Yesterday we went to the theater, beginning at one and ending about nine; tea is constantly in the box, and little meals—and a big one—between the acts. We liked the old Japanese theater better than the more or less modernized one. Baron Shibusawa presented us with a box—or rather two of them—and his niece and another relative and the two young people from the house went. I won’t try to describe the dramas, except to say that the way to study Japanese history and tradition would be to go to the theater with some one to interpret, and that while the theater is as plain as a medieval European one, the dresses are even more elaborate and costly. The stage is a beautiful spectacle when there are forty old Samurai on it, as the garments are genuine, not tinsel. Mamma went more than I, because I had to leave at half-past four to go to the Concordia Society—in fact, I hadn’t expected to go at all at first, as the Baron said that he sent the offer of the box because he feared Mamma might be lonely when I was away! There were about twenty-five Japanese and Americans at the meeting and after I had spoken for half an hour we had dinner in an adjoining restaurant, and then sat around and visited for an hour or so.

The great event of the week, aside from the theater yesterday, was visiting the Women’s University—you mightn’t think that a great treat, but you don’t know what we saw. We started early to walk, since it isn’t far and we had been shown the way once, but we were rubbering so busily at the shops that we failed to notice where we were till we got to the end of things and then had to turn around and walk back, so we got there late. The forenoon we spent in the elementary classes and kindergarten, which are their practice school. Those very bright kimonos for children you see are real—all the children wear them, as bright as can be, generally reds, and then some. So the rooms where the little children were are like gardens of flowers with bright birds in them—gay as can be. The work was all interesting, but the colored crayon drawings particularly. They have a great deal of freedom there, and instead of the children imitating and showing no individuality—which seems to be the proper thing to say—I never saw so much variety and so little similarity in drawings and other hand work, to say nothing of its quality being much better than the average of ours. The children were under no visible discipline, but were good as well as happy; they paid no attention to visitors, which I think is ultramodern, as I expected to see them all rise and bow. If you will think of doing all the regular school work—including in this school a good deal of hand work, drawing, etc.—and then learning by the end of the sixth grade a thousand or more Chinese characters, to make as well as to read, you will have some idea of how industrious the kids have to be, and of course they have to learn Japanese characters, too. Then we had a luncheon, ten of us altogether, cooked and served by the girls in the Domestic Department; some luncheon!—and garnished in a way to beat the Ritz—European food and service. Then the real show began. First we had flower arrangement, ancient and modern styles, then examples of the ancient etiquette in serving tea and cakes to guests, and then of inferiors calling on superiors; then Koto playing—a thirteen-stringed harp that lies on the floor—first two girls and the teacher, and then a solo by the teacher. He is blind and said to be the best player in Japan; he gave “Cotton Bleaching in the Brook,” and said he rarely played it, only once a year. Well, you could hear the water ripple and fall, and hit the stones, and the women singing and beating the cotton. I could hear it better than I can hear spring in our music, so I think perhaps my ears are made to fit the Japanese scale, or lack of it. Then we were taken into the tea house and shown the tea ceremony, being served with tea. Mamma sat tatami, on her heels, but I basely took a chair. Then we went to the gymnasium and saw the old Samurai women’s sword and spear exercises, etc. The teacher was an old woman of seventy-five and as lithe and nimble as a cat—more graceful than any of the girls. I have an enormous respect now for the old etiquette and ceremonies regarded as physical culture. Every movement has to be made perfectly, and it cannot be done without conscious control. The modernized gym exercises by the children were simply pitiful compared with all these ceremonies. Then we were taken to the dormitories, which are in a garden, simple wooden Japanese buildings, like barns our girls would think, but everything so clean you could eat on the floor anywhere, with the south side all glass and sun, and the girls sitting on the floor to study on a table about a foot and a half high; no beds or chairs to litter up the rooms. Then after we were taken over some of the other rooms, we went back to the dining-room and had a most exquisite Japanese vegetarian Buddhist lunch served—just a sample, all on a little plate, but including the sweets for dessert, five or six things all quite different and elegantly cooked. Also three kinds of tea.

Politeness is so universal here that when we get back we shall either be so civil that you won’t know us, or else we shall be so irritated that nobody is sufficiently civil that you won’t know us either. Mr. X—— took me in his car and brought me back. When we got to the hall there were five maids bowing and smiling to get our slippers and hang up our coats and hats. Just going in or out is like going to a picnic; I think the maids enjoy this change in their regular work, for they really smile, as if they were having the time of their lives. If it is perfunctory and put on, they have me fooled.

Well, I’ll spare you all any philosophical reflections this trip. Besides, I’ve been too busy having a good time to think of any. They will probably grow spontaneously in China. I forgot whether I told you in my last letter that the Minister of the Interior has given me a monthly and renewable pass first class on the Japanese railways. A friend here asked him for one for Mamma, too, but he said he was very sorry, that privilege could not be extended to a woman. So I’m the only grafter in the family. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but shall make one at the first opportunity in order to get the sensation.