she has gained her +husband. She may become indeed refined and altogether correct in manner, +but the taint of her origin as a rule adheres to her. Then too the years +of immoral life before she won her husband make it a rare thing for a +geisha to have children, and childless wives in Japan are not at a +premium, for the prime purpose of marriage is the maintenance of the +family line. + +Foreigners commonly say that geisha are not prostitutes. It is true they +are not licensed, that is to say, professional, prostitutes in the eye +of the law, nor are they procurable, as are regular prostitutes, by the +average man, for the expense is too great. But the chief of police +already referred to, and many Japanese of whom I have inquired, insist +that a large proportion of geisha are corrupt--two geisha keepers have +estimated the proportion as high as ninety per cent. Geisha who decline +engagements leading to immorality are rare indeed, and for that very +reason are unpopular. + +But better than generalized statements is the story of an actual life. +There lives to-day in Hyogo a paralytic whose influence through her +words, newspaper articles, and books is widely felt throughout central +Japan. She is one of the few girls who, though trained as a geisha, +refused to follow the calling. The story of her life is worthy of more +than passing mention. + +Her father died in her infancy, and shortly after the death of her +mother, who had married, her stepfather likewise married again. These +stepparents, deciding to have her become a geisha, expended much time +and money on her training. + +When she was prepared at sixteen years of age, she was entrusted to a +woman whose business it was to find employment for geisha in hotels and +tea-houses. This woman took her to a house in Osaka, where there were +already many geisha and regular prostitutes. Learning the nature of the +duties expected of her, she positively refused to comply. In spite of +the fact that it was twenty miles to her home and that there were but +two sen in her pocket, she escaped from the hotel, spent one sen on +bridge toll, one sen on a lunch, and succeeded in walking all that +distance alone, reaching home after midnight, the home from which she +had been sent out with hopes that she should win for her stepparents an +ample support. The reception accorded her can be fancied. She held +firmly however to her resolve, preferring poverty and hard toil to +luxury and fine clothing along with that service on which these were +conditioned. Work was found for her in a factory, then as a family +servant, and finally at a small tea-house, where during the winter she +was especially exposed to the cold. An attack of rheumatism developed +into paralysis. With no hope of recovery she longed for death, for her +stepparents, considering the case hopeless, neglected to care for her +properly, although she was so helpless. She could not feed herself, nor +even crawl to the well in which she wished to drown herself,--the final +resource of many a despairing Japanese woman. But, by a strange series +of circumstances, or should we not say by a merciful Providence? a +Christian man discovered and befriended her, told the story of Jesus, +and revealed the Savior. Her faith soon became so strong and her words +proved so thoughtful and helpful to those Christian friends who came to +see her, that her influence began to spread. She found she could manage +to write with her crippled hand, and as what she wrote was like her +spoken words, simple and strong, it soon found its way into print. She +was finally led to write the story of her life, and this book, with +other articles written by her, has afforded a small income, which with +additional help from friends has secured a comfortable home for herself +and the family of which she is now the center. Her name is Zako Aiko, +and she lives in Hyogo. + +A few geisha, coming under Christian influences, have been converted, +and so far as I know, such persons leave the calling altogether, as +incompatible with Christian principles. But condemnation of the whole +geisha system is not confined to Christians. Many Japanese, entirely +outside our Christian circles, regard it as a disgrace to the country, +and wish the whole business, along with licensed prostitution, concealed +from public view. For instance, a man of high official rank, president +of a large institution, tells me he regrets that there is no first-class +Japanese hotel in Kyoto at which he may entertain foreign guests in +Japanese style, except where geisha serve the meals. Rather than +countenance the geisha system, he prefers to take his guests to a hotel +where the service is not so perfect but where the women employed are +above suspicion. He deplored the fact one day that all foreigners coming +to Kyoto in the spring visit the _Miyako odori_, commonly known in +English as the "Cherry Dance." I myself have seen this performance more +than once, and found nothing objectionable in either the so-called +dancing, its setting, or its accompaniments. It nevertheless affords +opportunity for the display of something like eighty or ninety geisha, +and helps to maintain the business and the system. As indicating the +status of geisha in the best Japanese society, it is significant that +all geisha are rigidly excluded from every entertainment where any +member of the Imperial household is present. + +It is often said by foreigners that geisha and prostitutes not +infrequently make happy matches, and by legal marriage escape from their +unhappy lives of shame. This is one of those pretty fables one would +like to believe, but the facts do not seem to support the theory. There +are, no doubt, rare instances where such has been the case. I have known +two women who had been geisha and who married men of some position. In +one case the man was a physician. When I knew the family the ex-geisha +had been in the home a number of years and was a lovely, modest, capable +woman, a regular member of my wife's cooking class. But it was +noticeable that she always took a "back seat" among the ladies; she was +tolerated by them and treated not unkindly, but it was clear that they +looked down on her. The man's kindred never favored the match, and would +not let him marry the woman legally, so she lived in his house, took +excellent care of his first wife's children, and was to them all that a +stepmother could be, yet, so far as I know, she has never gained her +full position in the home of her husband nor among his relatives. + +The other case I knew but slightly, as she died but a few weeks after I +made her acquaintance, but she must have been a woman of exceptional +character. She was a Christian and highly respected in the church. + +Such cases, however, are rare. A geisha may be in high favor during the +decade or more when at the height of her physical charms, though even +then her inner life is empty and loveless; but when no longer attractive +she is cast aside as a faded flower, to spend the rest of her life +forlorn, unloved, and uncared for. Truly, the way of the geisha is hard! + + Geisha naru mi to; + Michi tobu tori wa + Doko no idzuko de + Hateru yara, + +is a popular ditty regarding the final disappearance of geisha from +sight. It may be roughly translated: "What becomes of geisha, do you +ask? I ask in turn, where end their lives the birds that fly along the +road?" + +In regard to the number of geisha, Mr. Murphy's statistics show that +from 1887 to 1897 they increased throughout Japan from 10,326 to 26,536, +and since then the increase has been relatively small, the number being +now in the vicinity of 30,000. + +So far as is known to me, no regular Christian or philanthropic work is +done for this class. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_SHOGI_ (LICENSED PROSTITUTES) + + +It may seem strange to class prostitutes among working women, but the +facts require such classification, for, not only so far as the parents +and brothel keepers are concerned, but also so far as the girls +themselves are concerned, it is entirely a matter of money. If the +business did not pay splendidly, the keepers would not erect their +handsome buildings, pay the heavy license fees, nor buy the girls from +the parents at considerable cost. And on the other hand, if the parents +did not receive what they regard as large sums for their daughters, the +latter would not be sold to such lives of shame and disease. And so far +as the poor victims are concerned, there is abundant evidence that they +often go into the wretched business solely at the command of their +parents, for among the lowest class the noble doctrine of obedience to +parents is shamefully perverted to this vile end. Children are taught +that obedience is a child's first duty, regardless of the question +whether the thing required by parents is right or wrong. The girl goes +to the brothel in obedience to her parents, who send her there to earn a +living for herself and to help them out of special financial +difficulties. Thus from first to last, so far as the girls, the parents, +and the keepers are concerned, the question is economic. + +Among the working women of Japan prostitutes surely are the most pitiful +of all. They give the most and get the least. They receive no training, +like the geisha; have no liberty; to prevent their running away, are +imprisoned in brothels, or if diseased or ill, in hospitals; and have no +friends except possibly other prostitutes. Most of them soon loathe the +business, but are helpless, hopeless prisoners,--for the keepers who +paid their parents a few score or hundreds of yen and loaded them with +beautiful clothes, charge all these items to their account, so that they +are under a heavy debt which must be paid before they can leave. This +debt the laws of the land theoretically ignore but practically +recognize, for the "keeper" keeps the books as well as the brothel, and +the police and officials are often on his side. In this way licentiously +inclined officials, merchants, and travelers provide for the easy, +economical, and legal satisfaction of their desires. + +I do not propose here to give a detailed account of this distressful and +disgusting "business." Those who desire more information should procure +_The Social Evil in Japan_, by the Rev. U. G. Murphy. Some years ago Mr. +Murphy, by grit and pluck, carried certain test cases through the courts +and secured legal opportunity for girls to quit the business if they +wished. The Salvation Army and some of the daily papers took pains to +let the brothel girls know their legal rights, and in a short period +over twelve thousand, at that time over one third of the whole number, +left the brothels, so that for a while the business was prostrated in +many quarters. This single fact shows the spirit and attitude of a large +number of the girls. Since then the wily keepers and all interested in +maintaining this lucrative trade have succeeded in modifying the +administration of the regulations, so that the girls are again closely +controlled. + +There is however a rising public conscience and an abolition movement is +gathering strength. The virtual slavery of the girls; the fact that they +are openly bought and sold, and that, too, under governmental +supervision and sanction; the cruelty inflicted on many girls by their +keepers; the fraud practised in connection with their accounts, whereby +a girl is kept hopelessly in debt, so that, however faithful she may be, +release is impossible, and indeed the more faithful the more profitable +she is to her keeper--all these facts are becoming widely known and are +beginning to arouse public indignation. The government is openly +charged with protecting slavery, and that of the worst kind. High +government officials are being condemned for licentiousness. + +As signs of the times, I give a few facts. In the summer of 1909 the +wealthiest and most centrally located prostitute quarter in Osaka was +completely wiped out by a great fire. Before the flames were fully out, +the anti-brothel forces realized their opportunity and under the +leadership of the Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's +Christian Union began to agitate for refusal to allow the rebuilding of +the business in that region of the city. A petition was prepared and +signed by one hundred thousand people. Large numbers of Osaka's best +citizens allied themselves with the movement. The result was that the +authorities in charge saw fit to yield to the pressure and arranged that +the new buildings for prostitution should be erected on the outskirts of +the city. + +In the winter of 1911, the city of Tokyo suffered from a great +conflagration which completely destroyed the section of the city known +as "Yoshiwara,"[6] which for three hundred years has been assigned to +prostitution. This center of the social evil had become enormously +wealthy, and such magnificent buildings had been erected for the +business that it had become one of the famous sights of Tokyo. Before +the fire was fairly over, the anti-brothel forces began to organize +their campaign, which continued for months. A magazine called _Purity_ +(_Kaku Sei_) was started. In this case, however, success did not crown +their efforts. + + [6] Foreigners commonly, but mistakenly, suppose that "Yoshiwara" + means "Prostitute Quarter." + +Not long since an army division was located in the vicinity of Wakayama, +a city of considerable importance, not far from Osaka, in which there +have never been any prostitute houses. This led to the suggestion that +it would be well to open there a regular prostitute quarter. The matter +was keenly discussed and the proposition carried through the city +council and authorized by all the lower officials, but when it came +finally before the prefectural governor for signature, it was vetoed, +and the veto message is worthy of preservation and careful consideration +by those who are interested in these matters. + +The governor says in his message: "I was early convinced that the +establishment of licensed quarters in the city was harmful to the public +interest. It has been a subject of discussion in Wakayama now for many +years, and I have investigated the question thoroughly from the +standpoint of public morals, health, and economics, at places with and +without licensed quarters, and find that the existence of such +institutions is distinctly harmful. The standard of morals is lowered, +the public health impaired, disease made rampant, the young are sent +into wrong channels, homes are broken up, and extravagance is +encouraged. The state of affairs in Shingu, in this prefecture of +Wakayama, where licensed houses have been established, clearly shows +that the existence of such places is extremely harmful to public +interest. The majority representation to the authorities urged the +establishment of licensed quarters on the ground that the quarters would +promote the prosperity of that section of the city in which they were +situated. It is true they may benefit a section of the city in one way, +but the benefit so obtained would be offset by many other evils. The +military authorities are strongly opposed to the establishment of +licensed quarters, and their views are very reasonable. For these +reasons I have decided to refuse permission for the establishment of +licensed quarters in Wakayama city."[7] + + [7] As translated by the _Japan Chronicle_, May 13, 1911. + +In passing, it is worthy of record that the prefecture of Joshu has for +over thirty years, by ceaseless vigilance, prevented government sanction +of prostitution. Repeatedly has the battle been fought and repeatedly +have the anti-brothel forces won. In this respect Joshu stands alone +among the forty-eight prefectures of the Japanese empire. + +As illustrating the low moral ideals prevailing among a certain class of +men, Professor Abe of Waseda University, in a recent brothel-abolition +speech, told of a certain politician who, though a fast liver, was +praised because he never debauched the wives and daughters of his +friends, but always confined himself to those women whose services he +fully paid for in hard cash! Colonel Yamamuro, the highest Japanese +officer in the Salvation Army, on the same evening, speaking of the low +moral ideals of the classes from which prostitutes are drawn, said that +in connection with the Salvation Army he had had opportunity to know of +twelve hundred girls who had been aided in the two rescue homes of the +Army. Of these twelve hundred about one half had been prostitutes. The +reasons given by them for leaving were various, such as ill health, +cruelty, lovers, but not one said she left the business because it was +wrong. The evidence is full and convincing that a considerable section +of the Japanese people do not regard loose sexual relations as +particularly immoral. + +In regard to the statistics of prostitutes, the figures given by Mr. +Murphy are probably the most accurate available, and are substantially +official. Between 1887 and 1897 the number of prostitutes increased from +27,559 to 47,055, reaching their maximum in 1899, when there were +52,410. Then, following up the work of Mr. Murphy and the Salvation +Army, came the "cessation movement," reducing the number to 40,195 in +1901, and the following year to 38,676. Since that date the number has +grown. In two years four thousand fresh girls were bought up, and a +thousand more the following year. The latest statistics are those for +1906, when the number of prostitutes was reported as 44,542. It is safe +to say that at the present time the number is near, if it has not +passed, the fifty thousand mark. + +It would be natural to suppose that recruits for the geisha and shogi +occupations would be found largely among the poorest farmers, but both +my outdoor man and also my cook assert that such is not the fact. +"Farmers would never sell their daughters for such vile purposes, +however poor they might become. Parents who do such things are only the +degenerate creatures who live in cities," is the scornful remark of my +gardener. My cook asserts the same thing, and adds that farmers' +daughters have not the genteel features and figures nor the light +complexion essential to girls seeking such occupations. Other +investigations confirm these assertions. The great cities of Nagoya and +Niigata, and indeed the whole of Echigo, are famous for the supply of +girls they send to the brothels of Tokyo. A poor man with several +daughters has a pretty good investment, and rejoices more at the birth +of a girl than of a boy, because it means an early and definite income. + +I found at one time in Matsuyama that all the girls of sixteen to +eighteen years of age in a certain poor quarter had, in the course of +one year, been sold off to the brothels. About that time a man came to +me with a pitiful story of poverty; he had five children, but +unfortunately they were all boys; had they been girls, he said, he might +have sold some of them and so not have needed to ask my aid! + +The word used in connection with both geisha and prostitutes is +perfectly frank; no effort is made to conceal by terms the nature of +the transaction. The girls are "bought" and "sold." They employ the +same words as those used in buying and selling animals, food, +clothing--anything. Their purchase and sale is a regular business in +which men and women openly engage, traveling the country over in search +of girls, and conducting them in small groups to the keepers of +brothels, who pay so much a head. And this takes place in civilized +Japan! Moreover, in spite of the fact that girls may thus be bought, it +is true that they are also occasionally stolen. I have known of a +pitiful instance where the girl, a member of a respectable family, was +boxed and shipped on a steamer as freight, to elude the police, and +taken to Siam. In five years she has succeeded in getting one letter to +her home, but the parents dare not put the matter into the hands of +Japanese officials, as that would make the situation hopeless. + +But Occidentals may not forget how terrible a scourge is commercialized +vice in civilized and so-called "Christian" Europe, and who has not +heard of the "white slavery" of America, with its stealing of girls and +young women for purposes of prostitution? The institution of comparisons +between nations and individuals is alike odious,--but unavoidable. A +fair comparison would seem to be that, whereas in the West the moral +sense of a large proportion of the people is very strongly against the +social evil and seeks to abolish it, in Japan the moral sense of the +mass of the population acquiesces in the situation, so that the +government and a vast majority of the influential people of the land +unite to make the business safe, legal, and remunerative; and that, +while in Occidental Christian lands no girl can voluntarily enter this +sphere of life without being conscious of its shame and immorality, many +of the girls of Japan may have no adequate knowledge of these inevitable +consequences until their fate has been sealed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AMELIORATIVE EFFORTS + + +The reader will desire to know what, if any, have been the efforts to +ameliorate the evils described in preceding pages. They are of two +kinds: first, governmental in origin, general in scope, legal and +educative in method; and second, private in origin, both general and +specific in scope, personal, educative, ethical, and religious in +method. + +The general educational policy of the government is not to be regarded +as a philanthropic or ameliorative effort to meet the conditions already +described. This policy however does have a powerful elevating influence +on the lives and character of the entire people. As we have seen, over +ninety-seven per cent. of the girls of school age are in attendance, +according to the reports. Though we allow a discount on these figures +(and some may perhaps be necessary), we can still say that, if the +present policy of six years of compulsory education is carried out, the +rising generation of boys and girls will be able to read fairly well the +daily paper and simple books. To millions of women this means the +opening of doors of knowledge and opportunity which in ages past have +been closed to them. + +The government has also been the chief initiative force in all recent +movements to improve the economic and industrial conditions of the +people. Railroads in Japan owe their existence to the government, as +also do many forms of modern industry. Agriculture and fruit and stock +raising owe much to the government, which has imported Western seed, +Western fruit trees, and new breeds of horses and cattle. All these +efforts have done much to improve the economic conditions, thus +elevating the scale of living. People eat better food and more of it, +live in better houses, and wear better clothes than they did fifty or +more years ago, and--an important item--they pay less taxes in +proportion to their income. A general uplifting process is modifying +their life and thought, and this is profoundly affecting Japan's working +classes, and, of course, her women. + +In regard to the specific evils introduced by Western industrialism, we +have already seen how the government has sought to remedy the +difficulties, so far as laws can go, but hitherto its efforts have +largely been thwarted by capitalists. + +Among the notable efforts of the government to promote wise social +reform movements have been the large gatherings, at considerable +government expense, of leaders of philanthropic and benevolent +institutions for instruction in the most recent and approved +sociological principles. Competent specialists from all over the country +have been employed to instruct these leaders, and thus the whole country +is given the benefit of the special knowledge of the few. The government +has also, during the past four years, distributed some forty thousand +yen annually among those eleemosynary institutions which it regards as +models of efficiency. + +Furthermore, opportunity for the higher education of women, first given +on a wide scale during the past decade, while not yet affecting working +women to any appreciable extent, cannot fail to do so as time passes, +for it proclaims the intrinsic ability of woman and gives her a standing +of intellectual equality with man, in sharp contrast to the humiliating +position assigned to her by popular Buddhism, which has taught that +women must be reborn as men before they can be saved. Indeed, they are +born women because of their sins. A Japanese proverb has it that one +must never trust a woman, even if she has borne you seven children! This +long-believed doctrine as to the inherent incapacity and essential +depravity of woman has no doubt been a powerful cause of her social +degradation. Under the present system of general education, however, +these doctrines and beliefs will soon be completely overthrown, thus +making room for and producing great changes in the social and industrial +conditions of all women. + +But the government is not the sole worker for the social amelioration of +industrial conditions. Through private effort forces are being +introduced which are more potent than any the government knows or can +control. I refer to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This has already +introduced such a leaven into Japanese society that nothing can now +prevent its transforming the whole mass in time. + +Should the entire foreign body of 624 Protestant and 371 Roman Catholic +missionaries be withdrawn from Japan, there would still remain (January, +1914) 728 ordained and 713 unordained Japanese Protestant pastors and +trained evangelists, and 331 Bible women. Among the 815 organized +churches, 182 are wholly self-supporting. In addition to the 90,000 +Protestant communicants, 67,000 Roman Catholic people, and 32,000 Greek +Christians among the Japanese, it is estimated by Christian pastors that +there are many hundreds of thousands of the people who are conducting +their lives according to the principles and with the spirit of Jesus. + +Furthermore, a careful study of modern Japanese civilization shows that +the Christian conception of man as having intrinsic and inherent worth +has been embodied in the constitution and laws of the land and is being +put into wide practise. The rights of children, women, and inferiors and +the duties of parents, husbands, and superiors are new notes in Japan, +and are sounding forth a richer music than has ever before been heard in +the Orient. + +Of course there are still discordant notes, as we have seen when +considering the subject of the buying and selling of geisha and +prostitutes; but so there are even in so-called Christian lands. +Nevertheless, the conception of the value of the individual and of his +rights is inspiring a hope among the lowly and hitherto downtrodden and +oppressed sections of the nation which cannot be extinguished, and will +in due time powerfully transform the traditional civilization, giving to +woman a place of equality along with man in the estimation of all. + +The general education of girls, and especially their higher education, +is signal proof of a wide acceptance of Christian conceptions. According +to the _Resume Statistique_ (1914), there were, in 1911-12, 250 girls' +high schools, public and private, whose pupils numbered 64,809. In +addition, the number of women in normal schools preparing to become +elementary school-teachers was 8,271, and in the higher normal schools, +570. The number of female teachers is reported at 42,739. These girls' +high and normal schools, through the ability they give their graduates +to converse with men on a basis of intellectual equality in regard to +topics of current interest while retaining their modesty and personal +character, are so transforming the reticent habits and unsocial customs +of Japanese ladies that ere long scant room will be left for the +old-time geisha. + +The change Christianity is silently bringing to the home life of Japan, +adding to its sweetness, purity, and conscious unity, and contributing a +mighty uplift to both head and heart, few as yet have either eyes to see +or ears to hear. The influence already exerted by Christian ideas and +ideals on the traditional conceptions of Japan in regard to home life, +marriage, childhood, the poor and lowly, the orphan, the blind, the +leper, and the diseased generally,--in a word on the value of the +individual and his inalienable, God-given rights,--is so widespread and +so beneficent that it receives little specific comment and no +opposition. + +There were no doubt in old Japan certain influences predisposing many to +the new ideals and practises introduced from the West. It is difficult, +perhaps impossible, at this stage in Japan's development to reckon +accurately how much of Japan's new life is due to new factors introduced +from Christendom, and how much to ideals already operative in the +feudal system. No one can doubt, however, that Christian ideals have +been the most important factors in the West to give woman her present +status. Nor can we doubt that Christian ideals and practises are playing +an important role in the modern emancipation of women in Japan. + +Those who criticize missionaries as forcing the Christian religion upon +unwilling peoples know not whereof they speak. The Christian faith would +make no progress whatever in Japan were it not found by Japanese +themselves to be ennobling and satisfying. It is welcomed because it +brings hope and peace and power to those who were hopeless and restless +and powerless. + +But he is very shortsighted who thinks that the main forces +Christianizing Japan are wielded by the foreign missionary. The +missionary doubtless is an essential agent, but of far more importance +is the work of Japanese Christians themselves; and in addition to these +is the general though vague influence exerted by Western civilization +as a whole, and particularly by the English language and literature. In +that important work, _Fifty Years of New Japan_, are many remarkable +chapters, but especially noteworthy are those entitled "Social Changes +of New Japan," and "Influence of the West upon Japan," from the pens of +competent, wide-awake Japanese scholars. + +Consider what Professor Nitobe says: "The greatest influence of the West +is, after all, the spiritual.... Christianity has influenced the thought +and lives of many individuals in Japan, and will influence many more, +eventually affecting the nation through the altered view-point and +personnel of the citizen and the administrator. The character-changing +power of the religion of Jesus I believe to be only just now making +itself appreciably evident in our midst." Somewhat further on, referring +to the English language, he writes: "The effect of the acquisition of +the English tongue on the mental habits--I had almost said on the +unconscious cerebrations of our people--is incalculable.... The moral +influence of some of its simple text-books used in our schools cannot be +overrated.... They have been instrumental in opening new vistas of +thought and vast domains of enterprise and interest to young minds." + +No student of Japan's new life, resulting from the influence of Western +and Christian ideas and ideals, should fail to familiarize himself with +the eighth issue (1910) of _The Christian Movement in Japan_, which +gives a series of remarkable addresses delivered by Japanese and +foreigners at the semicentennial celebration of the beginning of +Protestant missions in Japan. Especial attention should be paid to the +section treating of the "Influence of Christianity on Japanese Thought +and Life." + +It will be obvious to any thoughtful person that changes so wide and +deep, affecting all the fundamental conceptions of life, of manhood and +womanhood, of the state, of law and justice, of right and duty, are not +confined to those whose privilege it is to study Western books and +acquire the higher education. In ten thousand ways the whole national +life is being transformed, slowly it may be and silently, yet surely and +steadily. And the benefits are accruing to the most lowly and least +educated no less than to those at the top. All the working women of +Japan have already received in some degree, and in the future will more +and more receive, the blessings and the uplift which are coming to the +nation through its contact with the Christian conceptions and standards +embedded in Western civilization and literature. + +A volume--nay, many volumes--would be needed to tell in detail the story +of how the Christian message has been and is being conveyed to the +people of Japan. We should make known the story of Joseph Hardy Neesima, +of the Kumamoto Band, of Dr. Clark and Dr. Hepburn, of Young Men's +Christian Association teachers of English in government schools, of +faithful, self-sacrificing pastors, evangelists, Bible women, and +missionaries. We should recount the deeds of heroic lay Christians in +all the walks of life, and above all in their homes, too often hostile, +commending their new-found faith by their new spirit and life. We should +tell of the work of Christian teachers of ethics in the prisons, and the +remarkable results secured. We should relate the experiences of those +who have struggled for the rights of prostitutes, of Salvation Army +officers, of matrons of reform homes, of managers of ex-convicts' homes, +of founders of orphan asylums, of supporters of private charity +hospitals. We should tell the story of the scores of Christian +institutions the central aim of which is to express in concrete life the +Christian's faith and hope and love. + +But in addition to the narrative of direct Christian work, full heed +should be given to the evidences of the wide acceptance by the nation of +the best Christian ideals in matters of philanthropy. To meet the needs +of the famine sufferers in north Japan during the winter and spring of +1914, and of those who were deprived of their all by the terrific +volcanic explosion of the island of Sakurajima in January, 1914, more +than a million yen ($500,000) of private gifts flowed into the hands of +the relieving committees. For the earthquake sufferers the Diet voted +622,883 yen ($311,441). + +The late Emperor, shortly before his death, was so moved by the medical +needs of the poor that he contributed a fund of a million yen for the +systematic undertaking of medical work in all parts of Japan. This +started a movement among the wealthy which has resulted in the +establishment of a Medical Relief Association (Saiseikwai), having a +fund of $5,000,000 already paid in and pledges for $8,000,000 more. + +Men of wealth in Japan are following the example set by the best +Christian life in the West. In recent years several large gifts have +been made for education. At the close of 1913 one of the most wealthy +and always generous families of Japan, Sumitomo of Osaka, announced +their decision to establish an industrial school for the poor, at an +expense of $200,000. And in the same year Mr. O'Hara, one of the +wealthiest and most philanthropic men of Okayama, announced his plan of +opening a high-grade agricultural school for poor boys of that +prefecture. The amount of the gift is not stated, but in addition to the +large sum needed for buildings and equipment, he donates as permanent +endowment some 250 acres of rice land whose value, roughly estimated, +may be about $50,000. + +There are in Japan of all denominations and religions the following +institutions for the uplift and regeneration of the downtrodden and for +the help of the poor: + + Orphan asylums.......................... 100 + Rescue work............................. 92 + Dispensaries............................ 45 + Reformatories........................... 47 + Homes for ex-prisoners.................. 37 + Homes for old people.................... 22 + Poor farms.............................. 11 + ____ + 354 + +Of these institutions, the compiler of the statistics states that for +one Shinto and three Buddhist, there are five Christian institutions. +The leaders and inspirers in all the forms of philanthropic work are +Christians, as from the nature of the case might be expected. + +"In the matter of Christian Social Service," writes A. D. Hail, in the +_Japan Evangelist_,[8] "the Federated Missions have been represented by +two Committees whose fields of endeavor are quite distinct. The one is +the excellent Eleemosynary Committee. It deals with the delinquents, +defectives, and dependents of society.... + + [8] January, 1915. + +"The Industrial Welfare Committee seeks to Christianize the industrial +classes, and to encourage the development of dealing upon Christian +principles with the complicated questions growing out of the relations +of capital and labor. By the industrial classes we mean the +non-capitalistic laborers and bread-winners. It includes men, women, +and many thousands of children. They do not own the machinery they +handle, and have no voice in the control of the industries with which +they are connected. Being without any say in the control of factories, +machines, and raw material, they can be discharged at any moment by +employers for reasons satisfactory alone to themselves. Their bodies, +their minds, and oftentime their morals, become subservient to foremen +and managers. The unskilled laborers in particular have no margin of +either wages or time for wholesome recreations, for accidents, old age, +widowhood, and unemployment. Besides these there is another large class +in Japan, of small traders who rent their shops and eke out earnings by +the sweating process, or by renting rooms for doubtful purposes. To +these are to be added fishermen who do not own tackle, tenant farmers +and their employees, and the main body of school-teachers; also an army +engaged in transportation, together with postal clerks, postmen, and +others. Incidental to this are the districts of large cities and mining +camps, where there are congested populations of unskilled laborers +subjected to diseases occasioned by bad drainage, inadequate housing, +and all the consequent evils. As these do not earn sufficient wages to +entitle them to vote, they have no voice whatever in the betterment of +their surroundings.... + +"There is a growing tendency toward the fixedness of a gulf between +laborers and their employers, so much so that Japan's great danger in +this direction is that she may fail to realize that she has a labor +problem on hand, and one that can be solved here, as elsewhere, only on +the basis of Christian principles of common fair dealing." + +In spite, however, of abundant evidence that Christian ethical and +philanthropic ideals are receiving wide acceptance in Japan, far wider +than would be suggested by the statistics of membership in the Christian +churches, it is also true that the evils of Occidental industrialism and +materialism are sweeping in like a flood. + +Turning now from general statements as to the ethico-industrial +conditions of the working women of Japan, in the next chapter I give the +story of a single institution. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MATSUYAMA WORKING GIRLS' HOME + + +The origin and history of the Matsuyama Working Girls' Home cannot be +told apart from the story of the man who has been its heart and life, +Mr. Shinjiro Omoto. Born in 1872 and graduating from the common school +at fourteen, he at once went into business, first as an apprentice and +later with his father. At nineteen he opened a sugar store, which +flourished and before long overshadowed the father's business. Money +came in so easily that he soon entered on a life of licentiousness, and +for several years he was as famous for his drunken carousals as he had +been for his phenomenal business success. His parents cut him off, +refused him admittance to the house, and for years he did not even speak +to his father. + + [Illustration: MATSUYAMA WORKING GIRLS' HOME + GIRLS IN THE MATSUYAMA HOME] + +In 1899, we held a preaching service in a theater. Mr. Omoto happened to +be drinking in the saloon opposite. Hearing of our gathering, with some +rowdy comrades, he thought he would break it up, with the result that we +experienced persistent opposition throughout the meeting. But the +sermons on Pessimism and the New Life, and my statement of the reasons +that had brought me to Japan attracted his attention, and the next day I +received an anonymous letter asking for tracts. These seem to have +produced a profound impression, particularly the tract entitled "Two +Young Men." It told of two hardened prisoners who had been transformed +by the gospel and became highly useful and well-known members of +society. Mr. Omoto thereupon set himself definitely to learn about +Christianity, but privately, unwilling to make public his new hope. He +bought and read through, quite by himself, the entire New Testament. +Though he gained some idea of the gospel, he soon found he had lost none +of his passion for drink. After a while he went to Kobe and joined a +temperance society; but soon finding that the society had members who +broke their pledges, he began to break his. In despair he went to +Okayama and tried to join himself to Mr. Ishii, head of the well-known +Christian orphanage, asking to be made a Christian, but he was told to +return to Matsuyama and join the church there in his old home; only so +could he be saved. Greatly disappointed, he returned and called on me +early in June, 1901, but without telling fully about himself. He also +called on Mr. Nishimura, an earnest Christian worker, who prayed with +him, telling him that to be saved he must receive the Holy Spirit. + +That summer, quite exceptionally, I returned in the middle of the +vacation. Mr. Omoto appeared at the prayer-meeting for the first time +and was evidently in a state of great excitement, so much so that only +with difficulty could we understand his remarks and his prayer. The gist +was that he had that day received the Holy Spirit, that he was now +saved, and that his joy was too great for utterance. Tears rolled down +his cheeks as he talked and prayed. After the meeting I had a few words +with him, and urged him to ally himself with our experienced workers. He +was so excited that I feared for him, and wondered whether this might +not be a tornado of emotion due to drink and to the nervous condition +incident to his riotous life, an emotion which he mistook for the gift +of the Holy Spirit. I urged him to begin at once to live the Christian +life, cutting loose from all bad companions and bad habits. + +To gain an honest living he entered the Matsuyama Cotton Thread Spinning +Factory. This required twelve hours of work daily, sometimes by day and +sometimes by night, a hard pull for one who had done no steady work for +years. He attended Christian services faithfully, so far as his hours of +work allowed, and became quite intimate with two or three of our best +Christians. Before long he began to talk about the wretched conditions +and immoral life of the factory girls, telling us of the situation +already described in Chapter IX.[9] His first thought was to give these +tired children wholesome recreation. He secured the use of our preaching +place in the vicinity of the factory and invited the girls to attend +what he called the Dojokwai (Sympathy Society). He soon persuaded the +girls to add a little reading and writing to their play, and later also, +sewing. These meetings had of course to be held after the twelve or more +hours of work in the factory had been completed. Care had also to be +taken that the studies and the fun should not absorb time needed for +sleep. Membership in the Sympathy Society rose rapidly and soon numbered +seventy girls. + + [9] See pages 67-69. (Transcriber's note: See starting at "In + 1901, when Mr. Omoto began to work in the factory, he was + amazed to see how many were the children taking their turns + in work along with the older girls by day and by night.") + +At first meetings were held only in the evening three times a week, and +lasted but an hour. But as the educational element of the society +developed, others were induced to help and every evening save Sunday +was occupied. In order that girls on the night shift might continue +their studies similar classes were also held from seven to nine o'clock +in the morning. Before six months had passed the play aspect of the +society was largely superseded by the educational. + +But opposition of Buddhists now began to show itself. A few parents +refused to let their girls attend. The most determined opposition +however came from the manager in the factory who had charge of one of +the shifts. Members of that shift were so treated that gradually they +dropped out of the Dojokwai, and new members from that shift could not +be secured. The hostile manager was however himself dropped some months +later, and all opposition to the work from within the factory ceased. + +In a previous chapter we have noted the facts discovered by Mr. Omoto as +he went the rounds of the boarding-houses in which the girls were +required to live.[10] As these conditions became clearer and more +appallingly impressive, he began to say with increasing frequency and +insistence that the Sympathy Society, however successful, could not do +what was needed. Only a Christian home would answer. Not only do the +girls need to learn to read and write and sew, but even more than these +do they need a home free from temptation, clean and pure and helpful, +and elevating morally and religiously. The difficulties however in the +way of such an enterprise seemed insuperable. To say nothing of the +financial problem, a still greater obstacle, it was felt, was the +securing of "recognition" from the factory, for Buddhist influence in +the factory was at that time still dominant. During these months the +Sympathy Society was winning its way among the girls and their parents, +and Mr. Omoto himself was learning valuable lessons. + + [10] See pages 68, 69. (Transcriber's note: See starting at + "they were crowded together in disease-spreading and + vermin-breeding, immoral boarding-houses, where they + were deliberately tempted.") + +One was that the girls were not all eager to be in a Christian home. We +of course forbade all drinking, irregular hours, and more irregular +"friendships." Attendance on prayers, night and morning, and at the +school, was required. It looked for a time as if we should fail, for +lack of girls to meet the expenses. + +But in spite of discouragements we kept on. The earnings of the girls +who lived in the home, for the first year, were 1,361 yen. Of this sum +they paid for board 905 yen, and sent to their parents 456, whereas +girls in the other boarding-houses were able to save nothing, although +the amount paid for board was the same in all the houses, being fixed by +the factory at 3.60 yen per month, or twelve sen (six cents) per day. + +In February, 1903, a representative of the government who came from +Tokyo to inspect the conditions of labor in western Japan, heard of the +Dojokwai (Sympathy Home), and was so much interested in the story of its +work that he took time to visit it with several local officials. He was +greatly pleased, for he knew of nothing just like this, in any other +part of Japan, particularly in its hygienic, educational, and moral +advantages, and he expressed the wish that there might be many such. +This was our first notice from government officials. + +As time went on, Mr. Omoto was found by the factory officials to be +exceptionally faithful to its interests; he was rapidly promoted from +one position to another, and in December of the same year was made +"visitor" and "employing agent." This required him to visit neighboring +towns and villages and collect new girls when needed. He tried to +decline this work, saying that he could make no false promises to the +girls or to their parents, nor in any way delude them as to the nature +of their work, the amount of their wages, the conditions of the +boarding-houses; being strictly a temperance man, also, he could not +treat with sake (sah'-ke) and so get into friendly relations, all of +which things employing agents constantly do; he had no expectations of +gaining any recruits; the factory would better send some one else. They +told him at least to try. To the surprise of all, and of himself the +most, from his first trip he brought back with him fifteen girls. For +three years he continued in this work and was always successful in +securing girls for the factory. Because of his refusal to touch liquor +in any form, his traveling expenses were much less than those of other +employing agents, much to the satisfaction of the management; and the +girls he secured on the whole remained longer and more contentedly at +work, because he had always told them the truth. This made his position +in the factory more secure and influential. After about two years' +employment by the day he was promoted to the rank of a regular employee +and paid by the month. His hours of official service were also largely +reduced in order that he might have time for his educational and +Christian work in the Home--a striking testimony of appreciation on the +part of the factory officials. + +As the months passed by it gradually became clear that the effectiveness +as well as the permanence of the work demanded suitable quarters. The +heavy rental paid for the house made self-support impossible. Results +already attained seemed to warrant appeal to friends for gifts, for the +purpose of buying land and the erection of a building. Responses to our +appeals provided the needed funds, land was purchased and a contract +made with a carpenter on exceptionally favorable terms, just two days +before the opening of the Russo-Japanese war (February, 1904). +Immediately prices went up by leaps and bounds; but our contract was so +well made and the carpenter had already made such full subcontracts for +the lumber, etc., that we were not troubled because of war prices. + +As we entered our new quarters in June, 1904, however, the factory shut +down the main part of its work and discharged the majority of its +workers. This was a severe blow to the Home. The occupants were reduced +to seven girls. Although the factory opened again after a few months, +the conditions during and after the war made it difficult for the +factory to secure girls, and the Home, together with the other +boarding-houses, suffered from lack of boarders. Beginning with March, +1907, however, special circumstances combined to fill the Home to its +utmost capacity; during the three months of April, May, and June thirty +applicants were refused admittance and as many more who desired to enter +the school were declined. + +Increasing acquaintance with the disastrous effects of factory +labor,--the lint-filled air so often producing consumption, and the +excessive heat of summer sometimes resulting even in sunstroke,--made +Mr. Omoto unwilling to persuade girls to enter upon such a life. The +needs of the Home also pressed upon his time. These considerations led +him, in 1906, to give up his work in the factory altogether, in order to +devote his entire time and strength to the Home and to the upbuilding of +the moral and religious life of the girls. + +In July, 1906, Mr. Omoto attended in Osaka the first convention of +factory officials convened to study the problem of the proper care of +operatives. Representatives were present from sixteen factories having +night schools, and specimens of the work of the girls were compared. Mr. +Omoto was fairly lionized because of the superior quality of the work +sent in from our Home and many newspapers made special mention of him +and his work. + +In September, 1908, there was held in Tokyo under the auspices of the +Home Department of the Imperial government an eight weeks' school of +applied sociology. Mr. Omoto was among the 376 persons who attended. +Again he received exceptional attention and was asked to tell his story. +At this school no less than thirty-six learned specialists gave lectures +on every conceivable topic suitable for such a school. Among the +speakers so many were professed Christians, and of the rest so many +advocated such markedly Christian ideals, that some Buddhists are said +to have taken offense, regarding the whole affair as a part of the +Christian propaganda. + +In the spring of 1909 there occurred an event of considerable +significance. Without a preliminary hint of what was happening, Mr. +Omoto saw in the paper one day the amazing statement that the Matsuyama +Working Girls' Home, along with seventy-nine other selected institutions +throughout the country, was the recipient of a specified sum (200 yen) +as a mark of government approval! A total of 40,000 yen were thus +distributed in varying amounts, Christian institutions being recognized +to an unexpected degree. Later, word came from the Prefectural Office +summoning him to receive the gift. In the entire prefecture six +institutions had been thus honored, and of these, two were Christian. +This gift from the Department of the Interior has been repeated each +year since. + +Again in May, 1910, a Conference of Social Service Workers (Chu-o Jizen +Kyokwai) was held at Nagoya at the time of the Exposition, and Mr. +Omoto was among those invited to attend. His address and statistical +report received much attention. Mr. Tomeoka, representative of the +government and chairman of the conference, spoke in unstinted praise of +the work of the Home, which he characterized as "Kokka Jigyo" (a +national enterprise), and recommended the adoption by others of several +of its special features. + +In the spring of 1911, the Home Department of the central government +published a small volume describing one hundred and thirteen model +philanthropic institutions of the country, in which we were of course +pleased to see that the Home was included, being the only one from the +prefecture. + +As opportunity offered and means were available, following the advice of +friends, four small adjacent lots were purchased, one of which we were +almost forced to secure for self-protection, because of the evil +character of the buildings upon it. We now own altogether about two +acres of land on the north side of the beautiful Castle Hill, around +which Matsuyama is built. Here have been erected at different times six +buildings (three of them two-storied), for residential, dormitory, +chapel, night school, weaving, hospital, bath, and other purposes. We +have space for a playground, of which the girls joyously avail +themselves, after returning from twelve hours of confinement in the dust +and clatter of machinery. The garden, too, provides fresh vegetables of +an assured character at a minimum of expense, adding much to the variety +and the wholesomeness of the diet. The present value of the property is +more than its original cost, for land and buildings are constantly +rising in price, as is the case in other parts of the country. + +The city educational authorities in 1906 asked Mr. Omoto to open his +night school to the poor of the district. For this he had to have a +regular school license from the National Bureau of Education at Tokyo. +This was to be a Christian school--the only license of exactly that +kind in the empire, he was told. + +Industrial newspapers have been noticing the Home and its work for some +time.[11] During the past five years the favorable attitude of local and +national government officials has been particularly pronounced. +Government inspectors have repeatedly been sent from the Prefectural +Office and occasionally even from Tokyo to visit the Home. One such +expressed himself as amazed at the excellent mental work done by the +girls, in view of the fact that all their study takes place after twelve +hours of toil. Nothing but good food, sufficient sleep, and a wholesome +and happy home life could account for their splendid health and superior +school work. One man remarked that the girls in the Home do better work +than pupils in the same grade in public schools. + + [11] See page 149. (Transcriber's note: See starting at "Mr. Omoto + was fairly lionized because of the superior quality of the + work sent in from our Home") + +Even so early as the autumn of 1906 the Home Department of the central +government sent down special instructions to the prefectural office in +Matsuyama to investigate our work, with the result that of nine +benevolent institutions throughout Japan selected for commendation, ours +was the one most carefully described and unqualifiedly praised. A recent +government pamphlet concerning industrial problems makes special +reference, covering two pages, to the work of the Home. Thus has a small +institution begun to serve as a model for the country. + +The good health of the girls in our Home has been in strong contrast +with the health of those in other boarding-houses, even in the best +dormitories of the best factories in other cities. + +Statistics recently compiled by the government show that the average +death-rate among factory operatives throughout the country is +extraordinarily high. The highest, fifty per cent. on account of an +epidemic, was reported from a certain factory owned and managed +boarding-house in Niigata prefecture. Not one girl has ever died in our +Home. Of the 301 girls who had lived in our Home by 1911, only eight, +all told, died. + +In 1912 the Home passed through a crisis that threatened to destroy it. +Late in 1911 the one factory in Matsuyama, where all the girls worked, +was sold out to parties living in Osaka. A new manager was sent down who +introduced many drastic changes. The change most affecting us was the +stopping of the night work and the lengthening of day work to fourteen +hours: namely, from 6 A.M. till 8 P.M. + +The girls in the Home soon became dissatisfied, and not many months +passed before all had left the factory. Mr. Omoto was urged by the +manager to find and bring in new girls. He refused however on the ground +that he could not ask anybody to work such brutally long hours. + +Had it not been for a little weaving department with which we had +already been experimenting, the Home would have been compelled to close. +More looms were secured and those girls who wished to remain with us +were given opportunity for work. Mr. Omoto's attention was at that time +directed to the condition of the weaving girls in the scores and even +hundreds of little establishments in the city and its suburbs. He soon +found that an educational, economic, moral, and religious condition +existed among them not unlike that which he had found among the factory +girls of Matsuyama a dozen years before. The weaving establishments are, +as a rule, small private affairs, usually having less than ten girls +each, and are therefore wholly outside of the supervision of the +government. The treatment of workers and the hours of labor are entirely +settled by the individual owners. + +As a rule the girls are apprenticed for from two to three years +immediately on leaving the primary school, at an age therefore of twelve +or thirteen. They barely earn their living, although they work from +daybreak to ten or eleven at night, and in some establishments even till +midnight--from fifteen to eighteen hours a day! There are no night +shifts and rare holidays on occasional festivals. The hygienic and moral +conditions are about as bad as can be. It is estimated that one half of +the girls are ruined before the close of their apprenticeship. Our Home +is now deliberately attacking the new problem, which in many respects is +more difficult than was the old one. We have put up two small buildings +on our own grounds, enabling us to have thirty looms to give opportunity +for work to thirty girls. + +The uniform quality of the cloth produced by our girls, the central +portions of each piece equaling the ends in quality, shows unflagging +moral attention, without effort to rush the work and stint the material; +this has already won such approval from merchants that the "Sympathy +Home" brand can be sold for a little more than other brands, and Mr. +Omoto is assured that there is no limit to the amount which could be +marketed. + +An owner of several weaving establishments has become so impressed with +the quality of the work and the character developed in our girls that +he asked Mr. Omoto if he would not take charge of a hundred of his +weaving girls. This new departure is especially promising, for we have +complete supervision of the girls throughout the entire twenty-four +hours. The girls, moreover, are already remaining in our Home as a rule +much longer than they used to when getting work in the spinning factory. + +As successive chapters of this book have shown, no more urgent problem +faces New Japan than that of the moral development of her workers. This +is particularly true of the hundreds of thousands of girls in the larger +and smaller factories and industrial establishments. The wretched +physical, economic, social, and moral conditions under which the +majority of these girls lived and worked at the time when our Home was +started are not easily described. + +Many of the factory authorities[12] are neither ignorant nor unmindful +of the situation, and are striving to remedy it. The government also has +enacted laws not a few. But laws and official actions alone provide no +adequate solution of the serious problems raised by the extraordinary +industrial and social transformations sweeping over Japan. A new spirit +must be evoked, both on the part of capital and labor, and new moral +ideals and relations established. This cannot be done by laws alone. +Only love and contagious personal example are sufficient for the needs. + + [12] It is not to be inferred from the statements in this book + that the political leaders and the organizers of + industrial Japan have been dependent on our Home for + ideas and ideals in regard to the problems raised by + modern industry. Many of those leaders are men of + cosmopolitan education and are well versed in the best + and most recent of literature of the West on these + matters. It is true, however, that our Home has been an + important concrete experiment affording in Japan + valuable suggestions and stimulus. + +Our Home was designed to meet just such a situation and has to a +remarkable degree, we think, succeeded. It has provided not only +sufficient fresh air, nourishing food, adequate bedding, clean rooms, +and wholesome recreation, but also moral and religious instruction, and +some education. The girls in our Home have enjoyed conspicuously better +health and have done better work and earned and sent to their parents +more money than those of the other boarding-houses of Matsuyama. But +better than these have been the educational, moral, and religious +results. Their womanhood has been raised. They have been better fitted +for life's duties and for motherhood than they would have been without +the training which has been given them. + +Moreover, the results of the Home have been such as to break down +opposition. The good-will and cooperation of the factory officials were +won. Factories in other parts of the country also have recognized our +Home as presenting a splendid ideal which, in a measure, many of them +are already following. The local and the central governments, as already +shown, have repeatedly sent officials to inspect us, and in their +reports have not only praised us, but have described our Home in detail, +saying that we have solved the difficult problem of how to care for +factory hands. + +Through the Home we are reaching the lowest strata of the working +classes of Japan, and are providing them with ideals, motives, and +education, and in a way, too, which does not tend to pauperize them, for +each girl pays as board a sum sufficient to cover actual living +expenses. It is also exerting an influence on the townsfolk. The +attitude of the people toward Christianity has undergone a marked +change. Villages in the interior likewise have altered their attitude on +seeing how their daughters, graduates of our Home, have improved both in +intelligence and character, in marked contrast to those who have been in +other boarding-houses. All in all, Mr. Omoto has attained remarkable +success. He is absorbed, heart and soul, in his work of bettering the +moral and religious conditions of the working girls of Japan, and is a +man continuously growing in spiritual life, Christian character, and +knowledge of men. I have never known a man more thoroughly converted or +more enthusiastic in his chosen field of work. The Omoto of to-day is a +different person from the reformed debauchee of thirteen years ago, who +began this service for factory girls as the outcome of his sincere +question, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" His family have become +possessed with the idea of social service, and his five children are +being brought up in this atmosphere and in the fear of the Lord. + +Thus has the Matsuyama Working Girls' Home survived many threatening +vicissitudes, attained conspicuous successes, and is now embarked on a +new line of endeavor. May it exceed in the future its successes of the +past and make still more substantial contributions to the uplift of the +working women of Japan! + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + +Text in small capitals was replaced with ALL UPPER CASE. + +The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next the text they illustrate. +Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page +number in the List of Illustrations. + +Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not +corrected except for the following: + +On page 111, the book mentions "among the forty-eight prefectures +of the Japanese empire", but there were forty-seven prefectures +since 1888. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKING WOMEN OF JAPAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 35511.txt or 35511.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/5/5/1/35511 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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