shown a Japanese-bred engineer, it is ten to one the specimen produced has never seen the walls of either.

The best students of the Tōkiyō Engineering College have been sent, after obtaining the degree of Master in Engineering, to Glasgow to start again with a fresh education there. When they have done with Glasgow they will probably return to their native land and become professors in the college they started from, and the production of engineers will come in a later generation; or the second flight of passed pupils may be driven by stress of circumstances to qualify for that less showy calling.

It is characteristic of the Japanese that they pay so much attention to things done by their teachers, rather than to the things antecedent, that a Japanese student becomes an imitation of his teacher, so far as lies in his power. It is a natural result that the pupil of professors tends to become a professor, while the pupil of executive engineers tends to become an executive engineer. The one develops into a mathematician, a chemist, or a physical experimentor; the other into a calculator, a manufacturer, or a responsible director of works. It is an old controversy, that as to the comparative value of theoretical and practical instruction; and it cannot be denied that either term, if used as limiting the character of the instruction, may involve more than a suggestion of serious deficiency. The ridiculous pretensions of some ignorant men who call themselves "practical," as if it were to their credit to be without any theoretical command of principle, have tended to obscure the real value of experience in the conduct of special operations that

repeat themselves, in slightly different forms, throughout the whole domain of applied mechanics; and, on the other hand, clever scholars who could sit down at any moment and write you off a chapter from Rankine are sometimes amusingly non-plussed at finding that, for all practical purposes, the theorems they have studied may be reduced to a few words bearing a strong resemblance to the ancient doctrines that two and two make four, and that every top must have a bottom; stated in terms specially applicable but with comprehensive significance. So far as we in the Railway Department had the opportunity of observing the work done, in producing results in concrete form, by past pupils of the Engineering College, it may be said that there is promise of a full justification of the pains taken by their teachers, to be hereafter shown by the practical usefulness of those taught; and that the cadets who have been actually educated upon work in progress will have to produce the result of private theoretical study in order to compete with them. So far as my observation, which has extended now over a sufficient period and field to enable me to state conclusions with some confidence, has led me to a knowledge of men and of work, this is just what we see everywhere producing in the aggregate the happiest results. The real value of the studies to which the pupils of the Engineering College have been introduced during their six years' course, will probably appear in due time; it would be premature to expect academical triumphs to be immediately continued in the field of actual work.

CHAPTER X.

TRIP TO FUJISAN AND NEIGHBOURHOOD (1878). THE effect of living within view of Fujisan was of course to arouse a desire to get to the top of that conspicuous hillock; it is so aggravating to see anything high that we haven't reached the top of. So at last I could bear it no longer, and set out with a friend, who knew the way and undertook to manage the expedition, for a walk over the hill.

We started on a Sunday morning-but for some mistake about the passports we should have been off on Saturday in a two-horse waggon for Hachōji, about thirty-five miles from Tōkiyō, up the valley of the Rokugo river, or, to give it a better known native appellation, the Tamagawa, so called from a "kori,” or division of a province, usually translated "county," in which its head waters were situated. We rolled along at the rate of about six miles an hour, with occasional distractions in the shape of a walk up or down a steep patch on the road, or a precipitate exodus from the waggon when the wheels went through a bridge. We changed or didn't change horses-I forget which, but anyhow there was a row about it, which my companion

attended to, as being specially within his province-at Fuchiu, a considerable town about two-thirds of the way to Hachōji, and situated on the left bank of the river, as the latter place is on the right. Barring the abominable heat of the August day, we had nothing to note, except some unaccountable soldiers idling about apparently, in full marching order, in the open country, as to the meaning of which we ventured upon many conjectures, that subsequently proved wrong, every one of them. At Hachōji we had a late lunch in the top story of a tea-house, the lower floors of which accommodated at the same time about four hundred pilgrims, on their return from Fujisan.

From Hachōji we went on a few miles in jinrikishas towards the hills, and arriving at the foot of these began skirmishing for a pack-horse to carry our traps, and after much scheming to save a few cents, succeeded in getting one, and started over the pass about five o'clock, in drizzling rain; which increased as we ascended. This is called the Kobotoké pass (why, I don't know, as I was grumpy at the time, I didn't care to inquire,—it was a pass, and out of place, I thought, at five o'clock in the afternoon), and leads across the ridge separating the valley of the Tama from that of the Banyu. The climb was a short one, but justified a rest at the tea-houses on the summit, and the descent was a long and steep one, and took us into darkness in the valley, before we reached Ōbara, a poor village near the river. The question being as I thought quite unnecessarily raised whether we should stop here or go on, I gave my voice unhesitatingly for stopping, and we secured a room in a tea-house. Here

were more pilgrims, for fifteen hundred had just arrived from the mountain, and we had great difficulty in keeping them off our mats. Of course in the hot weather no one thought of keeping up the partitions between the various rooms, so that there could be no privacy; but we had good reasons for avoiding propinquity-it was bad enough to sit on the same mats as last night's batch of pilgrims. They couldn't hurt the water though, and we managed a decent bath; and I suppose fleas don't like strong tobacco, for I was unmolested and slept well, while my nicer companion was tapped all over and had no rest.

As on our first day out we had only covered a portion of the ground we had hoped to traverse, we started betimes next morning, with only a cup of chocolate for breakfast-another mistake according to the tenets of one of the party-and walked, through constant rain, for about twenty miles over muddy roads up and down hill, crossing the river Banyu twice by ferry, and ascending again to the villages on the heights above. We had a little "chow" at Uyenohara, a large and apparently prosperous village, and observed the silk-buyers cheating the country people gaily, it being market day.

We were now in the Yamanashi prefecture, one of the most go-ahead districts of modern Japan, both in manufactures and agriculture; not to say general education and the imposing nature of its public buildings, each of which is surmounted by a sort of wooden pepper-box; the buildings are of various patterns, but the pepper-boxes are all alike. The roads in this district are wide and well graded, which is a surprise to any one approaching from Tōkiyō, for the intermediate track is a mere

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