Only those who have seen the inner life of the court can realize the difficulties which have attended every step of the Empress Haru's way, for the court has been the scene of great struggles between the conservative and radical elements. Mean and petty jealousies have moved those surrounding the throne. The slightest word or token from the Empress would be used as a weapon for private ends. To move among these varied and discordant factions, and to move for progress, without causing undue friction, has been a task more difficult than the conquest of armies, and to do so successfully has required almost infinite patience, sympathy, and love. _Page 168._ And now, after thirty-three years of the enlightened rule of the present Emperor, and of the beneficent life and example of the Empress Haru, is there any assurance that the progress made during their occupation of the throne will be continued in the lives of Japan's future rulers? Prince Haru, or Yoshihito, is now a man twenty-two years of age, with character sufficiently developed to be used as the basis for a guess at what his qualities as a sovereign may prove to be. "As far as the East is from the West" have his life and education been from the life and education of his illustrious father. Instead of the curtained seclusion, the quiet and calm of the old palace in the old capital, the present Crown Prince has known from babyhood the sights and sounds of the stirring city of Tōkyō. He has driven in an open carriage or walked through its streets; he has been to school with boys of his own age, taking the school work and the drill and the games with the other boys, learning to know men and things and himself too, in a way in which none of his ancestors, since the days when they were simply savage chiefs, have had opportunity of knowing. As he grew toward manhood, his delicate health required that he leave the school and pursue his studies as his strength permitted, under masters; but he has retained his love for all athletic exercises, for dogs and horses and guns and bicycles, and he is as expert in outdoor sports as any youth of Western training. His mind is quick and eager, interested especially in foreign ways and thoughts, and seeking most of all to understand how other people think and feel and live. Though he has been emancipated to a wonderful degree from the state and ceremony that surrounded his ancestors, he is nevertheless impatient of what remains, and would gladly dispense with many forms that his conservative guardians regard as necessary; and these same guardians at times find their young eaglet difficult to manage. He has views and ideas of his own, and acts occasionally upon his own initiative in a way that fairly scandalizes his advisers. He wishes to visit his future subjects upon something like equal terms. The rôle of Son of Heaven seems to him less interesting at times than some smaller and more human part. When he walks, he wants to lead his own dog, not