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 Mike McGrath

Visual Basic

4th edition
covers Visual Studio Community 2015
In easy steps is an imprint of In Easy Steps Limited
16 Hamilton Terrace · Holly Walk · Leamington Spa
Warwickshire · CV32 4LY
www.ineasysteps.com
Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2015 by In Easy Steps Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Notice of Liability
Every effort has been made to ensure that this book contains accurate and current information. However, In
Easy Steps Limited and the author shall not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by readers as a result
of any information contained herein.
Trademarks
All trademarks are acknowledged as belonging to their respective companies.
 Contents
1 Getting started
Introducing Visual Basic
Installing Visual Studio
Exploring the IDE
Starting a new project
Adding a visual control
Adding functional code
Saving projects
Reopening projects
Summary

2 Setting properties
Form properties
Meeting the properties editor
Editing property values
Coding property values
Applying computed values
Applying user values
Prompting for input
Specifying dialog properties
Summary

3 Using controls
Tab order
Using Button
Using TextBox
Using ComboBox
Using Label
Using PictureBox
Using ListBox
Using CheckBox
Using RadioButton
Using WebBrowser
Using Timer
Summary

4 Learning the language

Elements of a program
Declaring variable types
Understanding variable scope
 Working with variable arrays
Performing operations
Branching code
Looping code
Calling object methods
Creating a sub method
Sending parameters
Creating a function
Doing mathematics
Generating a random number
Summary

5 Building an application
The program plan
Assigning static properties
Designing the interface
Initializing dynamic properties
Adding runtime functionality
Testing the program
Deploying the application
Summary

6 Solving problems
Real-time error detection
Fixing compile errors
Debugging code
Setting debug breakpoints
Detecting runtime errors
Catching runtime errors
Getting help
Summary

7 Extending the interface

Color, Font & Image dialogs
Open, Save & Print dialogs
Creating application menus
Making menus work
Adding more forms
Controlling multiple forms
Playing sounds
Playing multimedia
Summary
8 Scripting with Visual Basic
Introducing VBA macros
Creating a Word macro
Creating an Excel macro
Running advanced macros
An introduction to VBScript
Enforcing declarations
Validating input
Merging text files
Getting registry data
Summary

9 Harnessing data
Reading text files
Streaming lines of text
Reading Excel spreadsheets
Reading XML files
Creating an XML dataset
Reading RSS feeds
Addressing XML attributes
Summary

10 Employing databases
An introduction to databases
Designing a database
Creating a database
Adding database tables
Defining table columns
Making table relationships
Entering table data
Creating a database dataset
Adding form data controls
Binding meaningful data
Building custom SQL queries
Summary
 1
Getting started
Welcome to the exciting world of Visual Basic programming. This chapter introduces the Visual Studio Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) and shows you how to create a real Windows application.

Introducing Visual Basic

Installing Visual Studio
Exploring the IDE
Starting a new project
Adding a visual control
Adding functional code
Saving projects
Reopening projects
Summary
Introducing Visual Basic
In choosing to start programming with Visual Basic you have made an excellent choice –
the Visual Basic programming language offers the easiest way to write programs for
Windows. This means you can easily create your own programs to give maximum control
over your computer, and automate your work to be more productive. Also, programming
with Visual Basic is fun!

Like other programming languages, Visual Basic comprises a number of significant

“keywords” and a set of syntax rules. Beginners often find its syntax simpler than other
programming languages, making Visual Basic a popular first choice to learn.
Although writing programs can be complex, Visual Basic makes it easy to get started. You
can choose how far to go. Another advantage of Visual Basic is that it works with
Microsoft Office applications, and with the Windows Script Host within the Windows
operating system – so the possibilities are immense.
• Visual Basic (VB) – quite simply the best programming language for the novice or
hobbyist to begin creating their own standalone Windows applications, fast.
• Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) – an implementation of Visual Basic that is built
into all Microsoft Office applications. It runs within a host, rather than as a standalone
application.
• Visual Basic Script (VBScript) – a derivative of Visual Basic that can be used for
Windows scripting.
You can download the projects from this book at
www.ineasysteps.com/resource-centre/downloads/

The New icon pictured above indicates a new or enhanced feature introduced
with the latest version of Visual Basic and Visual Studio.
The evolution of Visual Basic
• Visual Basic 1.0 released in May 1991 at the Comdex trade show in Atlanta, Georgia,
USA.
• Visual Basic 2.0 released in November 1992 – introducing an easier and faster
programming environment.
• Visual Basic 3.0 released in the summer of 1993 – introducing the Microsoft Jet
Database Engine for database programs.
• Visual Basic 4.0 released in August 1995 – introducing support for controls based on
the Component Object Model (COM).
• Visual Basic 5.0 released in February 1997 – introducing the ability to create custom
user controls.
• Visual Basic 6.0 released in the summer of 1998 – introducing the ability to create
web-based programs. This hugely popular edition is the final version based on COM
and is often referred to today as “Classic Visual Basic”.
• Visual Basic 7.0 (also known as Visual Basic .NET) released in 2002 – introducing a
very different object-oriented language based upon the Microsoft .NET framework.
This controversial edition broke backward-compatibility with previous versions,
causing a rift in the developer community. Subsequent editions added features for
subsequent .NET framework releases.
• Visual Basic 8.0 (a.k.a.Visual Basic 2005).
• Visual Basic 9.0 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 2008).
• Visual Basic 10.0 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 2010).
• Visual Basic 11.0 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 2012).
• Visual Basic 12.0 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 2013).
(version numbering of Visual Basic skipped 13 to keep in line with the version
numbering of Visual Studio itself).
• Visual Basic 14.0 (a.k.a. Visual Basic 2015).

Visual Basic derives from an earlier, simple language called BASIC, an acronym –
Beginners
All-purpose
Symbolic
Instruction
Code.
The “Visual” part was added later as many tasks can now be accomplished
visually, without actually writing any code.

All examples in this book have been created for Visual Basic 14.0, although many of the
core language features are common to previous versions of the Visual Basic programming
language.
Installing Visual Studio
In order to create Windows applications with the Visual Basic programming language, you
will first need to install a Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
Microsoft Visual Studio is the professional development tool that provides a fully
Integrated Development Environment for Visual C++, Visual C#, Visual J#, and Visual
Basic. Within its IDE, code can be written in C++, C#, J# or the Visual Basic
programming language to create Windows applications.

Visual Studio Community edition is a streamlined version of Visual Studio specially

created for those people learning programming. It has a simplified user interface and omits
advanced features of the professional edition to avoid confusion. Within its IDE, code can
be written in the Visual Basic programming language to create Windows applications.
Both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Community provide a Visual Basic IDE for Visual
Basic programming. Unlike the fully-featured Visual Studio product, the Visual Studio
Community edition is completely free and can be installed on any system meeting the
following minimum requirements:

Component Requirement

Windows XP
Windows Vista
Operating system Windows 7
Windows 8/8.1
Windows 10

CPU (processor) 1.6GHz or faster

RAM (memory) 1024MB (1GB) minimum

HDD (hard drive) 4GB available space, 5400RPM speed

Video Card DirectX 9-capable, and a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher

The Visual Studio Community edition is used throughout this book to demonstrate
programming with the Visual Basic language, but the examples can also be recreated in
Visual Studio. Follow the steps opposite to install Visual Studio Community edition.
Open your web browser and navigate to the Visual Studio Community download
page – at the time of writing this can be found at visual-studio.com/en-
 us/products/visual-studio-community-vs.aspx

Click the “Download Community 2015” button to download a vs_community.exe

installer file to your computer
Click on the vs_community.exe file to run the installer

Accept the suggested installation location, then click Next

Choose the Custom type of installation, then click Next

Check only the Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools feature to be added to the
typical setup, then click Next, Install to begin the download and installation
process

Choosing a different destination folder may require other paths to be adjusted

later – it’s simpler to just accept the suggested default.

The Visual Studio 2015 setup process allows you to install just the components
you need.
You can run the installer again at a later date to modify Visual Studio by adding or
removing features. The Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools are required by the
database example in the final chapter of this book.
Exploring the IDE
Go to the Start menu, then select the Visual Studio 2015 menu item added there by
the installer

Sign in with your Microsoft Account, or simply click the Not now, maybe later
link to continue
Choose your preferred color theme, such as Light, then click the Start Visual
Studio button

The first time Visual Studio starts, it takes a few minutes as it performs some
configuration routines.
The Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) appears, from which you
have instant access to everything needed to produce complete Windows applications.
From here you can create exciting visual interfaces, enter code, compile and execute
applications, debug errors, and much more.

You can change the color theme later – choose the Tools, Options menu then
Environment, General.
The Visual Studio IDE initially includes a default Start Page, along with the standard IDE
components, and looks like this:
Start Page elements
The default start page provides these useful features:
• Start – provides links you can click to begin a new project or reopen an existing
project.
• Recent – conveniently lists recently opened projects so you can quickly select one to
reopen.
• News – feeds the latest online news direct from the Microsoft Developer Network
(MSDN).

You can return to the Start Page at any time by selecting View, Start Page on the
menu bar.
Visual Studio IDE components
The Visual Studio IDE initially provides these standard features:
• Menu Bar – where you can select actions to perform on all your project files and to
access Help. When a project is open, extra menus of Project and Build are shown in
addition to the default menu selection of File, Edit, View, Debug, Team, Tools, Test,
Analyze, Window, and Help.
• Toolbar – where you can perform the most popular menu actions with just a single
click on its associated shortcut icon.
• Toolbox – where you can select visual elements to add to a project. Place the cursor
over the Toolbox to see its contents. When a project is open, “controls” such as
Button, Label, CheckBox, RadioButton, and TextBox are shown here.
• Solution Explorer – where you can see at a glance all the files and resource
components contained within an open project.
• Status Bar – where you can read the state of the current activity being undertaken.
When building an application, a “Build started” message is displayed here, changing
 to a “Build succeeded” or “Build failed” message upon completion.

The menus are once again in title-case, rather than the ALL CAPS style of the
previous version.

Online elements of the Start Page require a live internet connection – if the
hyperlinks do not appear to work, verify your internet connection.
Starting a new project
On the menu bar click File, New, Project, or press the Ctrl + Shift + N keys, to
open the New Project dialog box

In the New Project dialog box, select the Windows Forms Application template
icon

Enter a project name of your choice in the Name field, then click on the OK button
to create the new project – in this case the project name will be “GettingStarted”

The New Project dialog automatically selects the Windows Forms Application
template by default as it is the most often used template.
Visual Studio now creates your new project and loads it into the IDE. A new tabbed Form
Designer window appears (in place of the Start Page tabbed window) displaying a default
empty Form. You can select View, and then the Solution Explorer menu, to open a
Solution Explorer window that reveals all files in your project. Additionally, you can
select View, Properties menu to open a Properties window to reveal all properties of
your Form.
The Form Designer is where you can create visual interfaces for your applications, and
the Properties window contains details of the item that is currently selected in the Form
Designer window.

The Visual Studio IDE has now gathered all the resources needed to build a default
Windows application – click the Start button on the toolbar to launch this application.

The application creates a basic window – you can move it, minimize it, maximize it, resize
it, and quit the application by closing it. It may not do much but you have already created
a real Windows program!

You can alternatively run applications using the Debug, Start Debugging menu
options.
Adding a visual control
The Toolbox in the Visual Studio IDE contains a wide range of visual controls which are
the building blocks of your applications. Using the project created on the previous page,
follow these steps to start using the Toolbox now:
Place the cursor over the vertical Toolbox tab at the left edge of the IDE window,
or click View, Toolbox on the menu bar, to display the Toolbox contents. The
visual controls are contained under various category headings beside an expansion
arrow

Click on the expansion arrow beside the Common Controls category heading to
expand the list of most commonly used visual controls. Usefully, each control
name appears beside an icon depicting that control as a reminder. You can click on
the category heading again to collapse the list, then expand the other categories to
explore the range of controls available to build your application interfaces
The Toolbox will automatically hide when you click on another part of the IDE, but
it can be fixed in place so it will never hide, using the pin button on the Toolbox
bar.

Any pinned Window in the IDE can be dragged from its usual location to any
position you prefer. Drag it back to the initial location to re-dock it.
Click and drag the Button item from the Common Controls category in the
Toolbox onto the Form in the Designer window, or double-click the Button item,
to add a Button control to the Form

A Button is one of the most useful interface controls – your program determines
what happens when the user clicks it.
The Button control appears in the Form Designer surrounded by “handles” which can be
dragged to resize the button’s width and height. Click the Start button to run the
application and try out your button.
This Button control performs no function when it’s clicked – until you add some
code.
The Button control behaves in a familiar Windows application manner with “states” that
visually react to the cursor.
Adding functional code
The Visual Studio IDE automatically generates code, in the background, to incorporate the
visual controls you add to your program interface. Additional code can be added manually,
using the IDE’s integral Code Editor, to determine how your program should respond to
interface events – such as when the user clicks a button.
Using the project created on the previous page, follow these steps to start using the Visual
Studio Code Editor:
Double-click on the Button control you have added to the default Form in the
Designer window. A new tabbed text window opens in the IDE – this is the Code
Editor window

The cursor is automatically placed at precisely the right point in the code at which
to add an instruction, to determine what the program should do when this button is
clicked. Type the instruction MsgBox(“Hello World!”) so the Code Editor looks like
this:

Switch easily between the Code Editor and Form Designer (or Start Page) by
clicking on the appropriate window tab.
The Solution Explorer and Properties windows are closed here for clarity. You
can reopen them at any time from the View menu.
Click the Start button to run the application and test the code you have just
written, to handle the event that occurs when the button is clicked

Click the OK button to close the dialog box, then click the X button on the Form
window, or click the Stop Debugging button on the menu bar, to stop the program

Use the View menu on the menu bar to open the Code Editor, Form Designer,
or any other window you require at any time.
Each time the button in this application is pressed, the program reads the line of code you
added manually to produce a dialog box containing the specified message. The action of
pressing the button creates a Click event that refers to the associated “event-handler”
section of code you added to see how to respond.
In fact, most Windows software works by responding to events in this way. For instance,
when you press a key in a word processor a character appears in the document – the
KeyPress event calls upon its event-handler code to update the text in response.
The process of providing intelligent responses to events in your programs is the very
cornerstone of creating Windows applications with Visual Basic.
Saving projects
Even the simplest Visual Basic project comprises multiple files which must each be saved
on your system to store the project.
Follow these steps to save the current New Project to disk:
Click the Save All button on the toolbar, or click File, Save All on the menu bar, or
press Ctrl + Shift + S

Your project is now saved at its default save location

To discover or change the save location click Tools on the menu bar, then select the
Options item
Expand Projects and Solutions in the left pane, then choose the General option to
reveal Projects location
You can click File, Close Solution on the menu bar to close an open project – a
dialog will prompt you to save any changes before closing.

Find the Debug folder in your saved project directory containing the application’s
executable (.exe) file – you can double-click this to run your program like other
Windows applications.
Reopening projects
Use these steps to reopen a saved Visual Basic project:
Click File, Open, Project/Solution on the menu bar to launch the Open Project
dialog

In the Open Project dialog, select the folder containing the project you wish to
reopen, and Open that folder

Now, select the Visual Basic Solution file with the extension .sln to reopen the
project, or alternatively, open the folder bearing the project name, then select the
Visual Basic Project File with the extension .vbproj

Only have one project open at any given time to avoid confusion – unless several
are needed to be opened together for advanced programming.
If you don’t see the Form Designer window after you have reopened a project,
click the Form1.vb icon in Solution Explorer to make it appear.
Summary
• The Windows Application Template in the New Project dialog is used to begin a new
Windows application project.
• A unique name should be entered into the New Project dialog whenever you create a
new Visual Basic project.
• The Form Designer window of the Visual Studio IDE is where you create the visual
interface for your program.
• Visual controls are added from the Toolbox to create the interface layout you want for
your program.
• A control can be dragged from the Toolbox and dropped onto the Form, or added to the
Form with a double-click.
• The Visual Studio IDE automatically generates code in the background as you
develop your program visually.
• The Code Editor window of the Visual Studio IDE is where you manually add extra
code to your program.
• Double-click on any control in the Form Designer to open the Code Editor window at
that control’s event-handler code.
• The Start button on the Visual Studio toolbar can be used to run the current project
application.
• Pressing a Button control in a running application creates a Click event within the
program.
• Code added to a button’s Click event-handler determines how your program will
respond whenever its Click event occurs.
• Providing intelligent responses to events in your programs is the cornerstone of
programming with Visual Basic.
• Remember to explicitly save your working project using the Save All button on the
toolbar, to avoid accidental loss.
• Select the solution file with the .sln extension in your chosen saved project directory to
reopen that project.
 2
Setting properties
This chapter describes how properties of an application can be changed at “designtime”, when you are creating the
interface, and at “runtime”, when the application is actually in use.

Form properties
Meeting the properties editor
Editing property values
Coding property values
Applying computed values
Applying user values
Prompting for input
Specifying dialog properties
Summary
Form properties
Most applications created with Visual Basic are based upon a windowed Form – a canvas
on which to paint the user interface. In some cases, an application will have more than one
Form, and Visual Basic lets you display and hide Forms while the application is running.
Closing the main Form quits the application.
Like all Visual Basic objects, each Form has several interesting, familiar properties, such
as those distinguished below:

A Form is a window. That is why Forms have a Maximize, Minimize and Close
button, like all other regular windows.
Meeting the properties editor
The Visual Studio IDE provides a Properties window where object properties can be
inspected. This displays a list of the currently selected object’s properties, and their current
values. The full list of Form properties, for example, is much larger than the few shown on
the previous page, and can be inspected in the property editor.
Identify the Properties window in the IDE – if it’s not visible click View,
Properties Window to open it

Every object in Visual Basic has a name – the name of the currently selected
object appears in the drop-down list at the top of the Properties window.
Click on File, New, Project to start a new Windows Forms Application using the
suggested default name
Click on the blank Form in the Form Designer window to display its properties in
the Properties window
Try out the Properties window buttons, immediately above the properties list, to
explore different types of categorized and alphabetical displays

Use the scroll bar in the Properties window to examine the complete list of Form
properties and their present values
Although “Form1” is the default value for both Text and (Name) properties, it is
important to recognize that the Text property only sets the Form’s caption,
whereas the (Name) property is used to reference that Form in Visual Basic
programming code.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
 Peasants of the region speak of Fuji not by
name but merely as O Yama, the "Honourable
Mountain"

"We say O without thinking," he explained, "just as you begin with

'dear sir,' in writing to a stranger who is not dear to you at all."
 For Fuji, however, I like the full English polysyllabic of respect. It is
indeed an "honourable mountain." The great volcanic cone hanging, as
it sometimes seems, in thin blue air, has an ethereal look suggesting
purity and spirituality, so that it is not difficult for the beholder from
another land to sense its quality of sacredness, and to perceive its
fitness to be the abiding place of that beautiful goddess whose
Japanese name means "Princess-who-makes-the-Blossoms-of-the-
Trees-to-Flower."

"There are two kinds of fools," says a Japanese proverb: "—those

who have never ascended Fuji and those who have ascended twice."
To this category I would add a third kind of fool, the greatest of them
all: the fool who fails to appreciate the spectacle of Fuji. A creature
who would be disappointed in Fuji would be disappointed in any
spectacle, however grand—be it the Grand Cañon, the Grand Canal, or
the Grand Central Station.

CHAPTER II
The Pier at Yokohama—The Flower-People—A Celestial Suburb—French
Cooking and Frock Coats—From a Car-Window—Elfin Gardens—"The
Land of Little Children"

The satisfying thing about Japan is that it always looks exactly like
Japan. It could not possibly be any other place. The gulls are Japanese
gulls, the hills are Japanese hills, Tokyo Bay is a Japanese bay, and if
the steamers anchored off the port of Yokohama are not all of them
Japanese, many of them have, at least, an exotic look, with their
preposterously fat red funnels or their slender blue ones. Even the little
launches from which the port authorities board you as you lie in the
harbour are not quite like the launches seen elsewhere, and though
the great stone pier, to which at last you are warped in, might of itself
fit the picture of a British seaport, the women and children waiting on
the pier, trotting along beside the ship as she moves slowly to her
berth, waving and smiling up at friends on deck, are costumed in
inevitable suggestion of great brilliant flower-gardens agitated by the
wind. Amongst these women and children in their bright draperies, the
dingy European dress of the male is almost lost, so that, for all its
pantaloons and derby hats, Japan is still Japan.

Through this garden of chattering, laughing, fluttering human

flowers we made our way to—score one for New Japan—a limousine,
and in this vehicle were whirled off through the crowd: a jumble of
blue-clad coolies wearing wide mushroom hats and the insignia of their
employers stamped upon their backs, of rickshas, and touring cars,
and motor-trucks, and skirted schoolboys riding bicycles, and curious
little drays with tiny wheels, drawn by shaggy little horses which are
always led, and which, when left to stand, have their front legs roped.
Over a bridge we went, above the peaked rice-straw awnings of
countless wooden cargo boats; then up a narrow road, surfaced with
brown sand, between rows of delightful little wooden houses, terraced
one above the other, with fences of board or bamboo only partly
concealing infinitesimal gardens, and sliding front doors of paper and
wood-lattice, some of which, pushed back, revealed straw-matted
floors within, with perhaps more flower-like women and children
looking out at us—the women and the larger children having babies
tied to their backs. By some of the doors stood pots containing dwarf
trees or flowering shrubs, by others were hung light wooden birdcages
from which a snatch of song would come, and in front of every door
was a low flat stone on which stood rows of little wooden clogs. Dogs
of breeds unknown to me sat placidly before their masters' doors—
brown dogs to match the houses, black and white dogs, none of them
very large, all of them plump and benignant in expression. Not one of
them left its place to run and bark at our car. They were the politest
dogs I have ever seen. They simply sat upon their haunches, smiling.
And the women smiled, and the children smiled, and the cherry
blossoms smiled from branches overhead, and the sun smiled through
them, casting over the brown roadway and brown houses and brown
people a lovely splattering of light and shadow.
 And what with all these things, and a glimpse of a torii and a shrine,
and the musical sound of scraping wooden clogs upon the pavement
and the faint pervasive fragrance, suggesting blended odours of new
pine wood, incense, and spice—which is to me the smell of Japan;
though hostile critics will be quick to remind me of the odour of paddy
fields—what with all these sights and sounds and smells, so alluring
and antipodal, I began to think we must be motoring through a
celestial suburb, toward the gates of Paradise itself.

But instead of climbing onward up the hill to heaven we swung off

through a garden blooming with azaleas white, purple, pink, and
salmon-colour, and drew up at a pleasant clubhouse. There we had
luncheon; and it is worth remarking that, though prepared by
Japanese, both the menu and the cooking were in faultless French.
The Japanese gentlemen at this club were financiers, officials and
prominent business men of Yokohama. One or two of them wore the
graceful and dignified hakama and haori—the silk skirt and coat of
formal native dress—but by far the larger number were habited in
European style: some of the younger men in cutaways, but the
majority in frock-coats, garments still widely favoured in Japan, as are
also congress gaiter shoes—a most convenient style of footwear in a
land where shoes are shed on entering a house.

Luncheon over, we drove to the station of the electric railroad that

parallels the steam railroad from the seaport to the capital—which, by
the way, will itself become a seaport when the proposed channel has
been dredged up Tokyo Bay, now navigable only by small boats.

From the car window we continued our observations as we rushed

along. The gage of the steam railway is narrower than that of railways
in America and Europe; the locomotives resemble European
locomotives and the cars are small and light by comparison with ours.
The engine whistles are shrill, and instead of two men, three are
carried in each cab. This we shall presently discover, is characteristic of
Japan. They employ more people than we do on a given piece of work
—a discovery rather surprising after all that we have heard of Japanese
efficiency. But Japan's reputation for efficiency is after all based largely
on her military exploits. Perhaps her army is efficient. Perhaps her navy
is. Certainly the discipline and service on the Kashima Maru would bear
comparison with those on a first-rate English ship. Yet why three men
on a locomotive? Why several conductors on a street car? Why three
servants in an ordinary middle-class home which in America or Europe
would be run by one or two? Why fifteen servants in a house which we
would run with six or eight? Why so many motor cars with an assistant
sitting on the seat beside the chauffeur? Why so few motors? Why
men and women drawing heavy carts that might so much better be
drawn by horses or propelled by gasolene? Why these ill-paved narrow
roads? Why this watering of streets with dippers or with little hand-
carts pulled by men? Why a dozen or more coolies operating a hand-
driven pile-driver, lifting the weight with ropes, when two men and a
little steam would do the work so much faster and better? Why, for the
matter of that, these delightful rickshas which some jester of an earlier
age dubbed "pull-man" cars? Why this waste of labour everywhere?

Can it be that in this densely populated little country there are more
willing hands than there is work for willing hands to do? Must work be
spread thin in order to provide a task and a living for everyone? But
again, if that was it, would people work as hard as these people seem
to? Would women be at work beside their husbands, digging knee
deep in the mud and water of the rice fields, dragging heavy-laden
carts, handling bulky boats? And would the working hours be so long?
Here is something to be looked into. But not now.

It is a hand-embroidered country, Japan, though the embroidery is

done in fine stitches of an unfamiliar kind. The rural landscape is so
formed and trimmed and cultivated that sometimes it achieves the look
of a lovely little garden, just as the English landscape sometimes has
the look of a great park. Here, much more than in England, every
available inch of land is put to use. Where hillsides are so steep that
they would wash away if not protected, tidy walls of diamond-shaped
stone are laid dry against them; but whenever possible the hillsides are
terraced up in a way to remind one of vineyards along the Rhine and
the Moselle, making a series of shelf-like little fields, each doing its
utmost to help solve the food problem.
 It is hard to say whether the towns along this line of railroad are
separated by groups of farms, or whether the groups of farms are
separated by towns, so even is the division. The farms are very small
so that the open country is dotted over with little houses—the same
low dainty houses of wood and paper that delighted us when we first
saw them, and which will always delight us when, from the other side
of the world, we think of them. For there is something in the sight of a
neat little Japanese house with its few feet of garden which appeals
curiously to one's imagination and one's sentiment. It is all so light and
lovely, yet all so carefully contrived, so highly finished. To the Western
eye—at least to mine—it has a quality of fantasy. I feel that it cannot
be quite real, and that the people who live in it cannot be quite real:
that they are part—say a quarter—fairy. And I ask you: who but people
having in their veins at least a little fairy blood would take the trouble
to plant a row of iris along the ridges of their roofs?

The houses, too, are often set in elfin situations. One will stand at
the crest of a little precipice with a minute table-land of garden back of
it; another will nestle, half concealed, in a small sheltered basin where
it seems to have grown from the ground, along with the trees and
shrubbery surrounding it—the flowering hedges and the pines with
branches like extended arms in drooping green kimono sleeves; still
another rises at the border of a pond so small that in a land less toylike
it would hardly be a pond; yet here it is adorned with grotesquely
lovely rocks and overhanging leaves and blooms, and in the middle of
it, like as not, will be an island hardly larger than a cartwheel, and on
that island a stone lantern with a mushroom top, and reaching to it
from the shore a delicate arched bridge of wood beneath which drowsy
carp and goldfish cruise, with trading fins and rolling ruminative eyes.

Just as one better understands Hokusai and Hiroshige for having

seen the coastal hills, one understands them better for having seen
these magic little houses with their settings resembling so charmingly
those miniature landscapes made with moss, gravel, small rocks, and
dwarf trees, arranged in china basins by a Japanese gardener, who is
sometimes so kind as to let us see his productions in a window on Fifth
Avenue. Often one feels that Japan herself is hardly more than such a
garden on a larger scale. Over and over again one encounters in the
larger, the finish and fantastic beauty of the smaller garden. And when
one does encounter it, one is happy to forget the politics and problems
of Japan, and to think of the whole country as a curiously perfect table
decoration for the parlour of the world.

And the children! Children everywhere! Children of the children

Kipling wrote of thirty years ago, when he called Japan

"... the land of Little Children, where the

Babies are the Kings."
 With his drum and his monkey he is Japan's
nearest equivalent for our old-style organ-
grinder

Of course we had heard about the children. Everyone who writes

about Japan, or comes home and talks about Japan, tells you about
them. Yet somehow you must witness the phenomenon before you
grasp the fact of their astonishing profusion. Even the statistics,
showing that the population of Japan increases at the rate of from
400,000 to 700,000 every year, don't begin to make the picture,
though they do make apparent the fact that there are several million
children of ten years or younger—about two thirds of whom go
clattering about in wooden clogs, while the remainder ride on the
backs of their parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters. All in
a country smaller than the State of California.

Children alone, children in groups of three or four, children in dozen

lots. Children in all sizes, colourings, attitudes, and conditions. Children
blocking the roads, playing under the trees or in them, romping along
paths, swarming over little piles of earth like bees on bell-shaped hives.
Children watching the passing cars, children in tiny skiffs, children
wading in ponds. Children glimpsed through the open wood and paper
shoji of their matchbox houses, scampering on clean matted floors or
placidly supping—the larger of them squatting before trays and
operating nimble chopsticks, the smaller nursing at the mother's
breast. (Sometimes those children nursed at the breast are not so very
small—which is the reason why so many Japanese have over-
prominent teeth.) Children brown and naked, ragged children, children
in indigo or in bright flowered kimonos and white aprons. Demure
children, wild rampageous children, children with shaved heads,
children with jet-black manes bobbing about their ears and faces as
they run. Chubby children with merry eyes and cheeks like rosy russet
apples. Children achieving the impossible: delighting the eye despite
their dirty little noses.

Can it be that they pile the children on each others' backs, making
two layers of them, because there isn't room upon the ground for all of
them at once? Babies riding on their mothers' backs travel in
comparative dignity and safety. Under their soft little mushroom hats
they sleep through many things—street-car trips, shopping expeditions
and gabbling parties in the tea-rooms of department stores. But those
who ride the shoulders of their elder brothers lead lives of wild
adventure. Their presence is not allowed to interfere with the progress
of young masculine life. The brother will climb trees, walk on stilts and
even play baseball, seemingly unconscious of the weight and the
fragility of the little charge attached to him by ties of blood and cotton.
If the drowsy baby head drops over, getting in the way, the brother
alters its position with a bump from the back of his own head. When
the small rider slips down too far, whether on the back of child or
adult, its bearer stoops and bucks like a broncho, tossing baby into
place again. Through all of which the infant generally sleeps. Are its
dreams disturbed, one wonders, when big brother slides for second-
base? I doubt it. Knowing no cradle, no easy-riding baby carriage, the
Japanese baby is from the first accustomed to a life of action. It seems
to be a fatalist. And indeed it would appear that some special god
protects the baby, for it always seems to go unscathed.

Sometimes in the streets the children outnumber their elders by two

or three to one. Contemplating them one can easily fall into the way of
looking upon adults as mere adjuncts, existing only to wash the
children, see that they wear aprons, and give them their meals.

CHAPTER III
Growing Tokyo—Architecture and Statuary—The Westernization of
Japan—The Story of Costumes—Women's Dress Advantages of
Standardized Styles—Selection and Rejection

As you reach the outskirts of Tokyo you think you are coming to
another little town, but the town goes on and on, and finally as the
train draws near the city's heart large buildings, bulking here and there
above the general two-story tile roofline, inform you in some measure
of the importance of the place. In 1917 Tokyo ranked fifth among the
cities of the world, with a population almost equal to Berlin's, and it
seems likely that when reliable statistics for the world become available
again we shall find that the population of Berlin has at most remained
stationary, while that of Tokyo has grown even more rapidly than
usual, owing to exceptional industrial activity and to the influx of
Russian refugees, whose presence in large numbers in Japan has
created a housing problem. Nor shall I be surprised to hear that Tokyo
has passed Chicago in the population race, becoming third city of the
world.

The central railroad station exhibits the capital's modern

architectural trend. It is conveniently arranged and impressive in its
magnitude as seen across the open space on which it faces, but there
its merit stops. Like most large foreign-style buildings in Japan, it is
architecturally an ugly thing. Standing at the gate of Japan's chief city,
it has about it nothing Japanese. Its façade is grandiose and
meaningless, and as one turns one's back upon it and sees other large
new public structures, one is saddened by the discovery that the
Japanese, skilful at adaptation though they have often shown
themselves, have signally failed to adapt the requirements, methods,
and materials of modern building to their old national architectural
lines. One thing is certain, however: there will be no new public
buildings more unsightly than those already standing. This style of
architecture in Japan has touched bottom.

In twenty years or so I believe the ugliness of these modern piles

will have become apparent to the Japanese. It will dawn upon them
that they need not go to Europe and America for architectural themes,
but to the castle of Nagoya, the watch-towers above the moat of the
Imperial Palace, the palace gates, and the temples and pagodas
everywhere.

When this time comes the Japanese will also realize how very bad
are most of the bronze statues of statesmen and military leaders
throughout the world, and how particularly bad are their own
adventures in this field of art.

Until I saw Tokyo I was under the impression that the world's worst
bronzes were to be found in the region of the Mall in Central Park, New
York; but there is in Tokyo a statue of a statesman in a frock coat, with
a silk hat in his hand, which surpasses any other awfulness in bronze
that I have ever seen.

Looking at such things one marvels that they can be created and
tolerated in a land which has produced and still produces so much
minute loveliness in pottery, ivory, and wood. How can these people,
who still know flowing silken draperies, endure to see their heroes cast
in Prince Albert coats and pantaloons? And how can they adopt the
European style of statuary, when in so many places they have but to
look at the roadside to see an ancient monument consisting of a single
gigantic stone with unhewn edges and a flat face embellished only with
an inscription—simple, dignified, impressive.

All nations, however, have their periods of innovation-worship, and if

Japan has sometimes erred in her selections, her excuse is a good one.
She did not take up Western ways because she wanted to. She wished
to remain a hermit nation. She asked of the world nothing more than
that it leave her alone. She even fired on foreign ships to drive them
from her shores—which, far from accomplishing her purpose, only cost
her a bombardment. Then, in 1853, came our Commodore Perry and,
as we now politely phrase it, "knocked at Japan's door." To the
Japanese this "knocking" backed by a fleet of "big black ships," had a
loud and ominous sound. The more astute of their statesmen saw that
the summons was not to be ignored. Japan must become a part of the
world, and if she would save herself from the world's rapacity she must
quickly learn to play the world's game. Fourteen years after Perry's visit
the Shogunate, which for seven centuries had suppressed the Imperial
family, and itself ruled the land, fell, and the late Emperor, now known
as Meiji Tenno—meaning "Emperor of Enlightenment"—came from his
former capital in the lovely old city of Kyoto, the Boston of Japan, and
took up the reins of government in Yedo—later renamed Tokyo, or
"Eastern Capital"—occupying the former Shogun's palace which is the
Imperial residence to-day.

The Meiji Era will doubtless go down as the greatest of all eras in
Japanese history, and as one of the greatest eras in the history of any
nation. To Viscount Kaneko, who is in charge of the work of preparing
the official record of the reign for publication, President Roosevelt
wrote his opinion of what such a book should be.

"No other emperor in history," he declared, "saw his people pass

through as extraordinary a transformation, and the account of the
Emperor's part in this transformation, of his own life, of the public lives
of his great statesmen who were his servants and of the people over
whom he ruled, would be a work that would be a model for all time."

Under the Emperor Meiji, Japan made breathless haste to

westernize herself, for she was determined to save herself from falling
under foreign domination. Small wonder, then, if in her haste she
snatched blindly at any innovation from abroad. Small wonder if she
sometimes snatched the wrong thing. Small wonder if she sometimes
does it to this day. For she is still a nation in a state of flux; you seem
to feel her changing under your very feet.

But because Japan has accepted a thing it does not mean that she
has accepted it for ever. In great affairs and small, her history
illustrates this fact. A case in point is the story of European dress.

More than thirty years ago, when the craze for everything foreign
was at its height, when the whole fabric of social life in the upper
world was in process of radical change, European dress became
fashionable not only for men but for women. When great ladies had
worn it for a time their humbler sisters took it up, and one might have
thought that the national costume, which is so charming, was destined
entirely to disappear.

Men attached to government offices, banks, and institutions tending

to the European style in the construction and equipment of their
buildings, had some excuse for the change, since the fine silks of
Japan do not wear so well as tough woollen fabrics, and the loose
sleeves tend to catch on door-knobs and other projections not to be
found in the Japanese style of building.

But in Japan more than in any other country, "woman's place is in

the home," and just as the Japanese costume is not well suited to the
European style of building, so the European costume is not well suited
to the Japanese house and its customs. For in the Japanese house
instead of sitting on a chair one squats upon a cushion, and corsets,
stockings and tight skirts were not designed to squat in. Equally
important, clogs and shoes are left outside the door of the Japanese
house in winter and summer, and as in the winter the house is often
very cold, having no cellar and only small braziers, called hibachi, to
give warmth, the covering afforded the feet by the skirts of a Japanese
costume is very comforting. Moreover, the Japanese themselves
declare that European dress is not becoming to their women, being
neither suited to their figures nor to the little pigeon-toed shuffle which
is so fetching beneath the skirts of a kimono.

What was the result of all this?

The men who found foreign dress useful continued to wear it for
business, although those who could afford to do so kept a Japanese
wardrobe as well. But the women, to whom European dress was only
an encumbrance, discarded it completely, so that to-day no sight is
rarer in Japan than that of a Japanese woman dressed in other than
the native costume.

If a Japanese lady be cursed with atrocious taste, there is practically

no way to find it out, no matter how much money she may spend on
personal adornment. The worst that she may do is to carry her clothes
less prettily than other women of her class. The lines she cannot
change. The fabrics are prescribed. The colours are restricted in
accordance with her age. Her dress, like almost every other detail of
her daily life, is regulated by a rigid code. If she be middle-aged and
fat she cannot make herself absurd by dressing as a débutante. If she
be thin she cannot wear an evening gown cut down in back to show a
spinal column like a string of wooden beads. Nor can she spend a
fortune upon earrings, bracelets, necklaces. She may have some pretty
ornamental combs for her black lacquer hair, a bar pin for her obi, a
watch, and perhaps, if she be very much Americanized, a ring and a
mesh bag. A hairdresser she must have, both to accomplish that
amazing and effective coif she wears, and to tell her all the latest
gossip (for in Japan, as elsewhere, the hairdresser is famed as a
medium for the transmission of spicy items which ought not to be
transmitted); but her pocketbook is free from the assaults of milliners;
hats she has none; only a draped hood when the cold weather comes.

The feminine costume is regulated by three things: first, by the age

of the wearer; second, by the season; third, by the requirements of the
occasion. The brightest colours are worn by children; the best kimonos
of children of prosperous families are of silk in brilliant flowered
patterns. Their pendant sleeves are very long. Young unmarried
women also wear bright colours and sleeves a yard in length. But the
young wife, though not denied the use of colour, uses it more sparingly
and in shades relatively subdued; and the pocket-like pendants of her
sleeves are but half the length of those of her younger unmarried
sister. The older she grows the shorter the sleeve pendants become,
and the darker and plainer grows her dress.

In hot weather a kimono of light silk, often white with a coloured

pattern, is worn by well-dressed women. Beneath this there will be
another light kimono which is considered underwear—though other
underwear is worn beneath it. Japanese underwear is not at all like
ours, but one notices that many gentlemen in the national costume
adopt the Occidental flannel undershirt, wearing it beneath their silks
when the weather is cold—a fact revealed by a glimpse of the useful
but unlovely garment rising up into the V-shaped opening formed by
the collar of the kimono where it folds over at the throat.

As with us, the temperature is not the thing that marks the time for
changing from the attire of one season to that of another. Summer
arrives on June first, whatever the weather may be. On that date the
Tokyo policeman blossoms out in white trousers and a white cap, and
on June fifteenth he confirms the arrival of summer by changing his
blue coat for a white one. So with ladies of fashion. Their summer is
from June first to September thirtieth; their autumn from October first
to November thirtieth; their winter from December first to March thirty-
first; their spring from April first to May thirty-first. In spring the
brightest colours are worn. Those for autumn and winter are generally
more subdued.

Young ladies wear brilliant kimonos for ceremonial dress, but

ceremonial dress for married women consists of three kimonos, the
outer one of black, though those beneath, revealed only where they
show a V-shaped margin at the neck, may be of lighter coloured silk.
On the exterior kimono the family crest—some emblem generally
circular in form, such as a conventionalized flower or leaf design, about
an inch in diameter—appears five times in white: on the breast at
either side, on the back of either sleeve at a point near the elbow, and
at the centre of the back, between the shoulder-blades. Because of
these crests the goods from which the kimono is made have to be
dyed to order, the crests being blocked out in wax on the original white
silk so that the dye fails to penetrate. Even the under-kimonos of
fashionable ladies will have crests made in this way.

With the kimono a Japanese lady always wears a neck-piece called

an eri (pronounced "airy"), a long straight band revealed in a narrow
V-shaped margin inside the neck of the inner kimono. The eri varies in
colour, material, and design according to the wearer's age, the
occasion and the season, and it may be remarked that embroidered or
stencilled eri in bright colourings make attractive souvenirs to be
brought home as gifts to ladies, who can wear them as belts or as
bands for summer hats.

If the weather be cold the haori, an interlined silk coat hanging to

the knees or a little below, is worn over the kimono. This is black, with
crests, or of some solid colour, not too gay. A young lady's haori is
sometimes made of flowered silk. Men also wear the haori, but the
man's haori is always black; and while a man will wear a crested haori
on the most formal occasions, a woman en grande tenue will avoid
wearing hers whenever possible for the reason that it conceals all but a
tiny portion of the article of raiment which is her chief pride: namely
the sash or obi.

The best obi of a fashionable woman consists of a strip of heavy

brocaded or hand-embroidered silk, folded lengthwise and sewn at the
edges making a stiff double band about thirteen inches wide and three
and one third yards long. This is wrapped twice around the waist and
tied in a large flat knot in back, the mode of tying varying in
accordance with the age of the wearer, and differing somewhat in
divers localities. The average cost of a fine new obi is, I believe, about
two hundred dollars, and I have heard of obi costing as much as a
thousand dollars. Some of the less expensive ones are very pretty also,
and many a poor woman will have as her chief treasure an obi worth
forty or fifty dollars which she will wear only on great occasions, with
her best silk kimono.

A Tokyo lady notable for the invariable loveliness of her costumes

gives me the following information in response to an inquiry as to the
cost of dressing.

"As our style never changes," she writes, "we don't have to buy new
dresses every season, as our American sisters do. When a girl marries,
her parents supply her, according to their means, with complete
costumes for all seasons. Sometimes these sets will include several
hundred kimonos, and they may cost anywhere from two thousand to
twenty thousand yen. [A yen is about equal to half a dollar.]

"So if a girl is well fitted out she need not spend a great deal on
dress after her marriage. A couple of hundred yen may represent her
whole year's outlay for dress, though of course if she is rich and cares
a great deal for dress, she may spend several thousand.

"Our fashions vary only in colour and such figures as may be

displayed in the goods. Therefore they are not nearly so 'busy' as your
fashions. And we can always rip a kimono to pieces, dye it, and make it
over."

Some other items I get from this lady: When a Japanese girl is
married it is customary for the bride's family to present obi to the
ladies of the groom's family. For a funeral the entire costume including
the obi, is black, save for the white crests. Ladies of the family of the
deceased wear white silk kimonos without crests, and white silk obi.
The Japanese ladies' costume, put on to the best advantage, is not so
comfortable as it looks. It is fitted as tight as possible over the chest,
to give a flat appearance, and is also bound tight at the waist to hold it
in position. The obi, moreover, is very stiff, and to look well must also
be tight.

The more select geisha are said to attain the greatest perfection of
style; which probably means merely that, being professional
entertainers whose sole business it is to please men, they make more
of a study of dress, and spend more time before their mirrors than
other women do.

The speed with which women reverted to the lovely kimono after
their brief experiment with foreign fashions, may have been due in part
to a lurking fear in Japanese male minds that along with the costume
their women might adopt pernicious foreign ways, becoming
aggressive and intractable, like American women who, according to the
Japanese idea, are spoiled by their men—precisely as, according to our
idea, Japanese men are spoiled by their women.

But whatever the reasons, the fact remains that the Japanese
revealed good practical judgment. They kept what they needed and
discarded the rest. It is their avowed purpose to follow this rule in all
situations involving the acceptance or rejection of western innovations,
their object being to preserve the national customs wherever these do
not conflict with the requirements of the hideous urge we are pleased
to term "modern progress." This is a good rule to follow, and if we but
knew the story of the period when Chinese civilization was brought to
Japan, nearly fourteen centuries ago, we might perhaps find
interesting parallels between the two eras of change.
 CHAPTER IV
Quakes and the Building Problem—Big Quakes—Democracy in
Architecture—Narrow Streets and Tiny Shops—The Majestic Little
Policeman—The Dread of Burglars—What to Do in a Quake—The Man
Who Went Home—"Fire!"—A Ricksha Ride to the Wrong Address—A
Front-Porch Bath

Have I given the impression that Tokyo is a disappointing city to one

in search of things purely Japanese? If so it was because I tarried too
long in the district of railroad stations and big business. Moreover, to
the practical commercial eye, this portion of the city must look
promising indeed, because of the wide streets and the new building
going on. And it is building of a kind to be approved by the man of
commerce, for in her new edifices Tokyo is adopting steel-frame
construction.

That she is only now beginning to build in this way is not due to
inertia, but to the fact that earthquakes complicate her building
problem. The tallest of her present office buildings is, I believe, but
seven stories high, and I have heard that twice as much steel was
employed in its construction as would have been employed in a similar
building where earthquakes did not enter into the calculations of the
architect.

It would be difficult to overestimate the part that earthquakes play

in establishing the character of Japanese cities. There will never be
skyscrapers in Japan, or apartment buildings with families piled high in
air. The family, not the individual, is the social unit of the land, and the
private house is the symbol of the family. Even in the congested slums
of Japanese cities, or in the quarters given over to the pitiful outcast
class called eta, each family has its house, though the house may
consist only of a single room no larger than a woodshed and may
harbour an appalling number of people, as miserable and as crowded
as those of the poorest slums in the United States.
 Though the seismograph records an average of about four
earthquakes a day, most of the shocks are too slight to be felt. Tokyo is
however, conscious of about fifty shocks a year. But she has not had a
destructive earthquake since 1894, nor a great disaster since 1855,
when most of the city was shaken down or burned, and 100,000
persons perished.

Minor shocks receive but little attention. In fact by many they are
regarded with favour, on the assumption that they tend to reduce
pressure in the boiler-room, preventing savage visitations. However,
these do occasionally occur and on the seacoast they are sometimes
accompanied by tidal waves which ravage long stretches of shore,
wiping out towns and villages.

Earthquake shocks are sometimes accompanied by terrifying

subterranean sounds. Scientists have their ways of accounting for all
these things, but the man who really knows is the old peasant of the
seacoast village. He can tell you what really causes the earth to
tremble. It is the wrigglings of a pair of giant fish called Namazu,
whiskered creatures somewhat resembling catfish, which inhabit the
bowels of the earth and support upon their backs the Islands of Japan.

Even though the quakes are slight, they serve to keep in people's
minds certain unpleasant possibilities; and these possibilities are, as I
have said, acknowledged in the structure of Japanese houses. Two
stories is the maximum height for a residence, and even tea-houses
and hotels are seldom more than three stories high. This, together
with the fact that everyone who can afford it has a garden, causes
Japanese cities to spread enormously.

On the other hand, the Japanese requires fewer rooms than we do;
his home life is simple and he is less a slave to his possessions than
any other civilized human being. The average family can move its
household goods in a hand-cart. Even the houses of the rich are not
blatant except in a few cases in which florid European architecture has
been attempted. The difference between the houses of the rich and of
the poor is in degree, not in kind. As with the Japanese costume, the
essential lines do not vary.
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