Note 100 — Chapter X
Reading edition
The statement is, he told me, a calumny. He explained that he lost his post for refusing to bow, not to the portrait, but to the signature of the Emperor, the signature appended to that famous Imperial rescript on education which is appointed to be read in schools. Uchimura is very willing, he said, to show the respect which loyal Japanese are at all times ready to manifest to the Emperor, and he would certainly bow before the portrait of His Majesty; but in the proposal that reverence should be paid to the Imperial autograph he thought he saw the demands of a "Kaiserism"—his word, he speaks vigorous English—which was foreign to the Japanese conception of their sovereign, which would be inimical to the Emperor's influence and would be bad for the nation.