But alas! when they go back to their homes the position Japanese etiquette assigns them so effectually ties their hands that the results are bitterly disappointing. I will mention one case which came under my own observation. A young lady was educated by a mission school in a certain city, who was noted for her piety and {257} earnest Christian spirit. Her teachers had most extravagant hopes as to the strong positive influence she would exert for Christianity. After her graduation she spent several years in the same school as a teacher, and her Christian life was broadened and deepened by longer and more intimate contact with the foreign teachers. She finally married and removed to her new home, in a distant city. There she attended church once or twice and then stopped entirely. Neither the urgent personal request of the native pastor nor the oft-repeated invitation of the Christian congregation could induce her to come any more. Instead of exerting an influence for good upon others she herself became a fit subject for mission work. I have known several cases of this kind, and all missionaries have had the same experience. Social conditions in Japan are such that a girl marrying into a non-Christian home can exert little Christian influence. But admitting for the moment the utility of this Christian training for the girls, these large schools are open to serious objections on other grounds. The course is too long, and the instruction given too advanced. In many of these schools the girls are kept for twelve or fourteen years. During all this time they are more or less supported by mission funds, even down to pin-money. They are taught all kinds of abstract {258} sciences and advanced ideas that can be of no possible use to them. Latin and Greek, biology, geology, psychology, and many other things are taught them that they neither need nor can appreciate. Painting, drawing, vocal and instrumental music form a prominent part of the curriculum. Girls are made to practise on the piano for ten years or more who will in all probability never see a piano after they leave school. Of course these are not the only subjects taught; more useful ones are taught as well. If mission schools for the education of girls should exist at all the instruction should be much more elementary and practical. A course of two or three years, teaching them how wisely to fill their position as wives and mothers, would amply suffice.