on the third day of the third moon and all the boys celebrate theirs on the fifth day of the fifth moon, regardless of the actual days on which they may have been born.  With regard to this understanding of the significance of the festival, I have asked a large number of Japanese, not one of whom had ever heard of such an idea.  Each one has insisted that individual birthdays are celebrated regardless of these general festivals; the ages of children are never computed from these festivals; they have nothing whatever to do with the ages of the children.[CK]

The report of the discussions of the Japanese Society of Comparative Religion contains quite a minute statement of all the facts known as to these festivals, much too long in this connection, but among them there is not the slightest reference to the birthday feature attributed to them by Mr. Lowell.[CL]

Mr. Lowell likewise invents another fact in support of his theory by his interpretation of the Japanese method of computing ages.  Speaking of the advent of an infant into the home he says, that “from the moment he makes his appearance he is spoken of as a year old, and this same age he continues to be considered in most simple cases of calculation, till the beginning of the next calendar year.  When that epoch of general rejoicing arrives, he is credited with another year himself.  So is everybody else.  New Year’s day is a common birthday for the community, a sort of impersonal anniversary for his whole world.”  Now this is a very entertaining conceit, but it will hardly pass muster as a serious argument with one who has any real understanding of Japanese ideas on the subject.  The simple fact is that the Japanese does not ordinarily tell you how old the child is, but only in how many year periods he has lived.  Though born December 31, on January 1 he has undoubtedly lived in two different year periods.  This method of counting, however, is not confined to the counting of ages, but it characterizes all their counting.  If you ask a man how many days before a certain festival near at hand he will say ten where we would say but nine.  In other words, in counting periods the Japanese count all, including both the first and the last, whereas we omit the first.  This as a custom is an interesting psychological problem, but it has not the remotest connection with “personality” or “impersonality.”  Furthermore, the Japanese have another method of signifying the age of a child which corresponds exactly to ours.  You have but to ask what is the “full” age of a child to receive a statement which satisfies our ideas of the problem.  The idea of calling New Year’s day a great “impersonal” birthday because forsooth all the members of the community and the nation then enter on a new year period, and of using that as an argument for the “impersonality” of the whole race, is as interesting as it is inconclusive.