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olden times, we can fairly believe that they were as well educated as men were, although there were not existing any institutions of instruction for women.

This was the springtime of Japanese womanhood, when it blossomed undisturbed, and exerted a strong and beneficial influence on the life of Old Japan. The introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism, however, began to create great changes in the position of women. And yet so powerful were women in Society when these two religions came to Japan that their rapid spread in our country was due to the earnest endeavours of women. The pioneers of Japanese Buddhism were women, and the honour of being sent to India for further investigation of the religion fell upon three women—Jenshinni, Jenzoni, and Keizenni. Not only in religious, but also in political and literary, life, women played a remarkable part for many years after the introduction of Buddhism and Confucianism. Many of the greatest of the old Japanese classics were produced by women of this age. Active and influential in Society as women continued to be for a considerable length of time after the coming in of Buddhism and Confucianism, yet the influence of these religions manifested itself in the gradual lowering of woman’s position to one of comparative insignificance.

This state of things was strongly marked in the feudal age. The social environment of the age and the prevalence of Buddhism and Confucianism worked hand in hand to bring about the subjection of women. This was still more the case when the Tokugawa Government came into power. Orders and classes of Society were rigidly formed. Women were entirely submerged and their activities were never allowed to go even one step outside the household. If there was any education for women at that time, it was only in the line of woman’s etiquette—sewing, weaving, cooking, the art of tea-service and of flower-arrangement, besides some elementary lessons in writing and reading. Their intellectual education was wholly neglected. As to their moral education, the famous doctrine of the three obediences for girls—unconditional obedience to parents when young, obedience to husbands when married, and obedience to children when old—was daily taught and strongly emphasized. Thus women were put under trying conditions, and had apparently no hope of emancipation. This was, indeed, the winter-time of Japanese womanhood, when her life seemed almost crushed under the cold ground of an oppressive social system.

With the introduction of Western civilization, another spring season for women dawned, and the life and powers which had been so long suppressed in them began to come forth. Just as the spring sun breaks the ground and causes the seed of a