A JAPANESE DOMESTIC SERVANT ON RUSKIN.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."' Sra,—I enclose an essay on Ruskin written by a young Japanese, who is our one domestic servant. He is the son of a coal-merchant in Japan, and has come to California to learn English. His essay on Ruskin is curiously illustrative of the respect in which parents are held in the Far East. He tells us that he is a Volunteer, and will have to leave us at once if war is declared. Many Japs are leaving already, and as they are the best servants available here, they will be much missed in Californian households.—I am, Sir, Sze.,
CH. W. MORGAN.
Los Angeles, California, January 15th.
P.S.—The boy's name is J. Nagaki. Note his phrase- Ruskin's "soul was forged with the hammer of beauty on the anvil of Christianity." —
"ON RUSKIN'S EDUCATION.—There were two principal factors in Ruskin's education one was the Bible, and the other the beauty —of nature, art, and home. Uprightness and mercifulness of his disposition, and uniformity and steadiness of his manner, and greatness of his words are but reflections of what was in his soul which was forged with the hammer of beauty on the anvil of Christianity. It seems to me, however, that Ruskin was not a genius but a man of culture. We might say he was a man of self-culture, but it is more proper to say that he was a man of parental culture. The web-footed fowl swims without being taught, so such a man like Ruskin, of course, would have been great, as he was, even though he had been born in a cottage and his education had been neglected. But his parents made a great effort to educate him; they should not be forgotten when- ever we talk about his life. They were cultured and knew how to bring up their son, and also they were rich enough to provide anything necessary for his education. Especially his mother seems to have been an ideal one. She was always near him when he was young, and prepared a ladder for the little boy so that he could reach the tree and grasp the fruits of His words. His father, too, did not neglect to take care of his son, and took him out in the country with the family to infuse the beauty of nature. That he was a great lover of the beauty both of nature and art is shown by his works. So, we might say that his mother built the frame of Christianity on the foundation of his natural intellect, which his father decorated with the furni- ture of beauty, and at last he himself finished with the flowers and greens from the yard of Oxford. What we gained from his life is immense, but especially what his parents did for him is a good instruction to parents of the world, and the influence of faith and beauty upon man's character is remarkably proved by Ruskin."
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