Kung-fu-tse obtained a predominant influence in cultivated China, and the ideals of the nation are still moulded by their teaching. But Kung-fu-tse only commanded woman to obey, and his influence, so beneficial to character generally in China, has done nothing for woman. The progressive spirit died in China, and there has never been since the further advance in culture that was needed to awaken a rebellion of the subject women. To the east of China, during our Middle Ages, lived a younger and smaller civilisation that has made itself known throughout the modern world. Japan is only partly Mongolian in origin; there seems to be a strain of blood from the southern islands in the nation's frame. It is, therefore, not surprising to find that the cause of woman has run an entirely different course in Japan, and that the later excessive subordination of women was due to Chinese influence. It seems that the more primitive Asiatic feeling of respect for woman was carried on into the early Japanese civilisation. She had no more share in public life generally than elsewhere, but a considerable number of the nobler or more cultivated women stand out in the chronicles. The golden age of native Japanese civilisation and letters corresponds with the worst age of Europe (about 800 to 1200 of the Christian era). The chief English writer on the subject, Mr. Astor, tells us that during that period "a very large and important part of the best literature Japan has produced was written by women." There are also distinguished women-Mikados and feudal princesses in the early story of Japan. In the later Middle Ages Chinese culture began to play the reactionary part (in regard to woman) in Japan that Greek culture had done in Italy. The teaching of Kung-fu-tse and the great humanitarian moralists was warmly welcomed by the educated Japanese, and gradually became, as it still is, the sole religion of the class. How finely it shaped the character of Japan on most points--making its way down to nearly every class of the nation through the Samurai--the whole world now knows; but, as I said, it failed entirely to do justice to woman, and so led to the comparatively few blemishes of Japanese life. Woman was to be confined to the home, and that narrow and ill-advised ideal cast its invariable shadow--a great growth of prostitution. Japan had its _geishas_ as Greece had its _hetæræ_; and the situation was worse in the sense that poor parents of good character made money (from twenty to forty pounds) by sending their daughters to the _joshiwara_ for a few years. On the other hand, of course, no shame was attached to the profession, and the more gifted members sometimes made distinguished marriages and were received at court.