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OBSERVATIONS.
No one is better qualified to express
the characteristics of an oriental people
than Lafcadio Hearn. He has lived in
Japan for maoy years. He has married
a Japanese lady. He Las spent his sum
mers in a houseboat anchored to the
shore by a rope which was loosened
when the Ecenerygrew monotonous and
his'house moved to another town. In short
in S3 far as a dreamy imaginative,
Creole, of tho western world could, he
has lived in Japan like a Japanese. His
style is limpid and unstudied and in
Kokoro "the heart of things" it ib
possible for a cosmopolitan to become
acquainted with and appreciate tho
Japanese people. "Sympathy is limited
by compehension. We may sympathize
to the same degree that we understand.
One may imagine that he sympathizes
with Japaneso or Chinese, but the s m
pathy can never be real to more than a
small extent outside of the simplest
phases of common emotional life those
phases in which child and man are at
one. The mere . complex feelings of the
Oriental have been composed by com
binations of experiences, ancestral and
individual, which have had no really
precise correspondence in western life,
and which we therefore can not ful'y
know. The strength of Japan, like the
strength or her ancient fuith needs little
material display; both exist where the
deepest real power of any great people
exists in the Race Ghost."
The especial gift of this author is
sympathy. He docs not read his own
opinions and reasons into a foreign peo
ple, but accepts theirs and endeavors to
understand them. To those to whom
tho ways of tho east are unknown
Kokoro is revelation, it is tho beginning
of a new administration and new ideas.
Alexander was tired of life because there
was nothing new for him to conquer.
We exhausted the occidental syllogism
long ago. If Eome of the old causes of
misery could be forgotten, the interest of
learning and experiencicg new ones
would decrease the number of suicides.
In Japan a gentleman does not fall in
love to such a degree that if the lady
changes hr'mind, it drives him to death
or drink. He feels the inconvenience of
disarranged plans and a tinge of mortifi
cation that she or her parents should pre
fer another man, but the pangs of love
as well aB the rapture3 are unknown in
Japan. All sorts of hysteria are un
known. They live in a cool temperature.
The extremes of agony and rapture they
do not experience. They are placid ba
bies, calm jouths, serene old men.
Thoy are industrious and saving with
out being over anxious or worried. They
spend money on a holiday with the
nonchalance and abandon of a monarch
and without the vulgarity and ostenta
tion of the poor man spending Irs
month's earning's for a day's pleasur
ing. Their gaiety is a bird's gaiety,
they do not know they are happy and
they do not care whether other people
know it or not. Without nerves or any
obtrusive convictions, no wonder Mr.
Hearn likes to live amoag them. No
wonder he selected a little Japanese
lady, who neither expects cor uesires
him to renew his vows of affection at
least after every eatisfactory meal. No
wonder he does not care to return with
his mcon lady to a worried, bargain
counter sisterhood, who might make her
discontent with the hang of her kimona.
Lafcadio Hearn has a business name,
that his publishers make out checks to,
but I have forgot'en it and so in this
slight review ca!l him "Mr. Hearn.'
Kokoro is a study of tho Chinese
through the microscope. It reveals
things only shown to the multiplying
lens of genius. Ten years residence in
the kingdom of cherry blossoms and we
would still be peering yankees, outside
of their world. As it is, we have had
the honor of meeting tho Japanese
whether thoy will pr no.
The war reports of Red Badge of
Courage Crane confirm the worst that
have ever been 6aid about him. He
thinks his review of the war of much
more interest and importance than the
event? themselves His itsignificant
personality is of no interest to tto-e
who wished to know the movements of
the armies, and his literary stjle is
puerile and as eelfconecious as a schojl
boy. Compare Grant's objective com
position with Stephen Crane's degener
ate subjectivity. Compare them in
your mind, for bring the two in actual
presence and tho repulsion from Stephen
Crane is as from some loathsome growth.
The solemn deliberations of the
seniors of the state university as to how
many tickets they will demand from tho
faculty and concerning what language
tha chancellor shall use when he bids
them God speed is in startling contrast
to the place they hold io the govern
ment of the university, To Bee end hear
these bonnie brass lads who owe all
they know to the state and all they
don't know to themselves, a visitor
from another state of things would of
course, conclude that they were wise
men discussing the expediency of hiring
the chancellor for another year or of
installing quite another faculty. It is
quite incomprehensible that the in
trusive wisdom of the only people who
are entirely capable of running the
state university into the ground should
not have been recognized by tho state
constitution. Petitions which contain a
threat, if the wrong which they pretest
against, is not at once righted, are cir
culated about once a week. Captain
Guilfoyle purnished the insolent ring
leader of such a revolt and his action
has had a very good effect upon the
military department at least. The
whole trouble arises from the mistaken
ideas of the students as to who
the beneficiaries are as to the identity of
the executive, and as to the functions of
the board of regents. Tho veal that the
state has been endeavoring to grow into
something useful has decided to con
trol the pasture and the herders.
This reversal of real positions
is not altogether the fault of
the students. Their petitions have
not been discouraged, the chancellor and
professors have been- in the habit of
receiving petitions and answering
questions from a class that made noise
enough to frighten a timid scholar. Upon
certain questions of privilege it is well
enough for tho faculty to consider a pe
tition if it contain no threat but upon
matters of administration the faculty
and regents should receive no remont
Etrances from the benificiaries of an in
stitution whose government has been
as wisely constituted as the uni
versity. That they have considered
such demands in the past is the
cause of the very peculiar patronis
ing attitude of the joung people who
take the dole of the state as though
they gave alms. Such an attitude is
unique. None of the older schools in
the east, or across the water, are famil
iar with such severity from student?.
On the continent and in most of the
eastern schools the students pay tuition
and threats of withdrawal, if they were
ever made, would have a pecuniary
force which is altogether lacking in
state institutions. The copper-cheeked
farmer boys, fresh from the pon and tho
pasture, really overestimate tho univer
sity's need of their presence. If they
aro anxiouB to 6erve the state, as by
their advico they seem to be, let them
stay at homo next year. Tho school is
very much crowded and library, labra.
toric3 and clasa rooms would be tho
better tor the purer air caused by tho
absence of about a hundred
infant anarchists who have infested the
university for several yeare. Those
who are left would be grateful indeed.
It is a curious but none the less a
universal truth that anarchist teachings
implant a hatred for soap and water
consequently a company of such pupils
is not alone offensive to tho eye. The
unclosable and immovable nose must
suffer tortures in comparison t which
burning is a pleasant thought, because
ilame is a disinfectant. To those
who have not endured the neigh
borhood of the men who have spent
their university life in getting up peti
tions and addressing reproaches to the
faculty fur what they term abuses of
various kinds, these reminiscenscs may
seem unkind and certainly undeserved.
But to the clean victim who has had,
from necessities of the course, to sit
through an hour in a real anarchist
class they inadequately recall associa
tions which only a whiff of the same can
ever make faint with tho eamo faintness.
The record of Indian agents in this
country has been most disgraceful. The
Indians have been defrauded and the
government's plans for them foiled
through tho cupidity of the agents so
man times that the names and the cir
cumstances of each case form a long black
record in the Indian department. Since
the government began to appoint army
officers as Indian agents the records
have been free from such stains.
An abuse which has been hardest
to reform. but which has
been accomplished in Nebraska,
is the leasing of largd tracts of
land from the Indians by cattlemen for
grazing purposes. For an ins'gnificant
sum the Indians have leased their lands,
thus defeating the ends of government
which would train them as agriculturists.
Since Captain Beck, of the 10th cavalry,
took charge of the Omaha and Winne
bago agency h9 he has been very offen
sive to politicians, cattlemen and con
tractors, because ho repudiated the un
lawful leases and was uninfluenced by
the money which was freely offered him
to go in with them. President Cleve
land being once convinced that Captain
Beck would Co his duty. paid
no attention to the requests for
supplanting Captain Beck with
a civilian "who would mind his
his own business.' But President Mc
Kmley has been induced to direct the
secretary of war to order Captain Beck
back to his regiment and Lieutenant
