We saw “buckwheat in full bloom as white as snow,” as the Chinese poem says.  At a farmhouse there was a box fixed on a barn wall.  It was for communications for the police from persons who desired to make their suggestions for the public welfare privately.

Towards evening, when we had done about twenty miles, I managed to twist an ankle.  Happily I had the chance of a ride.  It was on the back of a dour-looking mare which was accompanied by her foal and tied by a halter to the saddle of a led pack-horse which was carrying two large boxes.  Thus impressively I did several miles in descending darkness and across the rocky beds of two rivers.  The horse of this district is a downcast-looking animal in spite of the fact that it is stalled under the same roof as its owner and is thus able to share to some extent in his family life.

At the town at which we at last arrived, the comfort of the hot bath was enhanced by a sturdy lass of the inn who unasked and unannounced came and applied herself resolutely to scrubbing and knuckling our backs.

The next day I went to the principal school.  There were in the place three primary schools, one with a branch for agricultural work.  The “attendance” at the principal school, where there were 379 boys and girls, was 98 per cent, for the boys and 94 per cent, for the girls.[115] The buildings were most creditable to a small place fifty miles from a railway station.  The community had met the whole cost out of its official funds and by subscriptions.  More than half the expenditure of many a village is on education, which in Japan is compulsory but not free.  One cannot but be impressed by the pride which is taken in the local schools.  The dominating man-made feature of the landscape is less frequently than might be supposed a temple or a shrine:  where the picture which catches the eye is not the vast expanse of the crops of the plain or the marvels of terracing for hill crops, it is the long, low school building, set almost invariably on the best possible site.  The poorly paid men and women teachers are earnest and devoted, and their influence must be far-reaching.  They are rewarded in part, no doubt, by the respect which pupils and the general public give to the sensei (teacher).[116] At the school I visited, the children, as is customary, swept and washed out the schoolrooms and kept the playground trim.  Above one teacher’s desk were the following admonitions: 

        Be obedient. 
        Be decent. 
        Be active. 
        Be social. 
        Be serious.

“Be serious"!—­graver small folk sit in no schools in the world.  Here, as usual, corporal punishment was never given.  I suggested to teachers all sorts of juvenile delinquencies, but their faith in the sufficiency of reprimands, of “standing out” and of detention after school hours was unshaken.

A new wing, a beautiful piece of carpenter’s work, had cost 4,000 yen, a large sum in Japan, where wood and village labour are equally cheap.  It was to be used chiefly for the gymnastics which are steadily adding to the stature of the Japanese people.  At one end there was an opening, about 20 ft. across and 5 ft. deep, designed as an honourable place for the portraits of the Emperor and Empress, which are solemnly exposed to view on Imperial birthdays[117].