MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 72, 24 March 1906, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

! THE EDUCATION OS" WOMEN IN JAPAN. A most interesting lecture on the above subject was given in the Imperial Institute by Miss E. P. Hughes. Sir Charles G." Stevens. X.C.5.1., who presided, explained, in introducing Miss Hughes, that for many years she was the principal of the Training School at Newnham; in fact, the founding of that training college for teachers was her idea. After a time failing health compelled her to travel, and she devoted special attention to the subject of education in the Far East. For two years she lived in Japan, lecturing on that subject to both men and women.

Miss Hughes insisted that the first step towards teaching on Oriental was to understand something of the Oriental point of view of life, to realise how far the East is from the West in its ideas, manners, and customs, and to study the history of Eastern countries. Miss Hughes considers Japan a link between the West and the Far East in that it is a country governing itself, as yet unconquered, and, she believes, unconquerable—a people ready to adopt Western progress.

They are now waking up to the necessity of educating their women for the very obvious reason that the interests of men and women can never be separated, and a man receiving a good education coming back to an unsympathetic home life loses half the benefits he would otherwise have gained. The home life of th e Japanese is a very simple one. All women marry, the wife being taken to the home of her mother-in-law, who in her turn may be living with her mo-ther-in-law; so, several generations live together, and lead a very self-sufficient life.

Government is doing much to improve the education of women, and schools are being started all over Japan—elementary schools for girls between the ages of 7 and 14, after which, if "they wish, they can attend high schools until they are 17, when, as a rule, a girl is married.

There is now, however, a university at Tokio, and also a training college for teachers, wffich, after all, is the .starting point, for no Western woman, however able, can teach an Oriental as well as one taken from their own nation, so Miss Hughes beb'eves that with a little intelligent Western help the life of the Japanese woman may be made far happier.

In conclusion, she paid a high tribute to the virtues of both men and women in Japan. Notwithstanding women being in a position of great subjection, the Japanese men are never tyrants in their homes.