Early in the day they had their cold bath, which was itself a break
with Japanese custom, for, though most Japanese have a nightly hot
bath, they are content with a basin wash in the morning. Then the boys
"cleaned school." Next they were marched up one by one to a mirror and
required to take a good look at themselves, in order, no doubt, to see
just how bad they were. After this they were called on to "give thanks
to the Emperor and their ancestors." Finally came a half-hour lecture
on "morality." It was considered that by this time the boys were
entitled to their breakfast. For open-air labour they were sent to the
experiment station, but they had manual work also in their own school,
where, among other things, they "made useful things out of waste," the
income from which went to their families. On Sundays the master,
though he must be nearer sixty than fifty, fenced with every one of
the thirty boys in turn--no ordinary task, for Japanese fencing calls
not only for an eye and a hand, but for a muscular back. Some
wholesome-looking young fellows, members of a young men's association,
served as volunteer masters and lived in the bare fashion that was so
good for the boys.

The director did not believe that bad boys were hopeless. He said that
not only the boys but their parents were better for the work done in
"The Garden where Virtues are Cultivated." He seemed to have become a
sort of consulting expert to primary school-masters who were at a loss
to know how to manage bad boys. Chastisement, as is well known, is
unusual in Japanese schools. The director of the human _hortus
inclusus_ confessed to me that though two of his boys whom he had
caught fighting might not have been separated without, in the Western
phrase, "feeling the weight of his hand," his heaviest punishment on
other difficult occasions was the moxa.