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A MESSAGE FROM THE SMITHS 
 
 OR 
 
 TEACHING IN THE GOVERNMENT 
 SCHOOLS OF JAPAN 
 
 —BY— 
 
 P. A. Smith, U. of I., ’01 
 Hiroshima, Japan 
 
 AND 
 
 Roy Smith, U. of I., ’02 
 Chofu, Japan 
 
 WITH PERSONAL LETTERS USED AS 
 INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE 
 
 Young Men’s Christian Association 
 
 OF THE UnIYHRSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 — 1 90 4 — 
 
PRESENTED 
 To the college friends of the 
 Smiths and to others who are 
 interested in their work. 
 
 3 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 (/} PersonaI Letter) 
 
 Chofu, Nagato, Japan, 
 April 7, 1904. 
 
 Dear Conard: 
 
 We have both been writing - more or less, 
 ever since we have been here, about our work 
 and its opportunities, but there are, just 
 now, three or four especial reasons why 
 we want to make this joint effort to bring - the 
 field of the government teacher in Japan be¬ 
 fore the men of the University of Illinois. 
 
 In the first place, we have been here long 
 enough to realize the opportunities and the 
 needs of this field. We have worked in it 
 ourselves and feel that we are now, perhaps, 
 better able to judge of these things than even 
 the Association Secretaries who have the 
 work in charge. The need of such teachers 
 is felt all over the country, both by the mis¬ 
 sionaries and by the Japanese themselves. 
 The very fact that the educational officials 
 have asked the Young Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
 ciation to furnish them with foreign teachers, 
 
 5 
 
preferably Americans, shows that the lives 
 which the Christian men live is appreciated 
 by the Japanese, even though they themselves 
 may not be Christians. In most cases, the 
 officials have said that they prefer Christian 
 men. The missionaries testify to the value 
 of the life of a Christian layman .among the 
 students, and in some cases have even taken 
 the positions themselves for a time in order to 
 get a hold on the students and to hold the 
 positions until Christian men could be se¬ 
 cured, rather than to have the places filled by 
 men not active in Christian work. 
 
 Just at the present time there seems to be 
 a very pressing need for more men. Fisher, 
 the International Y. M. C. A. Secretary who 
 has had charge of this work, told us the other 
 day that six new men were wanted before next 
 September, some of them very soon. If the 
 men do not come this summer, some of these 
 positions will probably be filled by other men, 
 whose lives will be anything but a help to the 
 students under them, and not only not a help, 
 but a decided hindrance to the Christian work 
 in the community. 
 
 Lastly, we feel that back at the old Univer¬ 
 sity of Illinois there must be some men of abil¬ 
 ity and strength to whom this work would 
 appeal very strongly if they only knew more 
 of it and of the immediate need for men. 
 Just now men are deciding their next year’s 
 work, and we want to present this phase of 
 it to them. Moreover, G. M. Fisher is to 
 start for the United States on his furlough, 
 April sixteenth, and will be within far more 
 
 6 
 
easy reach than when here in Japan, and 
 can tell much more definitely of the work 
 than any man who has never been here. 
 
 Our hope in writing - this is that it may help 
 to bring this work before the men in such a 
 way that some of them shall decide to take it 
 up either immediately, or in the future, and 
 help to supply this pressing need for more 
 men, strong men, Christian men, that is so 
 evident to all of us here. 
 
 The opportunities for Christian work in the 
 government schools can hardly be overes¬ 
 timated. First of all, one’s work is among 
 students; and in Japan, even more than in 
 America, the students are the men who are 
 influencing the nation. Out of these govern¬ 
 ment schools are coming the men who are 
 taking the lead in the Japanese army and 
 navy, in political circles and in business. 
 And then a teacher has a prestige, not only 
 among the students and teachers, but among 
 all the Japanese people that few missionaries 
 have. He comes as a teacher of English in 
 the employ of the government, and not as a 
 teacher of a foreign religion. The opportu¬ 
 nity for doing direct Christian work is large. 
 The members in Bible classes are sometimes 
 not large*; but the men who attend are usual- 
 
 *“I have just come home from my Bible class—I had thir¬ 
 ty-two at the class, which is about the usual number.” 
 —From letter of November 25, 1903, from P. A. S. 
 
 Soon after Roy began his work he bad three Bible 
 classes, one among the teachers, one among the stu¬ 
 dents, and one in the Presbterian mission. 
 
 ”Our men now teach the Bible in their homes to 
 over 300 men a week. "—From letter of December 1,1903, 
 from Galen M. Fisher. 
 
 7 
 
ly the best students. Even though a large 
 number of them begin the study, perhaps en¬ 
 tirely, for the sake of the English, yet many 
 of them soon become interested in Christian¬ 
 ity itself, and often become active Christians. 
 
 These positions are open now. A man can 
 begin the work as soon as he reaches Japan. 
 Is there not some one ready to come? 
 
 Yours in His service, 
 
 P. A. Smith, 
 Roy Smith. 
 
DETAILS IN REGARD TO THE POSI¬ 
 TIONS OF GOVERNMENT TEACH¬ 
 ERS IN THE SCHOOLS OF JAPAN 
 
 First, as to the work itself, primarily, of 
 course, it is the teaching - of the English lan¬ 
 guage in much the same way that Latin, 
 French, and German are taught in our Ameri¬ 
 can schools, except that all the teaching - is 
 done in the language taught. Conversation, 
 Composition, and Reading are the principal 
 subjects, though Grammar is sometimes asked 
 for, and a good knowledge of English Gram¬ 
 mar is absolutely essential. The range of 
 the Composition work is from the very sim¬ 
 plest sentences such as we begin with in our 
 German Composition work, to the best of the 
 samples sent with this*. There must be, in 
 the higher circles, some acquaintance with 
 literature and a knowledge of the technicali¬ 
 ties of Rhetoric and Composition. There is 
 much need also for a careful knowledge of 
 the manner in which the sounds of the En- 
 
 *See Appendix II. 
 
 9 
 
glish language are produced, as the Japan¬ 
 ese is so meagre in its number of sounds,and 
 those which it has are often far different from 
 ours. The student must often be taught 
 how to produce a sound, not simply by giving 
 the sound yourself, but by teaching him how 
 to use his tongue, lips, and throat in the pro¬ 
 per manner. 
 
 The financial side of the question shows 
 but few advantages or disadvantages. The 
 expenses of getting here must be borne by the 
 man himself, except from Yokohama to his 
 place of work. The salaries range from 
 $900 to $1,200 per year. The expense of liv¬ 
 ing is about $40 per month, for a single man, 
 and $80 to $90 per month for a married man. 
 There is, therefore, no special advantage in 
 this line, though a man can live very comfort¬ 
 ably on the money offered. A man must al¬ 
 so take into consideration the fact that he 
 must be somewhat more careful here and 
 should not run on so small a margin as at 
 home, as he is a long way from his friends 
 and any large financial assistance. On the 
 other hand, one can have more conveniences, 
 of such kinds as are obtainable, than on the 
 same salary at home. Labor is cheap, tho 
 not so skilled as American labor. 
 
 The religious or Christian phase of this 
 work varies more than any other. One of the 
 greatest features of this is the prestige which 
 a teacher enjoys. His life before the student 
 counts for much in teaching them that not all 
 foreigners, who are not missionaries, are a 
 dissolute lot. The lives of some of the worse 
 
 10 
 
than heathen foreigners here do much to hin¬ 
 der Cl ristianuy, and the life of the Christian 
 teacher can do much to counteract this. 
 The principal of one school who had a foreign 
 teacher of the wrong kind, when he got rid of 
 him, said that he would never hire another 
 foreign teacher unless he was a Christian. 
 
 The active or aggressive kind of work is 
 about the same as at home,—Bible classes and 
 personal work, with an occasional chance, 
 in some places, to speak at men’s meetings 
 in English, or to speak at general religious 
 meetings through an interpreter. These 
 opportunities develop as fast as a man can 
 take care of them, inmost cases. Some of the 
 men use interpreters in their Bible classes, 
 and some do not, depending upon the cir¬ 
 cumstances of the individual case. The 
 personal work is done among the men in the 
 Bible classes*, and the men who come to 
 the house to learn English and to find 
 out about foreign customs. These men may 
 be either students or teachers, if the man 
 wishes to try both. As at home, the personal 
 work is the most fruitful branch of the work 
 in its direct results, f 
 
 Never let any man say that this work is not 
 missionary work. The Christian English 
 teacher is, in general, reaching a class of 
 
 ♦•‘Every little while a new man shows up, and wants to 
 learn more of Christianity and wants to become a 
 Christian. It is inspiring to think of the depths of 
 spiritual ignorance from which these men are climbing. 
 We teach, and talk, and God moves the hearts of the 
 men.” From letter of January 8, 1904, from P. A. S. 
 
 fSee Appendix I. 
 
 11 
 
men whom the missionary cannot reach:}:, and 
 who are to be the leading - men of the r coming 
 generation. The opportunity is as large as 
 the man can make it, for there is, in most 
 cases, almost no restriction put upon reli¬ 
 gious teaching. The indirect influence of the 
 teacher is the same as it is at home, except 
 that it is larger, as the foreign teacher is a 
 more marked man than in America. 
 
 Among the advantages to the individual 
 may be counted the pleasure of seeing the 
 country. Few countries in the world can 
 boast of finer scenery than Japan, or of more 
 interesting places to visit and see. This and 
 the experience gained by three or four years 
 in a foreign land might appeal to a man who 
 does not care to devote his life to the work, or 
 to mission work of any kind, but who is an 
 earnest Christian. Just at present, Japan is 
 the center of the world’s interest, and the Far 
 East is probably to be the field of action 
 during the next generation. 
 
 The influence of such work can not but be 
 broadening, as it gives a man a far larger con¬ 
 ception of what sort of lives and people the 
 big word “humanity” means. There is a 
 certain uplift also, which comes from the 
 reflex influence upon one's self in the uplift¬ 
 ing of the men around him. It is greater 
 than the same influence at home, just in the 
 
 f'The Missionary to I hern is somewhat of an intruder. 
 The government teacher is their teacher, and they rec¬ 
 ognize that what time he gives them outside of his reg¬ 
 ular teaching hours is voluntary and because he is in¬ 
 terested in them.” From tetter of April 12, 1904 , from 
 R. S. 
 
 12 
 
same proportion as the distance which a man 
 must be lifted is greater than that of a man 
 in America, who has had more or less Chris¬ 
 tian teaching all his life. 
 
 For the help of these teachers there is held 
 every year a Summer School, somewhat like 
 the Conference at Lake Geneva, for a week or 
 ten days. There are three sessions a day, 
 one of which is given to methods of teaching 
 and two to religious work. Besides these 
 meetings there are many opportunities for 
 personal interviews; far more than at Lake 
 Geneva. 
 
 In order that men may not look upon this 
 as too much of an easy place we will enumer¬ 
 ate a few of the disadvantages. The first is 
 the one common to all mission work—the lack 
 of society, and sometimes complete isolation 
 from all except Japanese people. The num¬ 
 ber of English and American people in the 
 cities varies from six to ten thousand in Yoko¬ 
 hama to none at all in some places. Of 
 course, the isolation in a place where there 
 are a few foreigners is not hard for a man 
 who does not crave society pleasures. He can 
 and does make friends with the two or three 
 or dozen missionaries, as the case may be and 
 is very comfortable. But the man who goes 
 to the post where he is the only foreigner in 
 the city finds it a lonely life and a hard one.* 
 
 One of the effects upon a man’s spiritual life 
 is that of deadening. And th°n there is a grad- 
 
 *"lt is a great pnvijege to Lein tins work, it s o:ie- 
 some, at times, and a fellow gets a little blue, at times, 
 but it’s a great privilege, anyway.”— From letter of bee. 
 12, 1903, from R. S. 
 
 13 
 
ual lowering of a man’s ideals, because of the 
 low ideals of the people around him, and the 
 lack of stimulus that comes from friendship 
 and close contact with strong high Christian 
 characters. Moreover, he does not hear ser¬ 
 mons or talks in his own language, and for a 
 long time understands nothing of the Japanese 
 preaching, if there is any which he can hear. 
 All of these things must be manfully met and 
 fought, or a man will find himself gradually 
 drifting away and getting spiritually cold and 
 dead. Of the temptations to the more heinous 
 sins we can only say that they are strong and 
 fierce, and a man must be prepared to meet al¬ 
 most anything. Japan is honey-combed with 
 the social evil, and the teacher is not always 
 expected to restrain himself from even the 
 most loathsome forms of vice. Moreover, 
 drinking to excess is common at many teachers’ 
 social affairs which he must attend. This 
 is not always the case. In the Hiroshima 
 Higher Normal School no drinking is ever in¬ 
 dulged in at any meeting of teachers or stu¬ 
 dents. This, however, is exceptional. In such 
 surroundings one can realize the danger a man 
 is in if he yields to the deadening influence 
 spoken of before, and allows his spiritual life 
 and ideals to weaken. Taken all in all, there 
 is really nothing for a man to gain personally 
 from coming out to these posts. His loss and 
 danger will just about compensate for the ex¬ 
 perience and the gain. 
 
 You may wish to know something about who 
 should come. First of all, certainly not a man 
 who is not a Christian in the highest sense,—an 
 
 14 
 
active, earnest Christian. The breaking down 
 of non-Christian and of weak Christian men 
 who are sent to these .posts or elsewhere in 
 government service or in business, under the 
 temptations which they meet, shows the neces¬ 
 sity of a strong Christian character in the men 
 who come. 
 
 Again, no man who is not reasonably strong 
 physically should come. You have, perhaps, 
 heard the climate of Japan described as being 
 rather debilitating, and that a person cannot 
 do as much work here as in America. This is 
 probably true, though we have never felt bet¬ 
 ter in our lives than since we came here. A 
 Japanese house is likely to be rather full of 
 draughts, and to have many cracks, and, as a 
 consequence, in the North it is hard to keep 
 off rheumatism and similar diseases if one is 
 inclined to them. We do not mean by this 
 that one must be a gaint in order to stand the 
 climate, but simply to show that a man must 
 not come as a missionary did last year, all tired 
 out from seminary work expecting to recuper¬ 
 ate here, and must not come with any chronic 
 disease expecting the climate to cure him. 
 The missionary referred to had to return in 
 less than six months in order to keep from los¬ 
 ing his mind. The man of average strength 
 and health, if careful not to overwork at first, 
 can keep just as well as at home and need not 
 fear. 
 
 The man who expects to stay only one year 
 in Japan had better stay at home. The Asso¬ 
 ciation and the schools, also, want men who will 
 stay at least two years, and much prefer those 
 
 15 
 
who will stay there. Of course, better still is the 
 man who expects to give his life to the work 
 and to make a life business and a life study of 
 it. These men will naturally have some pref¬ 
 erence over the short time men in the selection 
 of positions. 
 
 The man who expects some day to take up 
 mission work should not hesitate to come if 
 the way opens. There is perhaps no better 
 opportunity for a man to work into a mission 
 than through one of these places. This year 
 at least one man goes into a mission from one 
 of these places, and others have had offers from 
 missions and have refused because of the 
 opportunities opened in the places where they 
 were. This all applies with a special force to 
 the man who wants to work in Japan; but two 
 or three years here for a young man would not 
 be at all bad for a Chinese or Korean mission¬ 
 ary. We are all of us more closely in touch 
 with the missionaries than with any other class 
 of people here except our own students, and in 
 all cases we work hand in hand with them in 
 our Christian work, so the step to the mission 
 is simply from lay to direct Christian work. 
 
 Roy Smith, 
 
 P. A. Smith. 
 
 Chofu, Nagato, Japan, April 7, 1904. 
 
 16 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 (Extract from a Letter of October II, 1903, from P. A. S .) 
 
 “Promptly at three o’clock (Sunday), my 
 hour to begin private talks with my boys, two 
 appeared, the same ones who were here last 
 Sunday. One is pretty well along and ready 
 to be instructed for baptism. We talked most¬ 
 ly today on Matthew 4, as he had difficulty in 
 understanding it. Toward the last I led him 
 on to the subject of prayer. He said he did 
 not know really how to pray. He prayed 
 when he found things difficult to understand, 
 but that was all. I went over the simple 
 foundations of prayer,—i. e. asking as we do of 
 our earthly father, etc.,—and then we knelt and 
 he prayed aloud and I followed. Just before 
 they were ready to go the other man, who is 
 just beginning to evince an interest in Chris¬ 
 tianity, said ‘If I pray here, can God help my 
 father who is at home?’ That was easily an¬ 
 swered, of course. Then came the question, 
 ‘If I die a Christian, will I see my mother who 
 is dead and was not a Christian?’ There were 
 tears in his eyes as he asked, and I could only 
 explain the passage about the servant who 
 
knew his Lord’s will and the one who did not. 
 Just as they were starting, the first one said, 
 ‘I feel stronger in my heart,’ and then added, 
 ‘I feel as if I am changing in some way.’ 
 May God grant that this change may be the 
 light of the Holy Spirit breaking in on a soul 
 that is groping for the truth. These two are 
 only samples of many more that are struggling 
 to know the real truth.” 
 
 (Extract from Letter of February 21, 1904, from P. A. S.) 
 
 “It might be helpful for me to state some of 
 the questions that come up to me to be an¬ 
 swered. I can’t state them all, but I will give 
 you a few I have had lately. 
 
 Why do you believe in the Divinity of Christ? 
 
 What do you mean when you say that 
 Christ was the Son of God? 
 
 What are the real essentials of Christianity? 
 
 Explain miracles. 
 
 Is baptism a prime necessity? 
 
 Why is it so necessary? 
 
 What do you mean by ‘keeping the Sab¬ 
 bath’? 
 
 Where did Christ come from to earth? 
 
 Where is heaven? 
 
 Why are there sects among Christians? 
 
 When did the sects begin to spring up? 
 
 Is every word of the Bible absolutely true? 
 If not, why not, since it is God’s word? 
 
 How do we know the Gospels are true, even 
 after we grant the existence of an historical 
 personage named Jesus Christ? 
 
 These may give you a little idea of some of 
 
 18 
 
the quesitons a man is called upon to answer. 
 I myself, so far, have found none who needed 
 to be taught belief in God, but many have sim¬ 
 ply a belief in one great supreme being and 
 nothing else.’’ 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 (Composition of T. Hasegauua) 
 
 The Most Important Event in the Pres¬ 
 ent War. 
 
 Our long expected Japan Russia war broke 
 out at last. A hot battle was fought outside 
 Port Arthur of late. I will tell something about 
 it. 
 
 At midnight on the eighth of February our 
 torpedo-boats sailed secretly toward the Rus¬ 
 sian squadron lying outside Port Arthur. They 
 came so near the enemy that they could dis¬ 
 tinguish the seamen of the enemy moving 
 about on deck, not being seen by them. But 
 the enemy discovered them at last, and began 
 to fire on them. Still our plucky blue-jackets, 
 never fearing, advanced a little farther, and 
 discharged torpedoes at what they considered 
 the largest of the enemy’s warships. On their 
 way home they could see several of the en¬ 
 emy’s ships were disabled. 
 
 When daylight came, it was found that what 
 had been torpedoed by our boats the night be¬ 
 fore were two battleships—one of which was 
 
 19 
 
the flagship of the enemy’s squadron—and one 
 cruiser. But our fleet, not being satisfied with 
 this, attacked the enemy once more. The war¬ 
 ships of the enemy were nothing fearful for 
 our fleet, but the batteries on the hill, 
 which continued to pour a hot fire upon our 
 fleet, were very frightful. Our brave officers 
 and seamen, however, fought very hard, untill 
 four of the enemy’s men-of-war were at last 
 severely damaged by our balls. Our fleet, too, 
 suffered some injuries, but they were very 
 slight. 
 
 Thus our enemy has already sustained asignal 
 defeat at sea. It is said that the warships, which 
 were torpedoed or damaged by our fleet, have 
 been crippled for any further immediate ser¬ 
 vice, so that the supremacy at sea may be well 
 said to have fallen into our hands. On land 
 also, it will not be very long before we shall 
 hear the soldiers, who are now staying here, 
 will fight bravely in Manchuria and gain a 
 glorious victory. 
 
 Thursday, March 17, 1901. 
 
 Note— After two years in a higher school. An aver¬ 
 age composition from this class. These men will do 
 better work before the end of their four years with us. 
 -P. A. S. 
 
 MUNHALL PRINTING HOUSE, CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS 
 
 20