G.  “As to uncomeliness there are several Japanese types.  The refined type is surely attractive.  If many Japanese noses seem to be too short, foreigners’ noses seem to us to be too long.  The results of intermarriage between Western people and Japanese who are of equal social and educational status and of good physique should be closely watched.”

H.  “In our schools an hour or two a week is reserved for culture, but the true spirit of culture is lacking.  The Imperial Rescript on education is very good moral doctrine, but the real life’s aim of many of us is to be well off, to have an automobile, to become a Baron or to extend the Empire.  We do not ask ourselves, ‘For what reason?’”

I.  “I conduct certain classes which the clerks of my bank must attend.  The teaching I give is based on Confucian, Christian and Buddhist principles.  I try to make the young men more manful.  I constantly urge upon them that ‘you must be a man before you can be a clerk.’”

J. (a septuagenarian ex-daimyo):  “Confucianism is the basis of my life, but twice a month I serve at my Shinto shrine and I conduct a Buddhist service in my house morning and evening.  It is necessary to make the profession that Buddha saves us.  I do not believe in paradise.  It is paradise if when I die I have a peaceful mind due to a feeling that I have done my duty in life and that my sons are not bad men.  Unless I am peaceful on my deathbed I cannot perish but must struggle on.  Therefore my sons must be good.  I myself strove to be filial and I have always said to my sons, ’Fathers may not be fathers but sons must be sons.’”

K. (the preceding speaker’s son expressing his opinion on another occasion):  “My father as a Confucian is kind to people negatively.  We want to be kind positively because it is right to be kind.  As to filial obedience, even fathers may err; we are righteous if we are right.  My father is a Shintoist because it is our national custom.  He wants to respect his ancestors in a wide sense and he desires that Japan, his family and his crops may be protected.”

L.  “I wish foreigners had a juster idea about ‘idols’.  There is a difference between frequenters of the temples believing the figures to be holy and believing them to be gods.  Every morning my mother serves before her shrine of Buddha but she does not believe our Buddha to be God.  She would not soil or irreverently handle our Buddha, but it is only holy as a symbol, as an image of a holy being.  My mother has said to me, ’Buddha is our father.  He looks after us always; I cannot but thank him.  If there be after life Buddha will lead me to Paradise.  There is no reason to beg a favour.’  My mother is composed and peaceful.  All through her life she has met calamities and troubles serenely.  I admire her very much.  She is a good example of how Buddha’s influence makes one peaceful and spiritual.  But such religious experience may not be grasped from the outside by foreigners.”