Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/279

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Our Imperial Ancestors have founded our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly implanted virtue. Our subjects, ever united in loyalty and filial piety, have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and herein also lies the source of Our education. Ye, our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters, as husbands and wives be harmonious, as friends true; brothers, bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore, advance public good and promote common interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. So shall ye not only be Our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers.

The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by their Descendants and the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all reverence in common with you, Our subjects, that we may all thus attain to the same virtue.

There are between 200 and 300 kindergartens, public and private, in Japan; and they are conducted, so far as outward forms are concerned, very much as in America and Europe. The common means of training are games, singing, conversation, and handiwork. But the Christian kindergartens