Excerpt from The Pennsylvania School Journal, Vol. 30

The education of the young Samurai was therefore of a very limited and peculiar kind. From young men, now my pupils, who began their education under that system, I have gained some knowledge of this early training. The school generally assembled at a very early hour - during most of the year at five o'clock in the motuin Some time was spent in lis tening to an a dress from one of the principal teachers, often concerning morals or some doc trine of Confucius, whose teachings have al ways been highly regarded here, many schools having been founded in his name. After this several hours were spent in learning to write and understand Chinese characters, and in reading Japanese and Chinese history, and certain bo'oks known as Chinese Classics. It should be understood that the spoken lan guage in Japan is entirely different from the written language. Chinese characters were early understood, and have been retained, al though their meanin has in many cases been modified or extende and often new meanings applied. An ordinary scholar must know at least five thousand of these characters, and as many as ten thousand are necessary to enable him to make any pretensions to learning. Thus it will be seen that a vast amount of time must be wasted in the education of the Japa nese youth, and their men of intelligence all admit that the written language, in which their history and literature is bound u is the beav iest load they have to carry. A ter these exer cises, which constituted the literary part of their training, the next few hours were given to the cultivation of physical strength and skill, which were matters of the greatest im portance, since these young men were, in the main, to spend their lives as the retainers and defenders of Daimios or Princes to whom they were attached. In these exercises they learned the use of the sword, and fencing with this dangerous-looking two-handed weapon was carried to great perfection. They were also taught to use the spear, the bow and arrow, and to ride horses.

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