Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 229, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1916 — SOLDIER SPIRIT IN JAPAN [ARTICLE]

SOLDIER SPIRIT IN JAPAN

Boys Are Taught, From the Earliest Age, Every Sort of Military Drill Exercise. “The warlike spirit is Instilled into Japanese boys from mere babyhood, the first presents to them being toy Samurai, armor, etc.” So says Gonnoske Komai, a distinguished Japanese writer, now in England for the period of the war. Continuing, in the London Times, he writes of these boys: “They have their own special manlike festivities on May 5. These are enlivened by ags and by Samurai warriors, each bearing the celebrated ancient crest of the boy’s family. And in their gardens are fixed long bamboo poles, on which are hoisted carp made of cloth of paper, shimmering in gold and silver, dappled and scarlet, as symbols of warlike fortitude and readiness to endure adverse fate with the calmness of those brave fish. “These customs have been observed in Japan for centuries, and naturally we Japanese feel very proud if we have more boys than girls in our family. The festive opportunities are seized by us to make presents to our friends whenever they rejoice at the birth of a boy. “Apart from these boys’ festivities we celebrate on the " same day the great anniversary at the famous ‘Yasukunl Jinsha’ shrine in Tokio, where all the spirits of our officers, soldiers and sailors are deified and worshiped. For, as the reader may easily recall, we Japanese are great worshipers of our ancestors, to whom we really owe our present existence and who are embodied in and represented by our illustrious Mikado.” At the age of seven boys enter the elementary schools and at the completion of their six-year course, at the age of thirteen or fourteen they are entitled to enter the middle school course, during which they have to undergo the military drill exercises, the favorite national games of wrestling, fencing, and jiu jitsu all being optional. Some cannot afford to enter this course. Others go on to college and university. “At the age of twenty, whether rich or poor, high or low, priest or no priest, comes 1 the question of conscription,” says the writer, whose treatment of this subject of universal service is affected by the current discussions in England, for he says that it is not regarded by the Japanese as a heavy duty, but as a glorious privilege. < “Prior to the restoration in Japan,” he says, “military service was regarded as the honored privilege of the Samurai class and prized as such. The Samurai were our hereditary warriors and enjoyed a monopoly of all fighting. The system continued until the abolition of feudalism in the country in 1868.”. Conscription proper, he saya, was really introduced in 1872, and provided in principle for the obligatory service of all men, married and single, from eighteen to forty. But in practice the state’s right was never executed, even during the Chi-no-Japan war, In 1894-5, or in the Russian war In 1904-5. Then 1,250,000 men were mobilized in Manchuria alone. Universal service, the writer says, is individually prized by the Japanese as an opportunity to each and every one to become a Samurai and to be allowed to fight for his father and mother. “It never occurs to us,” he writes, “to call it compulsion. We regard it as a personal shame or disgrace if we are rejected through physical unfitness for the army. We do not hasten to get married before we join the army. There is no such thing as ’separation allowances,’ etc., in Japan.” But as Japanese are increasing at the rate of 750,000 a year, there frequently happens to be an enormous excess of candidates for military service and in such cases exemptions are decided by lot. Apart from this the only exemptions permitted are of only sons of aged parents more than sixty years old whose maintenance depends on them, and a number of liberal concessions made to students and those employed on special missions. The latter are allowed to postpone their term of military service until they finish their course of study.