Working Women of Japan Part 6

Moreover, the results of the Home have been such as to break down opposition. The good-will and cooperation of the factory officials were won. Factories in other parts of the country also have recognized our Home as presenting a splendid ideal which, in a measure, many of them are already following. The local and the central governments, as already shown, have repeatedly sent officials to inspect us, and in their reports have not only praised us, but have described our Home in detail, saying that we have solved the difficult problem of how to care for factory hands.

Through the Home we are reaching the lowest strata of the working cla.s.ses of j.a.pan, and are providing them with ideals, motives, and education, and in a way, too, which does not tend to pauperize them, for each girl pays as board a sum sufficient to cover actual living expenses. It is also exerting an influence on the townsfolk. The att.i.tude of the people toward Christianity has undergone a marked change. Villages in the interior likewise have altered their att.i.tude on seeing how their daughters, graduates of our Home, have improved both in intelligence and character, in marked contrast to those who have been in other boarding-houses. All in all, Mr. Omoto has attained remarkable success. He is absorbed, heart and soul, in his work of bettering the moral and religious conditions of the working girls of j.a.pan, and is a man continuously growing in spiritual life, Christian character, and knowledge of men. I have never known a man more thoroughly converted or more enthusiastic in his chosen field of work. The Omoto of to-day is a different person from the reformed debauchee of thirteen years ago, who began this service for factory girls as the outcome of his sincere question, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" His family have become possessed with the idea of social service, and his five children are being brought up in this atmosphere and in the fear of the Lord.

Thus has the Matsuyama Working Girls' Home survived many threatening vicissitudes, attained conspicuous successes, and is now embarked on a new line of endeavor. May it exceed in the future its successes of the past and make still more substantial contributions to the uplift of the working women of j.a.pan!