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intended for common people, and, unlike the ‘No,’ they have never been patronized by the upper classes. It was only at a very recent date that even great actors began to attain their position in society. (As to this, I may be permitted myself to state that in the efforts for the elevation of the stage, and of the position of actors, I was able to do something useful for them by creating a widespread outcry for stage reform on my return to Japan after my previous stay in England.) Such being the case, it was no wonder that in former days much vulgarity was mingled with representations on the stage, both marionette and ordinary, and was found in the ‘Joruri-bon’ themselves; but when we make a good selection from the numerous books of this kind, we find that there are many parts which display high literary merits, and parts that may be sung by men and women of the highest classes without any shame before any audience. My wife herself is a tolerable chanter of the kind, she having first been recommended by a medical man of high reputation to make good use of her voice for the sake of her health, and this kind of singing was selected for her.

Speaking generally, however, I admit that vulgarity exists in many of them still, as I said before; but here I must make a remark which will be almost astonishing to Western readers. I mean to say that these books of dramas, these stages, and the heroic stories contained in these historical works of fiction, plus the ‘Gundan,’ a particular mode of telling tales of heroism, have had a great share in making the Japan of to-day. The gallantry of our sailors in trying to bottle up the entrance of Port Arthur, and of the soldiers who fought the battles of the Yalu, Kinchau, and Nanshan, owes a great deal of its potentiality to the influence exercised by them upon Japanese subjects at large. Of course, I do not ignore the fact that the vast influence of the serious side of our education and traditions also have made them extremely loyal and patriotic to their country and to their Emperor; but, for all that, the influence exercised by the dramatic acts, dramatic literature, and the romantic tales of heroes and heroines, can never be overlooked.

For this there is reason. In Japan the idea of the ‘encouragement of what is good, and the chastisement of what is bad,’ has always been kept in view in writing works of fiction or in preparing dramatic books and plays. I know very well that there is some opposition to this idea. They say that the writing of fiction should be viewed as an art. Hence, so long as the real nature and character are depicted, there is an end of the function of these works. I do not pretend in any way to challenge this argument, but I simply state that it was not