TEXT D It is interesting to
reflect for a moment upon the differences in the areas of moral feeling and
standards in the peoples of Japan and the United States. Americans divide these
areas somewhat rigidly into spirit and flesh, the two beings in opposition in
the life of a human being. Ideally spirit should prevail but all too often it is
the flesh that does prevail. The Japanese make no such division, at least
between one as good and the other as evil. They believe that a person has two
souls, each necessary. One is the "gentle" soul; the other is the "rough" soul.
Sometimes the person uses his gentle soul; sometimes he must use his rough soul.
He does not favor his gentle soul; neither does he fight his rough soul. Human
nature in itself is good, Japanese philosophers insist, and a human being does
not need to fight any part of himself. He has only to learn how to use each soul
properly at appropriate times. Virtue for the Japanese consists in fulfilling
one’s obligations to others. Happy endings, either in life or in fiction, are
neither necessary nor expected, since the fulfillment of duty provides the
satisfying end, whatever the tragedy it inflicts. And duty includes a person’s
obligations to those who have conferred benefits upon him and to himself as an
individual of honor. He develops through this double sense of duty a
self-discipline, which is at once permissive and rigid, depending upon the area
in which it is functioning. The process of acquiring this
self-discipline begins in childhood. Indeed, one may say it begins at birth—how
early is the Japanese child given his own identity! If I were to define in a
word the attitude of the Japanese toward their children I would put it in one
succinct word "respect." Love Yes, abundance of love, warmly expressed from the
moment he is put to his mother’s breast. For mother and child this nursing of
her child is important psychologically. Rewards are frequent, a
bit of candy bestowed at the right moment or an inexpensive toy. As the time
comes to enter school, however, discipline becomes firmer. To bring shame to the
family is the greatest shame for the child. What is the secret
of the Japanese teaching of self-discipline It lies, I think, in the fact that
the aim of all teaching is the establishment of habit. Rules are repeated over
and over, and continually practiced until obedience becomes instinctive. This
repetition is enhanced by the expectation of the elders. They expect a child to
obey and to learn through obedience. The demand is gentle at first and tempered
to the child’s tender age. It is no less gentle as time goes on, but certainly
it is increasingly inexorable. Now, far away from that warm
Japanese home, I reflect upon what I learned there. What, I wonder, will take
the place of the web of love and discipline which for so many centuries has
surrounded the life and thinking of the people of Japan (511 words) Training of the Japanese child can best be described as ______.
A．a system of rewards and punishments B．frequent disciplining which becomes inexorably more severe as the child grows older C．benevolent and indulgent during the early years, but somewhat more severe as the child grows older D．almost entirely psychological