while attending their classes had been solved by self-help. An
ex-scholar of twenty had managed to borrow 4,000 yen and had proceeded
to build on a hillside a dormitory accommodating thirty-six boarders.
Lads did the work of levelling the ground and digging the well. The
frugal lines on which the lodging-house was conducted by the lads
themselves may be judged from the fact that 5 yen a month covered
everything. Breakfast consisted of rice, _miso_ soup and pickles.
Cooking and the emptying of the _benjo_[138] were done by the lads in
turn. A kitchen garden was run by common effort. Among the many
notices on the walls was one giving the names of the residents who
showed up at 5 o'clock in the morning for a cold bath and fencing. I
also saw the following instruction written by the founder of the
house, which is read aloud every morning by each resident in turn:

Be independent and pure and strive to make your characters more
beautiful. Expand your thought. Help each other to accomplish your
ambitions. Be active and steady and do not lose your self-control. Be
faithful to friends and righteous and polite. Be silent and keep
order. Do not be luxurious (_sic_). Keep everything clean. Pay
attention to sanitation. Do not neglect physical exercises. Be
diligent and develop your intelligence.

The borrower of the 4,000 yen with which the institution was built
managed to pay it back within seven years with interest, out of the
subscriptions of residents and ex-residents.

An agricultural authority whom I met spoke of "farming families
living from hand to mouth and their land slipping into the possession
of landlords"; also of a fifth of the peasants in the prefecture being
tenants. A young novelist who had been wandering about the Suwa