PROF. HENRY W. FARNAM:  
Dear Sir:—My motives in writing this jejune little volume are, as you are aware, two:
 
1st. There seems to be no story told in this country of the Japanese boy's life by a Japanese boy himself. The following rambling sketches are incoherent and extremely meagre, I own; but you must remember that they are a boy's talks. Give him encouragement, and he will tell you more.
 
2d. The most important of my reasons is my desire to obtain the means to prosecute the studies I have taken up in America. Circumstances have obliged me to make my own way in this hard world. If I knew of a better step I should not have resorted to an indiscreet juvenile publication—a publication, moreover, of my own idle experiences, and in a language the alphabet of which I learned but a few years ago.
 
To you my sincere acknowledgments are due for encouraging me to write these pages. This kindness is but one of many, of which the public has no knowledge.
 
I am, sir,
Yours very truly.
SHIUKICHI SHIGEMI
 
NEW HAVEN. CT., September, 1889.