This essay, which is a logical conclusion of the last, requires
neither rhetoric nor adornment, were I able to decorate it with them.
It is a statement of plain fact, and I make no apology for writing it
as simply as possible.
The paper is to be regarded in the light of an appendix to the article
on the Oxford Historicides rather than a separate excursus in line
with the others in the volume.
The facts are accurate, and if I could turn them into an
easily-understood diagram and post it up on every hoarding in the
kingdom, I believe that I should be doing a public service.
In 1885--the year when we failed to rescue Gordon--Mr. W. S. Gilbert
produced his “Mikado.”
Which nation or government were, in 1885, the more fitting themes for
satire--the English or the Japanese? The scandals of the Crimean and
Boer Wars; the uniform successes by sea and land of the Japanese in
their struggles with China and Russia, supply us with no uncertain
answer. The Itos, Togos, Oyamas and Kurokis, whom our librettist
represented to us as Ko-Ko, and so on, have taught us--and even the
disciples of Moltke--that the supreme artists of war are at Tokyo and
Osaka, not in London, Washington, Berlin, Moscow or Vienna. The thirty
millions of Japanese who, in the sixties of the last century, were at
the mercy of the white powers, are to-day engaged--politely enough--in
ushering out of China the trades of Europe and North America.
During the last half century a yellow race, a non-Christian people,
has caught up the white races and, so far as the _ultima ratio regum
populorumque_ is concerned--in the bloody tournament of war--has even
surpassed them. Like every one else, I have been alarmed at the sudden
transformation scene. The Mikado who stage-managed the Chino-Japanese
and Russo-Japanese Wars, is very unlike that Mikado who danced for us
on the boards of the Savoy Theatre.
“_My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time:
To make the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime._”...
sang Mr. Gilbert’s Mikado.
The punishments which Mutsuhito, the real Mikado, has fitted to the
Czar’s crimes of seizing Port Arthur and Manchuria have been--
(1) The sinking or capture of every Russian man-of-war east of Suez.
(2) The siege and capture of Port Arthur.
(3) The defeats of The Yalu, Nan-shan, Telissu, Laio-Yang, The Sha-ho
and Mukden.
(4) The expulsion of the Russians from Manchuria and Korea.
(5) The cession of half of the island of Sakhalin and indirectly
(6) Civil War and bankruptcy in Russia.
One little point of comparison between ourselves and the Japanese will
make my meaning clear.
We all remember the shameful tale (told, not by Mr. Burdett-Coutts
alone, but by eminent doctors, including Sir Frederick Treves, whose
words were published in Blue-books) of the utter disorganization and
incompetence of the medical and surgical departments attached to the
British army in South Africa.
Sir Frederick Treves has inspected the Japanese hospitals for the
wounded, and pronounced them to be perfect.
The Japanese, your wiseacre retorts, are a race of clever imitators.
We invent; they borrow. They can copy but they cannot produce
masterpieces in the arts and sciences. It is good rhetoric but bad
reasoning. The Japanese have borrowed from us neither their art, nor
their ethics. Never conquered in the past, they have developed a
civilization peculiarly their own. The first Mikado was reigning six
centuries before Julius Cæsar landed his legions at a point not five
miles from the spot where I am writing. The Japanese are an ancient
race with points of view diametrically opposed to our own; and like
the Jews they have lived long and learned wisdom.
“If I say anything about Shakespeare,” writes Baron Suyematsu,
“I fear I should at once be considered to be overstepping
propriety; but I must say that even Shakespeare’s plays, some
of which I have read or seen performed, have never given me
such impressions as do the plays of Japan. Whenever we go to
the Western stages we appreciate the decorations, we admire the
splendid movements and good figures of the actors and
actresses, and, so far as we can understand it, the striking
elegance and powerful delivery of their dialogue, and we enjoy
ourselves as much as could be hoped; but on coming home we find
nothing left on our minds which might serve as an incentive in
our future career. No inspiration, no emulation! Such, then,
seems to be the difference between our dramatic works and those
of Western nations.”
Observe that the argument of “art for art’s sake,” is treated by the
talented Japanese diplomatist with the very sanest scorn.
“In Japan,” says the Baron, “the idea of the ‘encouragement of
what is good, and the chastisement of what is bad,’ has always
been kept in view in writing works of fiction, or in preparing
dramatic books and plays. I know very well that there is some
opposition to this idea. They say that the writing of fiction
should be viewed as an art. Hence, so long as the real nature
and character are depicted, there is an end of the function of
these works. I do not pretend in any way to challenge this
argument, but I simply state that it was not so regarded in
Japan. Consequently, with us, some kind of reward or
chastisement is generally meted out to the fictitious
characters introduced in the scene, and these representations,
either in books or on the stage, are carried out to such a
pitch as to leave some sort of profound impression on the minds
of the readers or of the audience. Whatever the other remaining
parts may be, these features always remain uppermost in the
minds of the reader or of the theatre-goer. The prominent point
thus produced is generally a transcendent loyalty, such as a
loyal servant would feel for his master; the great fortitude
and perseverance which one exhibits in the cause of justice and
righteousness; severe suffering for the sake of a dear friend;
the devotion of parents and their self-sacrifice, great
suffering, or even self-sacrifice of a wife for her husband, or
of a mother for her son, to enable the fulfilment of duty to
the lord and master. I can myself remember many times shedding
tears when reading works of fiction, or when listening to the
singing of dramatic songs, or while witnessing dramatic
performances. This peculiarity seems to be wanting on the
Western stage. I remember once in London, years ago, my eyes
becoming moist when I saw a character on the stage, who was
being taken away as a prisoner, shaking hands with the man who
had been his dear friend, but who ought to have been suspected
as the cause of his being taken prisoner, and told him, as he
went, that he would never suspect or ever forsake him, giving
the audience a strong impression of chivalric moral strength.
But that was only a solitary experience.”
As these lines come before my eyes, as I remember the siege of Port
Arthur, I wonder at the subtle irony lurking beneath Baron Suyematsu’s
remark--“Japan is now in alliance with Great Britain; she may not
_perhaps_ be worthy of that alliance, but one may be assured she is
doing, and will always do, her best to deserve it.” The italics are
mine.
The heroism displayed by the Japanese in the late war was almost
unparalleled. I believe only one spy in Japan was discovered. He was
kicked to death. No pro-Russian party existed in Japan.
The Japanese are accused of being dishonest traders. But Japanese
contractors disdained to rob their fellow-countrymen who were risking
life and limb before Port Arthur. Read and re-read _The Garter Mission
to Japan_. Lord Redesdale could detect no signs of arrogance on the
faces of the men who drove back Kuropatkin’s regiments into Siberia or
sank the Baltic fleet.
Some superficial thinkers say that the Japanese are merely mediæval
knights fighting with quick-firing guns instead of lances. This is the
veriest nonsense. They are _practising_ what was _vainly preached_ by
troubadours and romancers to the Brian de Bois Guilberts of the Middle
Ages....
When engaged in the composition of my novel _The Serf_, I studied in
detail the lives of the paladins to whom were chanted the _Chanson de
Roland_, and the stories of _The Round Table_. My conclusions can be
studied in that novel which is now in a sixpenny edition. I found very
few “Ivanhoes” and plenty of “Front-de-Boeufs” at the Court of Richard
“Yea-and-Nay,” who, loyal and filial soul that he was, joined with the
King of France in making war on Henry II., his own father.
There is great force in Professor Inazo Nitobe’s implied criticism of
European chivalry.
“Did a monarch behave badly, _Bushido_ did not lay before the
suffering people the panacea of a good government by regicide.
In all the forty-five centuries during which Japan has passed
through many vicissitudes of national existence, no blot of the
death of a Charles I., or a Louis XVI. ever stained the pages
of her history.”
Whether that be true I do not pretend to say. But what I do know is
that the throne of England, from the conquest of the country by the
first William in 1066, to the accession of the third William in 1688,
has been held on a very precarious tenure.
The Conqueror himself warred with his son Robert. The latter, and his
brothers, gave examples of a _fraternum odium_ worthy of the pen of
Tacitus; Stephen was virtually deposed; Henry II. was attacked by his
own children; a party of the barons supported John against Richard I.,
and French invaders against John; Henry III.’s reign was a long record
of civil war; Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI. and Edward V. were
deposed and murdered; Richard III. was dethroned and slain in battle;
Charles I. was executed by his own subjects; James II. betrayed by the
founder of the Churchill family. Of a truth the virtue of loyalty has
not been the predominant feature of the Anglo-Saxon races. Our
greatest novelist, Thackeray, mocks at it. Ever since the Renaissance
most of the political philosophers of the West have preached the
doctrine “Render _not_ unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.”
“The love that we bear to our Emperor,” continues Professor
Inazo Nitobe, “naturally brings with it a love for the country
over which he reigns. Hence our sentiment of patriotism--I will
not call it a duty, for, as Dr. Samuel Johnson rightly
suggests, patriotism is a sentiment and is more than a duty--I
say our patriotism is fed by two streams of sentiment, namely,
that of personal love to the monarch, and of our common love
for the soil which gave us birth and provides us with hearth
and home. Nay, there is another source from which our
patriotism is fed: it is that the land guards in its bosom the
bones of our fathers; and here I may dwell awhile upon our
Filial Piety.
“Parental love man possesses in common with the beasts, but
filial love is little found among animals after they are
weaned. Was it the last of the virtues to develop in the order
of ethical evolution? Whatever its origin, Mr. Herbert Spencer
evidently thinks it is a waning trait in an evolving humanity;
and I am aware that everywhere there are signs of its giving
way to individualism and egotism; especially does this seem to
be the case in Christendom.
“Christianity, by which I do not mean what Jesus of Nazareth
taught, but a mongrel moral system, a concoction of a little of
obsolete Judaism, of Egyptian asceticism, of Greek sublimity,
of Roman arrogance, of Teutonic superstition, and, in fact, of
anything and everything that tends to make sublunary existence
easy by sanctioning the wholesale slaughter of weaker races, or
now and then the lopping of crowned heads,--Christianity, I
say, teaches that the nucleus of a well-ordered society lay in
conjugal relations between the first parents, and further that
therefore a man must leave father and mother and cleave to his
wife. A teaching this, in itself not easy of comprehension, as
Paul himself admits, and very dubious in application, meaning,
as it so often does, that a silly youth, when he is infatuated
with a giddy girl, may spurn his parents!
“Christ certainly never meant it, nor did the decalogue
command, ‘Thou shalt love thy wife more than thou shouldst
honour thy father and mother.’”
The dark, unfathomable eyes of our inscrutable Oriental friends are
surveying us. Is it likely that they fail to perceive such patent
facts as the dwindling of the birth-rate, the ever increasing thirst
for material pleasures which is the characteristic of our urban
population, the growth of Socialism, which is its complement, the
ignorance of the rulers, and the obsolete education of the ruled?
We boast of our genius for colonization. Boasts are not facts.
For a century Australia and New Zealand have been English colonies.
The population of Australia is smaller than the population of London:
that of New Zealand is less than a million. Japan is nearer to
Australia and New Zealand than they to England. The Japanese are a
nation in arms; the English rely for their defence on professional
armies. Whilst there is a German fleet at Kiel and a French fleet at
Cherbourg, the bulk of our ships must remain in the vicinity of the
Channel and the German Ocean. We are the allies of the Japanese, and
the Japanese are threatening the Americans, who are rebuilding San
Francisco with funds paid to them by the insurance offices of England.
Now I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese have invented for themselves
a high explosive, the shimose powder. I am no alarmist, _but_ the
Japanese have just launched the _Satsuma_, possibly the most powerful
of all men-of-war. I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese are turning
school-masters and drill sergeants to four hundred millions of
Chinamen, and the Chinese have been pronounced by General Gordon and
Lord Wolseley to be excellent soldiers. Sir Robert Hart, the
Englishman most likely to prove an accurate prophet, has warned us
against the renaissance of China. The guns of Togo’s fleet have served
Europe with notice to quit the further East, and what the Japanese
have taught themselves, they may teach the Chinamen undisturbed.
The pre-eminence of Japan in the Far East to-day is due to her
admirable system of education.
From _Japan by the Japanese_, a work edited by Mr. Alfred Stead, and
published by Mr. Heinemann, I propose to select certain information
which may startle even retrograde educationalists. _Japan by the
Japanese_ is a collection of studies on Japan written by no
globe-trotters, but by Japanese thinkers and statesmen of the highest
eminence. In the list of contributors I notice the Marquis Ito, Field
Marshals Yamagata and Oyama, Count Okuma and Baron Suyematsu. The
essays on education are from the pens of Count Okuma, Baron Suyematsu,
and other specialists. My humble opinion is that the authorities who
direct the teaching of Modern History at Oxford would do well to
substitute _Japan by the Japanese_ for Aristotle’s _Politics_, Hobbes’
_Leviathan_, and Maine’s _Ancient Law_, which are the only text-books
in Political Science prescribed by the University Examination
Statutes. I may be peculiar, but I prefer the views of Ito, Oyama and
Okuma to those of Aristotle, Hobbes and Maine.
As my last essay dealt with the education supplied at Oxford
University, it will be well to begin by considering the Universities
of Tokyo and Kyoto. Six colleges comprise the former and five the
latter. But, unlike the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge these
colleges are schools for the highly specialized study of some art or
science. At Tokyo the colleges are those of Law, Medicine,
Engineering, Literature, Science, and Agriculture; at Kyoto of Law,
Medicine, Literature, Science, and Engineering. At both Universities
there is also a University Hall established for the purpose of
facilitating original investigation in Arts and Science.
One thing is very noticeable in comparing the University of Tokyo with
the University of Oxford. Amongst the least popular of the Honour
Schools at the institution on the banks of the Isis is the Law School.
At Tokyo the College of Law, in which the student has the option of
specializing on Law or Politics, is by far the favourite. After Law
comes the College of Engineering, and the College of Literature is a
bad third.
It is to the College of Literature (the equivalent of which at Oxford
are the Honour Schools of Languages, dead or living, and the School of
Modern History) that I would call the reader’s special attention. The
Modern History School is the most popular of the Honour Schools at
Oxford; but at Tokyo between 1890 and 1900 there were only 106
students who devoted their time to General History, and 87 to Japanese
History. On the other hand, no less than 651 were engaged in
preparing themselves in Law, and 390 in Politics.
In September 1901, 567 undergraduates were attending a Law course, 409
lectures on Politics; but only 28 were listening to teachers of
Japanese History, while 48 were enrolled in the classes for General
History.
The advocates of Greek insist that the Greek language is the finest of
all instruments for training the human mind. The Japanese do not agree
with our retrogrades. Greek, apparently, is not taught at any School
or University, though Latin is amongst the subjects which a Japanese
medical student is expected to have mastered.
Another great distinction between the Japanese and the English system
is, that only picked men are permitted to avail themselves of a
University education. Further, before proceeding to the University the
undergraduate must have passed through a school specially preparing
him for one of the University Colleges.
“This type of school,” observes Professor Sawayanagi, “is exclusively
peculiar to the educational system of Japan, as there is no equivalent
either in Europe or America.”
In the section of a higher school which instructs candidates for the
Law and Literature Colleges of the University, the subjects taught are
Morals, Japanese and Chinese languages, Foreign languages, History of
Logic and Psychology, the elements of Law, the elements of Political
Economy and Gymnastics. The foreign languages are English, German, and
French, of which two have to be selected.
“Surely,” remark the gentlemen who prepared the article on University
Education in Japan, “a professional man who aims at a high position
could never be satisfied with one language. Certainly it would be
impossible for any one to keep up with the rapid progress of the world
which takes place in all the higher branches of education with only
one European language at his command.”
It is pathetic to think how blind are the rulers of secondary
education in this country to a truth so self-evident.
Before proceeding to a special school preparing candidates for the
University, a Japanese boy must have been at a Secondary School, which
is an institution similar to one of our great Public Schools. Here,
again, the Japanese lay far more stress on essentials.
At how many of our great Public Schools, if any, are the elements of
Law (which may be defined as the rules of the club to which every
British citizen belongs) a subject of instruction? The elements of
Law are a regular feature in the Secondary Schools of Japan. Sooner or
later every Englishman or Japanese is brought in contact with the law
of his land. For what conceivable reason is Law excluded from our
Public School course of education?
Once more, in a Japanese Secondary School, boys are taught the
elements of Political Economy. What proportion of Etonians,
Harrovians, and Wykehamists have opened a book on Political Economy
before they have left school? Yet ought not every member of the
community who intends to exercise his right of voting at a General
Election to be cognizant of the main arguments, for instance, that may
be adduced on behalf of Free Trade or Protection?
The appended table will help any Public School boy or his parents to
estimate the vast difference between the Japanese and the English
conceptions of a liberal education.