this policy gained the acceptance of the people as a whole with
marvelous readiness, for a reason which few foreigners can appreciate.
Had this policy been formulated and urged by the Tokugawa rulers,
there is no probability that it would have been accepted. But because
it was, ostensibly at least, the declared will of the Emperor, loyalty
to him, which in Japan is both religion and patriotism, led to a
hearty and complete acceptance which could hardly have been realized
in any other land. During the first year of his "enlightened" rule
(1868), the Emperor gave his sanction to an Edict, the last two
clauses of which read as follows:
"The old, uncivilized way shall be replaced by the eternal
principles of the universe.
"The best knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, so as to
promote the Imperial welfare."
It is the wide acceptance of this policy, which, however, is in accord
with the real genius of the people, that has transformed Japan. It has
sent hundreds of its young men to foreign lands to learn and bring
back to Japan the secrets of Western power and wealth; it has
established roads and railways, postal and telegraphic facilities, a
public common-school system, colleges and a university in which
Western science, history, and languages have been taught by foreign
and foreign-trained instructors; daily, weekly, and monthly papers and
magazines; factories, docks, drydocks; local and foreign commerce;
representative government--in a word, all the characteristic features
of New Japan. The whole of New Japan is only the practical carrying
out of the policy adopted at the beginning of the new era, when it was
found impossible to cast out the foreigners by force. Brute force
being found to be out of the question, resort was thus made to
intellectual force, and with real success.
The practice since then has not been so much to retain the foreigner
as to learn of him and then to eliminate him. Every branch of learning
and industry has proved this to be the consistent Japanese policy. No
foreigner may hope to obtain a permanent position in Japanese employ,
either in private firms or in the government. A foreigner is useful
not for what he can do, but for what he can teach. When any Japanese
can do his work tolerably well, the foreigner is sure to be dropped.
The purpose of this volume does not require of us a minute statistical
statement of the present attainments of New Japan. Such information
may be procured from Henry Norman's "Real Japan," Ransome's "Japan in
Transition," and Newton's "Japan: Country, Court, and People." It is
enough for us to realize that Japan has wholly abandoned or profoundly
modified all the external features of her old, her distinctively
Oriental civilization and has replaced them by Occidental features. In
government, she is no longer arbitrary, autocratic, and hereditary,
but constitutional and representative. Town, provincial, and national
legislative assemblies are established, and in fairly good working
order, all over the land. The old feudal customs have been replaced by
well codified laws, which are on the whole faithfully administered
according to Occidental methods. Examination by torture has been
abolished. The perfect Occidentalization of the army, and the creation
of an efficient navy, are facts fully demonstrated to the world. The
limited education of the few--- and in exclusively Chinese
classics--has given place to popular education. Common schools number
over 30,000, taught by about 100,000 teachers (4278 being women),
having over 4,500,000 pupils (over 1,500,000 being girls). The school
accommodation is insufficient; it is said that 30,000 additional
teachers are needed at once. Middle and high schools throughout the
land are rejecting nearly one-half of the student applicants for lack
of accommodation.
Feudal isolation, repression, and seclusion have given way to free
travel, free speech, and a free press. Newspapers, magazines, and
books pour forth from the universal printing press in great profusion.
Twenty dailies issue in the course of a year over a million copies
each, while two of them circulate 24,000,000 and 21,000,000 copies,
respectively.
Personal, political, and religious liberty has been practically secure
now for over two decades, guaranteed by the constitution, and enforced
by the courts.
Chinese medical practice has largely been replaced by that from the
West, although many of the ignorant classes still prefer the old
methods. The government enforces Western hygienic principles in all
public matters, with the result that the national health has improved
and the population is growing at an alarming rate. While in 1872 the
people numbered 33,000,000, in 1898 they numbered 45,000,000. The
general scale of living for the common people has also advanced
conspicuously. Meat shops are now common throughout the land--a thing
unknown in pre-Meiji times--and rice, which used to be the luxury of
the wealthy few, has become the staple necessity of the many.
Postal and telegraph facilities are quite complete. Macadamized roads
and well-built railroads have replaced the old footpaths, except in
the most mountainous districts. Factories of many kinds are appearing
in every town and city. Business corporations, banks, etc., which
numbered only thirty-four so late as 1864 are now numbered by the
thousand, and trade flourishes as in no previous period of Japanese
history. Instead of being a country of farmers and soldiers, Japan is
to-day a land of farmers and merchants. Wealth is growing apace.
International commerce, too, has sprung up and expanded phenomenally.
Japanese merchant steamers may now be seen in every part of the world.
All these changes have taken place within about three decades, and so
radical have they been,--so productive of new life in Japan,--that
some have urged the re-writing of Japanese history, making the first
year of Meiji (1868) the year one of Japan, instead of reckoning from
the year in which Jimmu Tenno is said to have ascended the throne,
2560 years ago (B.C. 660).
The way in which Japanese regard the transformations produced by the
"restoration" of the present Emperor, upon the overthrow of the
"Bakufu," or "Curtain Government," may be judged from the following
graphic paragraph from _The Far East_:
"The Restoration of Meiji was indeed the greatest of revolutions
that this island empire ever underwent. Its magic wand left
nothing untouched and unchanged. It was the Restoration that
overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate, which reigned supreme for over
two centuries and a half. It was the Restoration that brought us
face to face with the Occidentals. It was the Restoration that
pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords down to the level of the
commoners. It was the Restoration that deprived the samurai of
their fiefs and reduced them to penury. It was the Restoration that
taught the people to build their houses of bricks and stones and to
construct ships and bridges of iron instead of wood. It was the
Restoration that informed us that eclipses and comets are not to be
feared, and that earthquakes are not caused by a huge cat-fish in
the bottom of the earth. It was the Restoration that taught the
people to use the "drum-backing" thunder as their messenger, and to
make use of the railroad instead of the palanquin. It was the
Restoration that set the earth in motion, and proved that there is
no rabbit in the moon. It was the Restoration that bestowed on
Socrates and Aristotle the chairs left vacant by Confucius and
Mencius. It was the Restoration that let Shakspere and Goethe take
the place of Bakin and Chikamatsu. It was the Restoration that
deprived the people of the swords and topnots. In short, after the
Restoration a great change took place in administration, in art, in
science, in literature, in language spoken and written, in taste,
in custom, in the mode of living, nay in everything" (p. 541).
A natural outcome of the Restoration is the exuberant patriotism that
is so characteristic a feature of New Japan. The very term
"ai-koku-shin" is a new creation, almost as new as the thing. This
word is an incidental proof of the general correctness of the
contention of this chapter that true nationality is a recent product
in Japan. The term, literally translated, is "love-country heart"; but
the point for us to notice particularly is the term for country,
"koku"; this word has never before meant the country as a whole, but
only the territory of a clan. If I wish to ask a Japanese what part
of Japan is his native home, I must use this word. And if a Japanese
wishes to ask me which of the foreign lands I am a native of, he must
use the same word. The truth is that Old Japan did not have any common
word corresponding to the English term, "My country." In ancient
times, this could only mean, "My clan-territory." But with the passing
away of the clans the old word has taken on a new significance. The
new word, "ai-koku-shin," refers not to love of clan, but to love of
the whole nation. The conception of national unity has at last seized
upon the national mind and heart, and is giving the people an
enthusiasm for the nation, regardless of the parts, which they never
before knew. Japanese patriotism has only in this generation come to
self-consciousness. This leads it to many a strange freak. It is
vociferous and imperious, and often very impractical and Chauvinistic.
It frequently takes the form of uncompromising disdain for the
foreigner, and the most absolute loyalty to the Emperor of Japan; it
demands the utmost respect of expression in regard to him and the form
of government he has graciously granted the nation. The slightest hint
or indirect suggestion of defect or ignorance, or even of limitation,
is most vehemently resented.
A few illustrations of the above statements from recent experience
will not be out of place. In August, 1891, the Minister of Education,
Mr. Y. Osaki, criticising the tendency in Japan to pay undue respect
to moneyed men, said, in the course of a long speech, "You Japanese
worship money even more reverently than the Americans do. If you had a
republic as they have, I believe you would nominate an Iwazaki or a
Mitsui to be president, whereas they don't think of nominating a
Vanderbilt or a Gould." It was not long before a storm was raging
around his head because of this reference to a republican form of
government as a possibility in Japan. The storm became so fierce that
he was finally compelled to resign his post and retire, temporarily,
from political life.
In October, 1898, the High Council of Education was required to
consider various questions regarding the conduct of the educational
department after the New Treaties should come into force. The most
important question was whether foreigners should be allowed to have a
part in the education of Japanese youth. The general argument, and
that which prevailed, was that this should not be allowed lest the
patriotism of the children be weakened. So far as appears but one
voice was raised for a more liberal policy. Mr. Y. Kamada maintained
that "patriotism in Japan was the outcome of foreign intercourse.
Patriotism, that is to say, love of country--not merely of fief--and
readiness to sacrifice everything for its sake, was a product of the
Meiji era."
In 1891 a teacher in the Kumamoto Boys' School gave expression to the
thought in a public address that, as all mankind are brothers, the
school should stand for the principle of universal brotherhood and
universal goodwill to men. This expression of universalism was so
obnoxious to the patriotic spirit of so large a number of the people
of Kumamoto Ken, or Province, that the governor required the school to
dismiss that teacher. There is to-day a strong party in Japan which
makes "Japanism" their cry; they denounce all expressions of universal
good-will as proofs of deficiency of patriotism. There are not wanting
those who see through the shallowness of such views and who vigorously
oppose and condemn such narrow patriotism. Yet the fact that it exists
to-day with such force must be noted and its natural explanation, too,
must not be forgotten. It is an indication of self-conscious
nationality.
That this love of country, even this conception of country, is a
modern thing will appear from two further facts. Until modern times
there was no such thing as a national flag. The flaming Sun on a field
of white came into existence as a national flag only in 1859. The use
of the Sun as the symbol for the Emperor has been in vogue since 700
A.D., the custom having been adopted from China. "When in 1859 a
national flag corresponding to those of Europe became necessary, the
Sun Banner naturally stepped into the vacant place."[A]
The second fact is the recent origin of the festival known as
"Kigensetsu." It occurs on February 11 and celebrates the alleged
accession of Jimmu Tenno, the first Emperor of Japan, to the throne
2560 years ago (660 B.C.). The festival itself, however, was
instituted by Imperial decree ten years ago (1890).
The transformation which has come over Japan in a single generation
requires interpretation. Is the change real or superficial? Is the new
social order "a borrowed trumpery garment, which will soon be rent by
violent revolutions," according to the eminent student of racial
psychology, Professor Le Bon, or is it of "a solid nature" according
to the firm belief of Mr. Stanford Ransome, one of the latest writers
on Japan?
This is the problem that will engage our attention more or less
directly throughout this work. We shall give our chief thought to the
nature and development of Japanese racial characteristics, believing
that this alone gives the light needed for the solution of the
problem.[B]
III
THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS
What constitutes progress? And what is the true criterion for its
measurement? In adopting Western methods of life and thought, is Japan
advancing or receding? The simplicity of the life of the common
people, their freedom from fashions that fetter the Occidental, their
independence of furniture in their homes, their few wants and fewer
necessities--these, when contrasted with the endless needs and demands
of an Occidental, are accepted by some as evidences of a higher stage
of civilization than prevails in the West.
The hedonistic criterion of progress is the one most commonly adopted
in considering the question as to whether Japan is the gainer or the
loser by her rapid abandonment of old ways and ideas and by her
equally rapid adoption of Western ones in their place. Yet this appeal
to happiness seems to me a misleading because vague, if not altogether
false, standard of progress. Those who use it insist that the people
of Japan are losing their former happiness under the stress of new
conditions. Now there can be no doubt that during the "Kyu-han jidai,"
the times before the coming in of Western waves of life, the farmers
were a simple, unsophisticated people; living from month to month with
little thought or anxiety. They may be said to have been happy. The
samurai who lived wholly on the bounty of the daimyo led of course a
tranquil life, at least so far as anxiety or toil for daily rice and
fish was concerned. As the fathers had lived and fought and died, so
did the sons. To a large extent the community had all things in
common; for although the lord lived in relative luxury, yet in such
small communities there never was the great difference between classes
that we find in modern Europe and America. As a rule the people were
fed, if there was food. The socialistic principle was practically
universal. Especially was emphasis laid on kinship. As a result, save
among the outcast classes, the extremes of poverty did not exist.
Were we to rest our inquiries at this point, we might say that in
truth the Japanese had attained the summit of progress; that nothing
further could be asked. But pushing our way further, we find that the
peace and quiet of the ordinary classes of society were accompanied by
many undesirable features.
Prominent among them was the domineering spirit of the military class.
They alone laid claim to personal rights, and popular stories are full
of the free and furious ways in which they used their swords. The
slightest offense by one of the swordless men would be paid for by a
summary act of the two-sworded swashbucklers, while beggars and
farmers were cut down without compunction, sometimes simply to test a
sword. In describing those times one man said to me, "They used to cut
off the heads of the common people as farmers cut off the head of the
daikon" (a variety of giant radish). I have frequently asked my
Japanese friends and acquaintances, whether, in view of the increasing
difficulties of life under the new conditions, the country would not
like to return to ancient times and customs. But none have been ready
to give me an affirmative reply. On detailed questioning I have always
found that the surly, domineering methods, the absolutism of the
rulers, and the defenselessness of the people against unjust arbitrary
superiors would not be submitted to by a people that has once tasted
the joy arising from individual rights and freedom and the manhood
that comes from just laws for all.
A striking feature of those Japanese who are unchanged by foreign ways
is their obsequious manner toward superiors and officials. The lordly
and oftentimes ruthless manner of the rulers has naturally cowed the
subject. Whenever the higher nobility traveled, the common people were
commanded to fall on the ground in obeisance and homage. Failure to do
so was punishable with instant death at the hands of the retainers
who accompanied the lord. During my first stay in Kumamoto I was
surprised that farmers, coming in from the country on horseback,
meeting me as I walked, invariably got down from their horses,
unfastened the handkerchiefs from their heads, and even took off their
spectacles if there were nothing else removable. These were signs of
respect given to all in authority. Where my real status began to be
generally known, these signs of politeness gave place to rude staring.
It is difficult for the foreigner to appreciate the extremes of the
high-handed and the obsequious spirit which were developed by the
ancient form of government. Yet it is comparatively easy to
distinguish between the evidently genuine humility of the non-military
classes and the studied deference of the dominant samurai.
Another feature of the old order of things was the emptiness of the
lives of the people. Education was rare. Limited to the samurai, who
composed but a fraction of the population, it was by no means
universal even among them. And such education as they had was confined
to the Chinese classics. Although there were schools in connection
with some of the temples, the people as a whole did not learn to read
or write. These were accomplishments for the nobility and men of
leisure. The thoughts of the people were circumscribed by the narrow
world in which they lived, and this allowed but an occasional
glimpse of other clans through war or a chance traveler. For, in those
times, freedom of travel was not generally allowed. Each man, as a
rule, lived and labored and died where he was born. The military
classes had more freedom. But when we contrast the breadth of thought
and outlook enjoyed by the nation to-day, through newspapers and
magazines, with the outlook and knowledge of even the most progressive
and learned of those of ancient times, how contracted do their lives
appear!
A third feature of former times is the condition of women during those
ages. Eulogizers of Old Japan not only seem to forget that working
classes existed then, but also that women, constituting half the
population, were essential to the existence of the nation. Though
allowing more freedom than was given to women in other Oriental
nations, Japan did not grant such liberty as is essential to the full
development of her powers. "Woman is a man's plaything" expresses a
view still held in Japan. "Woman's sole duty is the bearing and
rearing of children for her husband" is the dominant idea that has
determined her place in the family and in the state for hundreds of
years. That she has any independent interest or value as a human being
has not entered into national conception. "The way in which they are
treated by the men has hitherto been such as might cause a pang to any
generous European heart.... A woman's lot is summed up in what is
termed 'the three obediences,' obedience, while yet unmarried, to a
father; obedience, when married, to a husband; obedience, when
widowed, to a son. At the present moment the greatest duchess or
marchioness in the land is still her husband's drudge. She fetches and
carries for him, bows down humbly in the hall when my lord sallies
forth on his good pleasure."[C] "The Greater Learning for Women," by
Ekken Kaibara (1630-1714), an eminent Japanese moralist, is the name
of a treatise on woman's duties which sums up the ideas common in
Japan upon this subject. For two hundred years or more it has been
used as a text-book in the training of girls. It enjoins such abject
submission of the wife to her husband, to her parents-in-law, and to
her other kindred by marriage, as no self-respecting woman of Western
lands could for a moment endure. Let me prove this through a few
quotations.
"A woman should look on her husband as if he were Heaven itself and
never weary of thinking how she may yield to her husband, and thus
escape celestial castigation." "Woman must form no friendships and no
intimacy, except when ordered to do so by her parents or by the
middleman. Even at the peril of her life, must she harden her heart
like a rock or metal, and observe the rules of propriety." "A woman
has no particular lord. She must look to her husband as her lord and
must serve him with all reverence and worship, not despising or
thinking lightly of him. The great life-long duty of a woman is
obedience.... When the husband issues his instructions, the wife must
never disobey them.... Should her husband be roused to anger at any
time, she must obey him, with fear and trembling." Not one word in all
these many and specific instructions hints at love and affection. That
which to Western ears is the sweetest word in the English language,
the foundation of happiness in the home, the only true bond between
husband and wife, parents and children--LOVE--does not once appear in
this the ideal instruction for Japanese women.
Even to this day divorce is the common occurrence in Japan. According
to Confucius there are seven grounds of divorce: disobedience,
barrenness, lewd conduct, jealousy, leprosy or any other foul or
incurable disease, too much talking, and thievishness. "In plain
English, a man may send away his wife whenever he gets tired of her."
Were the man's duties to the wife and to her parents as minutely
described and insisted on as are those of the wife to the husband and
to his parents, this "Greater Learning for Women" would not seem so
deficient; but such is not the case. The woman's rights are few, yet
she bears her lot with marvelous patience. Indeed, she has acquired a
most attractive and patient and modest behavior despite, or is it
because of, centuries of well-nigh tyrannical treatment from the male
sex. In some important respects the women of Japan are not to be
excelled by those of any other land. But that this lot has been a
happy one I cannot conceive it possible for a European, who knows the
meaning of love or home, to contend. The single item of one divorce
for every three marriages tells a tale of sorrow and heartache that is
sad to contemplate. Nor does this include those separations where
tentative marriage takes place with a view to learning whether the
parties can endure living together. I have known several such cases.
Neither does this take account of the great number of concubines that
may be found in the homes of the higher classes. A concubine often
makes formal divorce quite superfluous.