Page:Japanese Physical Training (Hancock).djvu/93

 Rh , with the constant application of its cardinal principles of good nature, has made the Japanese people the calmest, coolest, happiest, bravest, and strongest people in the world.

One who has seen and has compared the Tagalogs of the Philippine Islands with the purely-bred Japanese realises at once that both peoples came from the same parent stock. Yet there is all the difference in the world between them. The Filipino does not exercise, does not obey any of the rules of hygiene, and is nervous and irritable. The average Filipino is treacherous, and, while he will fight when there seems a good chance of victory, he is easily discouraged. The Japanese, born of the same racial mother of antiquity, has developed, through the part of jiu-jitsu training that is devoted to the cultivation of good nature, a calmness that makes him all but a phenomenal man.

In the semi-historical legends of ancient Japan it is told that a daimio, or prince, was sorely oppressed in battle. With some two thousand surviving followers—every man of them a member of the staunch, brave old