There was a time when Christian schools did a good work in Japan. Before the government {255} schools were brought up to their present standard the mission schools were well patronized, and they considerably benefited the cause of missions. But to-day the government has schools of every grade, and frequently they are better than the mission schools. The students who formerly flocked to the mission schools now flock to those of the government, and the former have but few pupils. The times have changed, and these large, expensive schools are now hardly needed. In so far as they are needed for the preparatory training of a native ministry, and can be made to serve that end, they may be all right, but certainly as an evangelizing agency they are not justified. The native church should be encouraged and stimulated to educate its own children; it might even be assisted in the attempt, when it has shown an honest effort to do this; but its children should not be educated for it by the mission free of charge. To spend so large an amount of the people's money in purely secular education seems to me a misappropriation of funds. More than half the mission schools in Japan are boarding-schools for girls. Nearly all the unmarried women engaged in mission work are in these schools, and there are many of them. Some of these schools have very fine locations and buildings, about as good as those of the average {256} girls' college at home. That they are more popular and better patronized than those for boys is because the government does not provide for the higher education of girls as it does for boys. The purpose of these girls' boarding-schools is to train up earnest Christian women, who will be the wives and mothers of the new Japan. It is said that if the mothers of the nation are made Christian the evangelization of the whole people will speedily follow. This purpose is a worthy one. Most of the girls who enter these mission schools become Christians, and the training given them seems to be good. I recently attended the closing exercises of one of the largest of these, and was surprised at the progress made by the girls. They could paint and draw, and recite classical music as well as the young ladies of the seminaries at home; and I have no doubt that the graduates leave the schools pure-minded, earnest Christians, with worthy aims and aspirations, and with a full intention to exert their influence for God and His church.