Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1904-11-17


children's Fairgrounds. Besides, I'M
til quite recently, Japan was a ma
ton at play. nation where you
could see grown-ups as well as chill
dren taking part in what we choose
to call childish games. During this
great Eastern war | wonder IL Jap
anese men and women have put
away their long-tailed kites and sew
en-tailed gold fishes and historical
dolls, and have ceased to hunt lost
souls in fireflies. | doubt it, for it
has been the lifelong prayer and ad-
vice of every Japanese parent for
endless generations that their chill
dren, when they have reached the
estate of men and women, should re-
tain their child's hearts.
When you meet grown-up person
who has kept his or her child
heart, you cannot help loving them.
That is why you cannot help loving
Japan, for the whole nation has kept
its child's heart.
Childhood certainly is the Golden
Age, In Japan, more than in any 9th.
tie land seems to have been created
on purpose to amuse and spoil chill
dren. Not that child Is ever spoilt
In that land of gentle mothers, for a
child's moral training and almost SUI
pernatural power of self-control be.
gan hundreds of years before it was
born.
When l first drove through a ma.
tive city in Japan, thought that
every other shop was a toy shop. and
| never could have believed that the
world contained SO many children.
for nothing is too young to play on
the Mikado's highway in Japan. Doll
like girls of a few years old. dressed
exactly like their little mothers. ex.
cept for their gayer clothes and fan.
tastically shaven heads, carry vel
low-faced babies of few months old
tied on their backs. while they play
ingenious games with gorgeous balls
made OF scarlet and gold silk, or
dart about on their high wooden
clogs after the falling shuttlecock
which they send bounding up again
over the tops of their paper homes
with wooden battledore decorated
on one side with the gaudily painted
head OF woman of the Yosh.wara.
But ! soon learned that the streets
were fun OF babies because the
houses were all empty. No one in
the real Japan ever saw a r.by sleep
ing in cot while it's Aher was
working. or being driven in a go-cart
They sleep with their little heads
wobbling about on their mothers oil
older sisters backs, and learn to sill
on their feet with their bent knees
under them before they can stand
end | soon began to distinguish the
real toy shops. which are more nu
nerous than in any other country in
the world, from the shops which
sold the toy-like furniture and mini
ature household utensil used for the
grownup dolls houses.
The shops of the Household Gods
for instance. with quaint white plas
ter foxes and strange goblin.like
gods and images, seemed to me de.
lightful toy shops. but when | grew
more intimate with the domestic life
OF the country | recc gnized the famil-
lar faces of the Goddess of Rice and
the Seven fat Gods OF Wealth. |
also learnt that the tiny teapots and
diminutive trays and dishes which |
saw in the pottery shops were used
in the real human houses, and
we're not toys for children.
But to see child-life in its perfec.
ton in Japan you must go to the tenn
pies. In the courts of the house of
Buddha holiday-attired children
swarm Ike hiving bees. as gorgeous