It Is Not a High Without a Low._ The first line is a play on words. I have said elsewhere that the Japanese often seem to say that nothing is very good, or very bad, without something equally so. I was just thinking that it would be like them to say that nothing is good, or bad, without something equally bad, or good. At least this is a way of looking at the matter. They always seem to see something at a disadvantage. Some people think that it is mere affectation. Well, I suppose it may be in some cases, but I am inclined to think that it is real, genuine feeling. Some one was telling me the other day that Japanese was not so difficult a language to learn as it used to be. Of course, the Japanese of our generation have had a longer time to learn it, and the children of foreign professors have been among the first learners. My informant himself was originally a Russian scholar from Petersburg. What do you think that he said he thought the most trying thing about the language was? What? That you have to make almost as many different kinds of sounds as you have letters to tell what you want to say. He had no trouble with the sounds, but he said the thing that bothered him was having to use so many different kinds of letters. However, I have not yet had enough time with the language to make up my mind. I am only just now beginning. In spite of all the difficulties I should say that I thought there were about five or six classes in which it is quite as easy as any other language. After one is through the alphabet there is no more trouble. _A Question of Pronunciation._ A question as to the method of pronunciation--should one make the consonants in every word, or only those that would stand for sounds in Japanese? Or should one make all of the consonants when each syllable is read, or when the word is spoken? One or two good friends have kindly told me their opinions on this question, and, although I am far from a Japanese scholar, I have thought of the matter. I think I shall go the way of the English; that is, make every consonant in every syllable, because it is more Japanese, in my opinion, and does not sound so strange as the one that is supposed to be the correct way. However, I think that most of the native teachers I have been told about do the thing that the English do--read and pronounce all the consonants. In that case we can never hope to use Japanese in Japan. But I am told that all foreign people pronounce everything alike, and as they do not care for distinction. To this some one replied that foreigners are foreigners, and they have a right to go wrong. It is a matter of taste. I shall follow the common custom of foreigners in Japan which is not to pronounce the consonants in every syllable. In Japanese that would not do. The reason is, I suppose, because the consonants do not stand for sounds, but some other letters take their place. That is why the difference in pronunciation does not make any difference in the word. I know that some one in speaking to you is speaking, and not just trying to say a certain letter. In the same way the Japanese do not take the trouble to spell what they want to say because their letters stand for other letters. I expect that they pronounce the consonants as they do because it is better to be like the Japanese, who say, "We pronounce like this because this is our way." So it is, by the way, with the use of the comma. The Japanese never use a comma, and that is because theirs is a little different from ours. _The Japanese Name._ There are two different ways of saying names in Japan. Sometimes the name is said without an accent on any of the syllables, as A-ri-ka. This is the first way. Sometimes the whole name is accented, as Ara-kio-no-Kazuma. This is the second way. Why the difference? It is an American question. The native Japanese themselves do not seem to know. You might as well ask why some call a house a "house" and others call it a "shanty." Each man makes up his own way, and never inquires how it has been done before. I suppose the native Japanese think that this accenting of syllables makes the name more interesting and attractive. It gives it more of an Oriental look. I am quite sure that foreigner, too, find it more interesting that way. _Difference in Direction._ When I wrote the other day that if the Japanese were to come to America we would understand that they are different from us, but they would not understand that we are different from the Chinese, I forgot that the Chinese and Japanese were on exactly opposite sides of the big island of Japan. It is a great pity that there is not a big piece of land on which the two could meet and understand each other. You can see in your geography books the difference in direction. The Japanese way is the left hand way, the Chinese way is the right hand way. The same as a change of direction between countries is a change in time. For instance, when you are coming home and you cross the Hudson River the tide is coming in. That is, time and tide go up the river. When they are going down they have not left New York. In Japan it is the same. In Japan the sun goes down about 7:30 in the evening. The sun has gone down in New York more than three hours, and we are yet about five hours from the time that it goes down in Japan. It is five hours different in time. The Japanese way is by day; our way is by night, and as there is no day and no night in Japan, they do not understand that we have either the day or the night. In New York we say that we shall see a night as soon as the sun goes down. In Japan they have no use for such expressions. They would not know what we mean when we say that the night is just coming. That is one of the things that we cannot make them understand, but I suppose they know what we mean when we say we shall be in Japan before the sun goes down. I am afraid there are not many Japanese in New York, but there is a little circle that are more like us, because the Japanese that one hears are not generally able to speak our language. _Rising and Falling._ In Japan they rise in the morning, and lie down again when the sun goes down. If you want to know the time you ask, "How many hours have passed since the sun went down?" The answer is, "About seven." You cannot count the seven hours for the Japanese have no names for hours. It is a part of the mystery of their religion. In Europe we say the day is gone. But it is not as difficult for a foreigner to learn as it might seem, if you try to understand it. In our New York Sunday School they had a Japanese girl to instruct the children in the study of the language. They did not expect to learn much, but they succeeded so well that I do not think that any of us knew that she had anything foreign about her. The children of foreigners, however, have a very good deal to say about the difficulty of being able to learn the Japanese language. One boy was in the class. He was an American by birth, but his father was a foreigner. He explained that the fact of his father's birth having been in America seemed to be the only thing that saved him. Otherwise he said he would never have known that he had anything foreign about him. He said that as it was, some one gave him once a piece of toast that had been put on the stove before being toasted. "For that reason," he said, "I know that the Americans had been there before the Russians." His teacher seemed to be a good deal puzzled. Perhaps she had never heard of toast on the stove before, but she said it would be possible that some one who had been abroad could see that there was no reason why the toast should be black. For her part she knew enough to be able to converse with the children, and she was well understood by them. But she could not help being amused at some of the things that they said about America. It will take a long time to make it possible for Americans to speak Japanese, and, in the meantime, they will have a hard time. One boy told us that the Japanese and Chinese could not understand each other unless one used the language spoken by the other, and so no other languages would ever be used. So that he thought that the Japanese and Chinese language would go out, and English alone would be used between all foreign countries, and perhaps all the little towns might go back to square-head English again. It is much more difficult to tell what they would be able to say than to make them understand what you are talking about. One of