present national movement, married Mr. R. Dutt Chowdhury of the Punjab. This gave a great impetus to such marriages. Whenever there is a dispute about inter-provincial marriages, the young men quote their Sarala Devi. In the higher castes of the Hindus a widow is not allowed to marry. Once a widow always a widow. But a widower can marry as many times as he wishes to, and there is no law to prevent him from marrying. This social custom is not only an injustice done to women, but a poor social economy as well. The great majority of Indian widows are Hindu widows. There were, in 1901, 19,487 widows below the age of five; 95,798 between five and ten; 275,862 between ten and fifteen; 522,867 between fifteen and twenty; 938,725 between twenty and twentyfive; 1,432,608 between twenty-five and thirty; 2,267,361 between thirty and thirty-five; 2,068,491 between thirty-five and forty; 3,770,495 between forty and forty-five; 2,264,038 between. forty-five and fifty; 4,112,876 between fifty and fiftybetween fifty-five and sixty the result of organized propaganda for the five; 1,521,210 REMARRIAGE OF WIDOWS But the greatest difficulty in the way of inter-provincial marriages lies in the lan- These figures speak for themselves. The guage problem. The people of different social lecturers in India make a good deal of provinces of India speak different languages the figures and urge remarriage of Hindu and do not understand one another; and it is widows. The higher castes are moving in the easy to believe that love-making, or house- matter. A few examples have been set even keeping, is well-nigh impossible without a in the otherwise orthodox families of high common language. So the work must start social standing. The most striking example from narrower circles of subcastes and gradu- of this is to be found in the remarriage of the ally expand to wider and wider circles. daughter, a girl widow of ten or twleve, of There is no denying the fact that the work Justice Ashntosh Mukrju of the Calcutta. has begun in right earnest and is making High Court. Though he belonged to orthosteady progress. Men like Sir Chandra dox Hinduism, still when it came to the reMadhub Ghose and Justice Saradacharun Mittra are rendering great service along this line. A few years ago Miss Sarala Devi Ghosal, B.A., of Bengal, a woman of great marriage of his little widowed daughter, he did not scruple to marry her again, though he was vehemently opposed by some of his own caste people and relatives. Following the the same. Widow marriage seems to be quite a fashionable.thing nowadays. A few years ago Rani Mrinalini of Calcutta, a young widow, married a young man in private life and left her queenly title and kingdom. Parents advertise in the papers: "A young widow of a different caste is wanted for a boy of such and such caste." They want to kill two birds with one stone,-intermarriage and the remarriage of widows combined in the same marriage. "Widow remarriage bureaus" have been started to facilitate widow marriage. Newspapers have opened a new column under the heading of "Widow Marriage," and they fill quite a little space with news bearing on the subject. Even the illiterate masses are permeated with this idea of social reform. The other day in the little farming village of Orakandi, Bengal, with but a few hundred inhabitants, the women called a meeting, at which many men were present, and passed resolutions condemning early marriage and advocating remarriage of Hindu widows. Though 99 per cent. of the people were illiterate, still they could not help feeling the pulsations of the national heart that had been beating with tremendous rapidity. POPULAR DEMAND FOR EDUCATION On the average, out of 141 women in India, one only can read and write. This state of illiteracy left the women to a very narrow sphere of activity. The nation builders of India realize that woman is the greatest asset of any nation. She is the mother; she molds the character of the rising generation; she's the wife; the family is under her control. So the education and general enlightenment of women are more necessary than the education of men. So different avenues are being opened for female education, and patriotic men and women of India are doing everything in their power to spread education among women, and thus to raise their status and with it the status of men. Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, one of the women leaders of Indian thought, thus spoke before the last Social Conference in Calcutta: PRATIVA MUKERJEE (An Indian poetess who began writing at the age of twelve) not you, who are the real nation-builders, and without our active coöperation at all points of progress, all your congresses and conferences are in vain. Educate your women and the nation will take care of itself, for it is true to-day as it was yesterday, and will be to the end of human life, that the hand that rocks the cradle is the power that rules the world. Her Highness the Maharani of Baroda inspired her Indian sisters of the last Ladies' Conference in Calcutta by saying: We shape the minds of our children in their infancy and boyhood, we can inspire them with a love and a legitimate pride in our past history, and we can create in them a taste for our modern literature.... The manhood and the womanhood of India is our handiwork; let us, mothers, train the future manhood and womanhood of India to the service of our country. Even the beggar of India has changed the burden of his songs. In exchange for alms he received, he used to entertain the people with religious songs, entreating them to be good and kind, and also to project their thoughts to the hereafter. But since he has Does one man dare to deprive another of his birth- been won over by the nationalist, he has laid right to God's pure air which nourishes his body? aside his religious songs and sings the naHow then shall a man dare to deprive a human soul tional songs instead. He sings to urge men of its immemorial inheritance of liberty and life? And yet, my friends, man has so dared in the case of to patriotism, he sings recalling the better Indian women. That is why you men of India days of India gone by, and above all he sings are to-day what you are, because your fathers, in to awaken the Indian woman. Here is a depriving your mothers of that immemorial birthsample: right, have robbed you, their sons, of your just inheritance. Therefore, I charge you, restore to Awake, arise, O daughters of India; unless you heroes, and give birth to heroes. But for your abundant. In Bengal they are springing up devotion to India's cause, she can never rise. So like mushrooms. awake, arise, ye daughters of India. The Indian women are invading the sacred precincts of journalism, too. There are many first-class magazines that are being conducted by them, both in English and in different vernaculars. The Indian Ladies' Journal, printed in English, is by far the best woman's paper in India. The Bharati is edited by Mrs. Swadna Kumari Ghosal, the Shu Provat by Miss Kumadini Mittra. There are other papers like the Bamabadhini Patrika, the Paricharika, the Antappor, the Bharat Mahila, etc., all edited by Indian women, and any and every one of these journals would do credit to the periodical literature of any country in the world. Side by side with the Indian National Congress, that meets every year during the Christmas holidays and aims at political reforms and powers, sits the Social Conference, where thousands of educated men and women meet and plan work for social reform. This agitation is kept up throughout the year by newspaper and magazine articles and by public lectures and discourses. There also meets at the same time the "Women's Conference" to plan work to better the condition of women. The women leaders make speeches and pass resolutions and, like men, plan work for the next year. Women travel from different corners of that vast country to attend the meetings of the conference. Everyone is animated with a lofty ideal and a noble ambition. They carry on the business of these As the helpess Indian widows are a burden meetings along strictly business lines. They on society, widows' homes are being started divide India into different circles and carry for training these widows as teachers in differon their activities in the circles in which ent branches of learning—e.g., education, they happen to live. As a result of this agi- nursing, sewing, embroidery, and other fine tation, women's organizations are springing arts. Thus they are being helped to be able up in all parts of India. Women representing to help themselves. The widows' home of these organizations demand women's rights Baranagore, in Bengal, started by Mr. Sasiin no less unmistakable terms than in which pado Bannerjee, and the Kharve widows' the women of America and Europe demand their "rights." The feminist movement is gaining ground everywhere, and the progress in India is almost incredible. HINDU WOMEN'S CLUBS The Mahila Samiti (Woman's Association) of Calcutta proposes, besides other things, to unite. Indian women of all castes, creeds and races, high or low, rich or poor, for the service of the Motherland. The Bharat Stri Mahamandal (All India Woman's Union) aims at diffusing education among women of all classes. It hires woman teachers and sends them out into families where, on account of purdah, married women cannot come out for education. It is mainly through the exertion of the Indian women that hundreds of girls' schools are dotting the entire country. Opening of women's clubs in metropolitan cities, and even in country places, is the order of the day. Women club together and subscribe for papers and magazines, and in their after-dinner meetings the one that can read reads the latest news, and all comment on the recent development of national and even international affairs. In Madras there is not an important place where there is no WIDOWS' HOMES home at Poona, in the Bombay Presidency, We cannot enter here into the part women are playing in the political and industrial regeneration of India. Suffice it to say that but for women's help, guidance, and willingness to suffer, the whole movement would fall to pieces. The Indian woman is the soul of the nationalist movement. When the history of Indian nationalism is written the women of India will be given a conspicuous place. In the strengthening of women we see half of the population strengthened. The half that was feeble and almost paralyzed is stirring with a new life, and promises to be a source IN BY DAVID STARR JORDAN (President of the Stanford University) N the following notes it is not necessary to discuss the ethics of the Japanese occupation of Korea, the history of the various movements which led up to it, nor the incidents of military occupation and of the irruption of laborers and roustabouts who hoped, vainly, to "get rich quick" through occupation of the new territory, and who found themselves obliged to return home unsuccessful. I speak only of those matters of Japanese occupation which came to my attention in a short visit to the country in September, 1911. Korea (Chosen, in Japanese) is nearly as large as New York and Pennsylvania and lies in the same latitude. Agriculturally it has about the same value as these States. It is also a little smaller than Great Britain. Its population is now estimated at 12,000,000. The people are very poor, living in little houses with thatched roofs, in small villages, suggesting colonies of scale insects, on the slopes of the hills. Their poverty is associated with the former bad government, an absolute monarchy, which divided its privileges among the nobility. All taxes were collected by the "squeeze," and there was no remedy for injustice save the chance luck of beheading. Almost every man of initiative in whatever kind within the last three hundred years, has been beheaded by order of the court,—a kind of reversed selection in itself adequate to account for the lack of selfassertion characteristic of the Koreans. Any man suspected of having money was subject to violence or imprisonment. Clean clothing might get a farmer into trouble. To have trees (other than chestnut or persimmon) about one's house, subjected a man to such suspicion. If he were not rich he would have cut them down for fuel. The attitude of the Korean toward his own forlorn government is well expressed by a Korean gentleman, named Kim, as quoted by James S. Gale: We have no king. The one we had was a poor makeshift, but anything is better than no king. He would never take a reprimand. The number of heads of chief officers that dropped during his reign was astonishing. He was mighty in having his own way and in keeping the people under. He used to say: "Don't make a noise, don't talk about the government. Just eat your rice, do your work and be good." When the people attempted to carry on the Independence Club, His Majesty put up a notice on the Bell Kiosh: "Let there be no meeting or shout talk of any kind in the street. You are commanded every man to stay at home and mind your own business." He handcuffed us, he robbed us, he paddled us, he hanged and his worn-out superstitions, but it was better than quartered us, he lived for himself alone and for no king. So deeply is the patriarchal thought written on the heart that bees could as easily swarm without a queen bee as Korea lift up its head without some choice in the way of a ruler. My face is lost and shame is my eternal portion forever. For the "squeeze" the Japanese have substituted regular taxes and regular process of law. They have exterminated the brigands, who were mainly farmers driven beyond endurance by the squeeze. The sums raised by taxation are all spent for the public welfare, and spent in Korea. The expense of occupation, the cost of army and navy, is paid by Japan. This is an important matter, as in most parts of the world the bulk of taxation goes to military expenditure. The Koreans had practically lost all Exports. The Japanese have introduced industrial schools, and are teaching the people trades by which they may have in the cities materials for export. Everywhere fair schools are taking the place of the little native schools. In the Korean village of Gondoro I visited one of these. It was in a room eight feet square; six children were reading in concert, a teacher squatting on the floor, on which the head of the house lay asleep. Later the teacher covered a little hand blackboard with Korean letters. The most visible misfortune of Korea is the loss of her forests. Except along the Yalu River in the north, where still remain the pine forests which the Russian promoters had taken, Korea is practically a treeless land. Originally the forests were destroyed to get rid of tigers and leopards. Now every for firewood. The people burn weeds and young tree or bush that springs up is taken hay, and suffer greatly in the winter time. Good cattle are raised in Korea, being used mainly as beasts of burden, never for milk, but the people cannot afford to keep them as they need all their hay to burn. It is said that there is about one cow or bull to every to end of Korea, from Fusan to the Yalu nine families. Korea is an excellent grazing River. This is of standard gauge, running country and sends some beef to Japan, but American cars, two trains daily each way in the lack of timber cattle cannot be profitably reared, unless some other fuel takes the place of hay. The loss of timber causes great waste of land by wash of the hills. One hundred and seventy thousand acres of land are taken to the sea every year. This wash of the land destroys the breeding grounds of herring. The Japanese have taken the task of reforesting very seriously. Mr. O. Saito, the head forester, has in experimental cultivation nearly all the trees of value in temperate regions. This year three million pine trees were planted. Certain privileges are granted to farmers who rear the trees which are given them, while the destruction of the little chance-sown pines is forbidden. A complete and careful forestry map of Korea has been completed and every method known to forestry for bringing back the trees is in use. Along with the forestry work goes the work of the experiment stations in which all plants which may be made available for Korean use are tested and, if successful, are distributed among the people. One result already has been the establishment of cotton as a crop in Southern Korea. By bringing in better seed, the crop of rice has been increased 30 per cent. on 30,000 of the 300,000 acres sown to rice in Korea. The culture of the species of oak on which the wild silkworm feeds has also been greatly extended. There are now 130 public nurseries of trees in Japan and six pine trees are given yearly to each citizen. bearing Pullman sleepers and dining cars. This line is now extended from Antung on the Yalu River to Mukden in Manchuria, and thence to connections with the TransSiberian line. Solid trains may now be run from Moscow to Fusan. At present the Korean railway hardly pays its way, but will be an important factor in the new Korea the Japanese hope to build up. With proper laws, just government, and encouragement to industry and agriculture, the Japanese hope to see twenty-five millions of people in Korea in a score of years. If the people have something to sell they will have something to buy. They are by no means a barbarous or incompetent people. They taught the Japanese to make Satsuma ware, though they lost the art themselves when their forests were gone. Korean artists built for the Japanese the temples at Kyoto and Nagoya in exact imitation of their own temples at Seoul. When I spoke not long ago in Seoul to 1500 young men, all dressed in spotless white muslin, there were two on the stage who wore Phi Beta Kappa pins, one from Princeton and one from Yale. Their Japanese teachers say that they are very quick to learn languages, fair at mathematics, slow in the inductive sciences. They have lost their nation and, worst of all, it went down without saving its face. The hope of the people is reviving. The Japanese grant perfect religious toleration, and in the consolations of the Christian religion the people are beginning to find a channel in which they can turn their futile love of country. In connection with the large experiment station directed by Dr. Honda at Suwon is an Agricultural College for Korean boys. Whether the blotting out of Korea be This is conducted along approved lines. It right or wrong, an inevitable step of manifest may be noted that in the dormitory the rooms destiny or a needless suppression of a unique are all built in Korean fashion, although national life, it is not necessary for us now much better than in most Korean homes. to decide. The occupation of Chosen is an This shows that the real purpose of the work accomplished fact. It is a part of the future is to build up a new Korea, not the aggrand- of Japan, but it is worth while to know that izement of Japan. The bureau of fisheries the Japanese are taking their new responsiunder Mr. Ihara shows the same attention to Korean needs. Since the Japanese took charge of the protectorate, the catch of fish has been very greatly increased, there being a better market. The sanitation of Seoul, Pyeng-Yang, and Fusan has also received the careful attention of the Japanese authorities. The govern bilities seriously. Japan has undertaken to carry western civilization into this stronghold of the "Unmitigated East." It is in work of this kind that Japanese administration shows itself at its best-capable, patient, forgetting nothing, not the least of the lessons of science, always hopeful, always industrious, and considering the good of the nation rather |