With him [the Oriental], self is suppressed, and an ever-present regard for others is substituted." "Impersonality, by lessening the interest in one's self, induces one to take interest in others." In this statement it will be noted the "_self is suppressed_." Does "impersonality" then follow personality, as a matter of historical development? It would so appear from this and kindred passages. But if this is true, then Japan is _more_ instead of less developed than the Occident. Yet this is exactly the reverse of that for which this school of thought contends. Let us now examine some concrete illustrations adduced by those who advocate Japanese impersonality. They may be arranged in two classes: those that are due wholly to invention, and those that are doubtless facts, but that may be better accounted for by some other theory than that of "impersonality." Mr. Lowell makes amusing material out of the two children's festivals, known by the Japanese as "Sekku," occurring on March 3 and June 5 (old calendar). Because the first of these is exclusively for the girls and the second is exclusively for the boys, Mr. Lowell concludes that they are general birthdays, in spite of the fact which he seems to know that the ages are not reckoned from these days. He calls them "the great impersonal birthdays"; for, according to his supposition, all the girls celebrate their birthdays on the third day of the third moon and all the boys celebrate theirs on the fifth day of the fifth moon, regardless of the actual days on which they may have been born. With regard to this understanding of the significance of the festival, I have asked a large number of Japanese, not one of whom had ever heard of such an idea. Each one has insisted that individual birthdays are celebrated regardless of these general festivals; the ages of children are never computed from these festivals; they have nothing whatever to do with the ages of the children.[CK] The report of the discussions of the Japanese Society of Comparative Religion contains quite a minute statement of all the facts known as to these festivals, much too long in this connection, but among them there is not the slightest reference to the birthday feature attributed to them by Mr. Lowell.[CL]