semble to offer congratulations and presents. Later, each present must be acknowledged by the parents sending one in

return.

The baby is excused from being present at the festival, but custom demands that no other engagement interfere with the shaving of his head on the third day. In the olden days styles in hair-cutting were as rigidly adhered to as the wearing of a samurai's sword, but progress must needs tamper even with the down on a baby's head.

Now the fashion has lost much of its quaintness, and is mostly uniform. The sides and back of the head are shaved smooth, while from the crown a fringe is left to sprout like the long petals of a ragged chrysanthemum. The length and seriousness of the hair-cutting ceremony depend upon the self-control of the young gentleman. Regardless of conduct, however, or of the cost to the nervous system, certain fixed rules are enforced, which are virtually the only training the child receives in early years.

After the little stranger, all shaven and shorn, is returned to his private apartments, the elders of the family consult on the grave matter of choosing a name for

him. Often the naming of the baby is a simple matter, the father or grandfather speaking before the company the name of some famous man, if the child is a boy, or of some favorite flower, if it is a girl. For girls, Hana, flower, Yuki, snow, Ai, love, are the favorites of parents with a poetical strain. The sterner country-folk choose for their daughters, Matsu, pine, Take, bamboo (the bamboo joints are exact; hence the exactness of virtue), Ume, plum, since the plum bears both cold and snow bravely. For boys, Ichiro, first boy, Toshio, smart, Iwao, strong, and Isamu, brave, are very popular.

Where belief is strong in the power of a name, the family, in holiday dress, often assembles in a large room. Each writes a name upon a slip of paper and lays it reverently before the house shrine. From the group a very young child is chosen and led before this shrine, and the fate of the name is decided by the small hand which reaches out for a slip. Though it is a festive occasion, the selection of a name is made with a seriousness worthy the election of a bishop. Many believe devoutly that this rite influences the baby's entire future, and therefore the one whose

slip is chosen incurs from the moment of choice great responsibility for the child's welfare.

The next great event in the baby's existence is on the thirtieth day, when he is taken to the temple to be offered to the god that rules over that particular vil-. lage or city. Dressed in his best suit of clothes, he is strapped to the back of his mother or nurse, with his body wrapped almost to suffocation, and usually with his head dangling from side to side with no protection for face or eyes. Why all Japanese babies are not blind is one of the secrets of nature's provision. With tender women for mothers and affectionate servants for nurses, it is strange that the little face is seldom shielded from the direct rays of the sun or the piercing winds of winter. Possibly it is a training for physical endurance that later in life is a part of his education.

Arrived at the temple, the child is presented to the priest. This dignitary, with shaven head and clad in a purple gown, reads very solemnly a special prayer to the god whose image, enshrined in gilt and ebony, rests within the deep shadows of the temple. He asks his care and protection for the helpless little creature that lies before him. At the end of the reading the priest shakes a gohei to and fro over the child. A gohei resembles nothing so much as a paper feather duster. Its fluffy whiteness is supposed to represent the pure spirit of the god, and through some mysterious agency a part of this spirit is transferred to the child by the vigorous shaking.

For a few more coins, further protection can be purchased for the little wayfarer. The guaranty of his success and happiness comes in two small paper amulets on which the priest has drawn curious characters decipherable only to the priest and the god. Both amulets are given to the mother, who, with the baby on her back, trots home on her high wooden geta, or clogs, her face aglow with the contentment possible only to one whose faith in prayer and priest is sublime. One amulet, carefully wrapped with the cuttings of the first hair and with the name, is laid away safely in the house shrine, that the god may not forget. The other is carried in a gay little bag of colored crape, which is tied to the sash of the child; for it is believed that it will ward off sickness and hold all evil spirits at bay.

It must be with a sigh of relief that the baby comes to this stage of his existence. The numerous rites necessary to a fair start on life's highway have been conscientiously performed, the watchful care of the spirits invoked. Now it is his sole business to kick and grow and feed like any small healthy animal, to be served as a young prince and to be adored as a young god. He is the pivot on which the whole household turns. Often, in the soft shadows of evening, on the paper doors of a Japanese house is silhouetted a picture where the child is the center about which the family is grouped in the great act of adoration. It is a bit of inner life that finds a tender response in the heart of any beholder.

The attitude of the usual family is that obedience is not to be expected of one so young, consequently nobody is disappointed, and the effect on the child is telling. He quickly learns his power, and becomes in turn the trainer and the ruler of the household. In fact, he is a small king, with only a soft ring of dark hair for a crown, and a chop-stick in his chubby fist for a scepter. His lightest frown or smile is a command to all the house, from the poodle with the ingrown nose to the bent old grandmother. But more willing subjects never bent before a king of maturer growth. Father and mother, with a train of relatives, yield glad obedience and stand ever ready for action at the merest suggestion of a

wish.

Alas! for the tried and true theories on early training that have held for generations in other countries! Alas! for the scores of learned volumes on child

culture! Useless the work of the greatest psychologists, who sound grave warning as to the direful results should one fail to observe certain hard-and-fast rules in the training of mind and body. Grant a few months to a fat, well-fed Japanese baby, and with one wave of his pink heels he will kick into thin air every tested theory that scholarly men have grown gray in

To the specialist, one such ill-regulated day in a baby's life would augur a morning after with digestion in tatters and a ragged temper. He does not take into account the strange mental and physical contradictions of the race. Unchecked, the baby has been permitted to shatter every precept of health, but he awakens as happy as a young kitten. Fresh, sweet, and wholesome, he crawls from his soft nest of comfortables and goes about seeking some object on which to bestow his adorable smile. He is ready to thrive on another lawless day.

wide-awake world has effectively quickened the growth of his brain, but the strings that have held him steadily to his mother's back have stunted the growth of his body. The result is that when the time comes for that wonderful first day in the kindergarten, into the play-room often toddles a self-confident youngster whose legs refuse to coöperate when he makes his quaint bow, but whose keen brain and correspondingly deft hand work small miracles with blocks and paint-brush.

In Japan only a blind child could be insensible to color, after long days under the pink mist of the cherry blossoms and the crimson glory of the maples, in the sunny green and yellow fields, or with mountain slopes of wild azalea for a rompingplace and a wonderful sky of blue for a cover. By inheritance and environment he is an artist in the use of color. Form, too, is as easy, for when crude toys have failed to please, it is his privilege to build ships, castles, gunboats, and temples with every conceivable household article from the spinning-wheel to the family rice-bucket.

life is full of rich and varied interests. From his second day on earth, tied safely to his mother's back under an overcoat made for two, he finds amusement for every waking hour in watching the passing show. He is the honored guest at every family picnic. No matter what the hour or the weather, he is the active member in all that concerns the household amusements or work. From his perch he participates in the life of the neighborhood, and is a part of all the merry festivals that turn the streets into fairy-land. Later, his playground is the gay market-place or the dim old temples.

Up to this time the child has had no suggestion of real training. His innate deftness in the art of imitation has taught him much. Continual contact with a

His instinct for play is strong, and after his legs grow steady he quickly masters games, and to his own satisfaction he can sing any song without tune or words. In the kindergarten he finds at first new joys in a play paradise of which he is, as at home, the ruler. Alas! for the swift coming of grief! For the first time in his life his will clashes with law, and for the first. time he meets defeat, though he rises to conquer with all his fighting blood on fire. The struggle is swift and fierce, then behold the mystery of a small Ori