trouble. There is nothing to prevent him. Poverty is not an
obstacle, but a stimulus. Impedimenta he has none, or only such
as he can dispose of in a few minutes. Distances have no
significance for him. Nature has given him perfect feet that can
spring him over fifty miles a day without pain; a stomach whose
chemistry can extract ample nourishment from food on which no
European could live; and a constitution that scorns heat, cold,
and damp alike, because still unimpaired by unhealthy clothing,
by superfluous comforts, by the habit of seeking warmth from
grates and stoves, and by the habit of wearing leather shoes.

It seems to me that the character of our footgear signifies more
than is commonly supposed. The footgear represents in itself a
check upon individual freedom. It signifies this even in
costliness; but in form it signifies infinitely more. It has
distorted the Western foot out of the original shape, and
rendered it incapable of the work for which it was evolved. The
physical results are not limited to the foot. Whatever acts as a
check, directly or indirectly, upon the organs of locomotion must
extend its effects to the whole physical constitution. Does the
evil stop even there? Perhaps we submit to conventions the most
absurd of any existing in any civilization because we have too
long submitted to the tyranny of shoemakers. There may be defects
in our politics, in our social ethics, in our religious system,
more or less related to the habit of wearing leather shoes.
Submission to the cramping of the body must certainly aid in
developing submission to the cramping of the mind.

The Japanese man of the people--the skilled laborer able to
underbid without effort any Western artisan in the same line of