After the drilling was over I was taken to a large elementary school and was called upon to address the young men, who were kneeling in perfect files.  Mr. Yamasaki followed me and told the youths that Japanese were not so tall as they might be, and that therefore their physique “must be continuously developed.”  Nor were rural conditions all they should be from a moral point of view.  Therefore, “every desire which interferes with the development of your health or morality must be overcome.”

Let me speak of another village.  It numbers a thousand families and it rises in the morning and goes to bed at night by the sound of the bugle.  It has five public baths and a notice-board of news “to enlarge people’s ideas.”  The shopkeepers are said to “work very diligently, so things are cheaper.”  The education of such of the young men as are exempted from military service is continued on Saturday evenings for four years.  The Y.M.A., in addition to the military discipline, fencing, wrestling, weight-lifting and pole-twisting of which I have spoken, exercises itself in handwriting—­which many Japanese practise as an art during their whole lifetime—­and in composing the conventional short poem.  I was gravely informed that “the custom of spending money on sweet-stuff is decreasing.”  What this really means is that the young men were not frequenting the sweet-stuff shops, which are staffed by girls who are in many cases a greater temptation than the sweets.  The worthy members of this association had “burnt their geta.”

In some places Y.M.A. members give their labour when a school teacher or a fellow member is building his house, or they do repairs at the school.  Bicycle excursions are made to neighbouring villages in order to participate in inter-Y.M.A. debates, or to study vegetable raising, fruit culture or poultry keeping.  The Japanese are much given to “taking trips,” and the special training which they receive at school in making notes and plans results in everybody having a notebook and being able to sketch a rough route-plan for personal use, or for a stranger who may ask his way.

Not a few associations favour members cutting each other’s hair once a fortnight, thus at one and the same time saving money and curbing vanity.  Several Y.M.A.s publish cyclostyled monthlies.  Others minutely investigate the economic condition of their villages.  Some Y.M.A.s provide public “complaint boxes,” and have boards up asking for friendly help for soldiers billeted in the district.  One association has issued instructions to its members that they are not to ride when in charge of ox-drawn carts.  The reason is that the ox is only partially under control and may injure a pedestrian—­unwittingly, I am sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness arrests one’s attention.  Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land.  Sometimes the land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated.  I have heard of Y.M.A.s in remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of sake.