'"As I have told you, the story of George Washington is often quoted. Smiles's _Self-Help_ is often used, and I have no doubt Nelson's signal at Trafalgar. The principal examples are naturally the great heroes of our own country who served the emperor and Japan. In that way both boys and girls are imbued with the moral virtues, among which loyalty and patriotism are prominent. '"But this teaching is not limited to the schools. It is carried on in the barracks in the form of what we call 'spiritual education.' The aim is to make men capable of appreciating their duties as soldiers. This barrack teaching is in accordance with an edict issued by the emperor when universal military service was introduced, and it is based upon the moral virtues. We have no chaplains. The teaching is undertaken by the officers themselves as part of their regular duty, and they deliver exhortations in the barrack-rooms. '"But you must know that, man for man, Europeans recognise that Japanese are superior to Russians, and I am not surprised that that is said. In Japan education is universal, and there is scarcely a soldier who cannot read and write, or who has not had some kind of education. For that reason they ought to be intellectually superior to the Russians. And as we have universal service, all sorts of people are found in the ranks, without distinction of social position or vocation. In the barracks you find the son of a nobleman and the son of a coolie, and there is no aloofness between them. That makes the company so efficient. 'MILITARY TRAINING FOR BOYS. '"In the schools we not only have the national flag, but the boys are drilled in military manner. If the municipality can afford it, real arms are used in the higher grade schools. In the peers' school and many others they have regular firing manœuvres. '"It is not generally known, I suppose, that I was once an English volunteer?" said Baron Suyematsu, with a laugh at the recollection. "That was when I was at Cambridge. I joined the University Rifles." 'As to Chinese soldiers, the baron said that the moral teaching of the Japanese army constituted one of the great differences between them. Then he pointed out that in China soldiers are rightly looked down upon, for they are recruited only from the worst classes, and respectable men will not enter the ranks. 'Baron Suyematsu does not approve of the efforts of the Christian missionaries to discourage the national custom of committing suicide rather than be captured in battle, for he thinks the effect would be to lower the soldiers' high ideal of patriotism and courage.