ABSTRACT
THE woman question in Japan is at the present moment a matter of much consideration. There seems to be an uneasy feeling in the minds of even the more conservative men that some change in the status of women is inevitable, if the nation wishes to keep the pace it has set for itself. The Japanese women of the past and of the present are exactly suited to the position accorded them in society, and any attempt to alter them without changing their status only results in making square pegs for round holes. If the pegs hereafter are to be cut square, the holes must be enlarged and squared to fit them. The Japanese woman stands in no need of alteration unless her place in life is somehow enlarged, nor, on the other hand, can she fill a larger place without additional training. The men of New Japan, to whom the opinions and customs of the Western world are becoming daily more familiar, while they shrink aghast, in many cases, at the thought that their women may ever become like the forward, self-assertive, half-Dlasculine women of the West, show a growing tendency to dissatisfaction with the smallness and narrowness of the lives of their wives and daughters, - a growing belief that better educated women would make better homes, and that the
ideal home of Europe and America is the product of a more advanced civilization than that of Japan. Reluctantly in many cases, but still almost universally, it is admitted that in the interest of the homes and for the sake of future generations, something must be done to carry the women forward into a position more in harmony with what the nation is reaching for in other directions. This desire shows itself in individual efforts to improve by more advanced education daughters of exceptional promise, and in general efforts for the improvement of the condition of women. Well-to-do fathers are willing to spend more money on the education of their daughters, to send them abroad, if possible, to complete their studies, or to postpone the time of marriage so that plans for higher education may be carried through. Where, ten years ago, the number of women who had been abroad for study might be counted on the fingers of one hand, there are now three or four times that nUluber in Tokyo alone. Another sign of the times is the fact that husbands going abroad on business or for pleasure are more inclined to take their wives with them, even if it be only for a few months. There are now to be found, in all the larger cities, women who have spent a longer or shorter time in some foreign country, whose minds have been opened and whose horizons have been enlarged by contact with new ideas. All this cannot fail to have its effect, sooner or later, upon the country at large.
