The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-12-23
The MAKING OF A SOLDIER.

. The fOur-yedT-Old Ooy IL Sent Out -
. a fencing master who makes him stan'
: barefooted in the snow and strike witt
his bamboo sword until he is covered
!, with perspiratfon. The Japanese iaes
of physical development is to undergo
. hardships and take a certain amour
of physical exercise every day in tbs
4 year if an active life is desired The
q father tells the son that some day ht
\ will be called upon to fight for his
country-therefore he must live the life
/. that he will be compelled to live wher
: he joins the army. This part of his
: training means that he must live on
: The army ration. The daily diet OF
l the boy is simple and not too plentiful.
He will have rice, some vegetables,
| little dried fish. but rarely meat. The
upshot of it all is that he rarely goes
into the army unaecustomed to hard
marches and privations.
But more essential than the fine
bodily condition in which the boy finds
himself on entering the army is the
mental training which he has received
through life This training is to give
him courage and strength of soul. 1t
shocks to some extent our Occidental
ideas but no one can deny that it has
resulted in the most extraordinary ex-
ample of steadiness of nerve which
the world has ever witnessed. The
small boy is told the most horrible
ghost stories. He has inherited super
stitions far more numerous than those
of the American or English boy. Pro-
fessional story-tellers work on his
imagination amidst the most ghostly
surroundings and then he is required
to go alone in the darkness to some
graveyard and spend an hour among
one anecdote which gives an insight to
the ethical view of such performances.
There was a boy of his acquaintance
who had acquired the reputation of be-
ing somewhat girlish. His friends be-
lieved that it would require a good
deal to build up an iron stability in
this boys nerves, so they subjected
him to many ordeals. One night .heF
was required to pass by castle moat
under a thick roofing of old willows. J
This place was noted for its ghostly
manifestations. We quote the rest of
the story as follows:
ut was past midnight. Before him /
could hear the sound of rain whipping |
the thick leaves of the weeping will |
lows. All of a sudden he saw some {
thing that made him pause. Not far
from where he stood he saw a blue
flame curling up from the ground to-
ward a willow branch. For all the
world it was the ghost-fre of ten thou !
sand stories told him. He looked at IT,
motionless. Then, suddenly, out of the
willow, came white apparition. The
boy dropped his umbrella. In an in /
eyes guided by the ghost-fire the boy
attacked the apparition with his sword !!
That his older playmate, who was
playing ghost, escaped with few
slight wounds was because the older
boy happened to be such a superb
swordsman.''
Did this rencontre give the lad the
respect of his fellows? Far from it.
He was marked as a hopeless case.
AS Mr.. Kinosuke says:
But this boy who appealed to the
conclusion of the sword so hastily was
forever disgraced. Under such circum-
stances it was expected of every child
that he would certainly make a thor
ough investigation with cool nerve and
steady eyes. Nothing was considered
so disgraceful to the samurai as the
hasty appeal to the sword. Not only
was the boy disgraced, but he brought
disgrace upon the family. The one
great aim toward which the disciples
OF Yomai ever toll is to train them
selves to such an extent that nothing
would disturb the calm presence of
mind and the steadiness of nerve I'M
der circumstances however trying"
Mr.. Kinosuke says he despairs of
making the Occidental mind under
stand just how the japanese look at
death. In the Far East" he says
1--WE say that life is something that is
quite supersensual. You have never
seen life, never smelt, heard touched
it. 1t is nothing but one expression of
the eternal entity the noumena. When,
therefore, you say you have killed
man or pIucked flower. you have on
~ destroyed one expression of the
eternal entity, which you have never