Then there are the diagonally opposed notions of patriotism that oh: tain in the country's educational institutions, At the present time there is much talk of teaching, every student military science, How this new subject came to be injected into the school curriculum is unique. The Government saw clearly that radical retrenchment! was absolutely necessary to guard the financial health of the country. Then followed tussle in all Japanese Governmer dopartments, each claiming' th were he financial pruning had better he done by the other. The Army. and Navy led in objecting to the pruning scissors being employed in their preserves. As the Army and Navy are not answerable to anyone but the Emperor direct, the Premier could do nothing with them, except to coax, cajole and compromise. Finally,' an agreement was arrived fat whereby the Army was to reduce its strength of 21 divisions on a pence footing to 17 divisions. The dismissed officers wore to be attached to the various schools of the land, to teach the growing generation: all the arts of shouldering art aiming and firing.
The students are ina quandary. On the one hand, the Education Department, of recent years, has taken extraordinary pains to impress the pupils that a new era has dawned, in which seeking a bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth is not the highest instinct of life. In come the satraps of the Army Department, who teach that the greatest thing in the world to-day is for the younger generation to be prepared to emblazon the name of Japan with victory.
The youngster. is. puzzled. The talk of "glory" is flattoringe and appealing. To finger the trigger of a rifle occasionally and to walla with the arms swinging as though on a route march, and the chest puffed forward, is not exactly distasteful to school boys. To make matters "worse, the Army officers in the schools are not answerable to the Minister of Education, but to the Minister of War, The result is that the principal of the school has no authority over them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.