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is that “Japan is a Paradise of Babies;” he might have added that it was also a very congenial abode for all who love play. The contrast between the Chinese and Japanese character in this respect is radical. It is laid down in one of the very last sentences in the Trimetrical Classic, the primer of every school in the Flowery Land, that play is unprofitable! The whole character, manners, and even the dress of the sedate and dignified Chinamen, seem to be in keeping with that aversion to rational amusement and athletic excercises that characterize that adult population.
In Japan, on the contrary, one sees that the children of a larger growth enjoy with equal zest games which are the same, or nearly the same, as those of lesser size and fewer years. Certain it is that the adults do all in their power to provide for the children their full quota of play and harmless sports. We frequently see full-grown and able-bodied natives indulging in amusements which the men of the west lay aside with their pinafores, or when their curls are cut. If we, in the conceited pride of our superior civilization, look down upon this as childish, we must remember that the Celestial, from the pinnacle of his lofty, and to him immeasurably elevated, civilization, looks down upon our manly sports with contempt, thinking it a condescension even to notice them.
A very noticeable change has passed over the Japanese people since the modern advent of foreigners, in respect to their love of amusements. Their sports are by no means as numerous or elaborate as formerly, and they do not enter into them with the enthusiasm that formerly characterized them. The children’s festivals and sports are rapidly losing their importance, and some are now rarely seen. Formerly the holidays were almost as numerous as saints’ days in the calendar. Apprentice-boys had a liberal quota of holidays stipulated in their indentures, and as the children counted the days before each great holiday on their fingers, we may believe that a great deal of digital arithemetic was being continually done. We do not know of any country in the world in which there
