Ship-building was the same in the middle of the nineteenth century as in the middle of the sixteenth, perhaps even less advanced.
Architecture had received its great impulse from the introduction of Buddhism in the ninth and tenth centuries and had made no material improvement thereafter.
But while there was little progress in the external and mechanical elements of civilization, there was progress in other respects. During the "great peace," first arose great scholars. Culture became more general throughout the nation. Education was esteemed. The corrupt lives of the priests were condemned and an effort was made to reform life through the revival of a certain school of Confucian teachers known as "Shin-Gaku"--"Heart-Knowledge." Art also made progress, both pictorial and manual. It would almost seem as if modern artificers and painters had lost the skill of their forefathers of one or two hundred years ago.
Many reasons explain the continuance of the old political and social order: the lack of a foreign foe to compel abandonment of the tribal organisation; the mountainous nature of the country with its slow, primitive means of intercommunication; the absence of all idea of a completely centralized nation. Furthermore, the principle of complete subordination to superiors and ancestors had become so strong that individual innovations were practically impossible. j.a.pan thus lacked the indispensable key to further progress, the principle of individualism. The final step in the development of her nationality has been taken, therefore, only in our own time.
Old j.a.pan seemed absolutely committed to a thorough-going antagonism to everything foreign. New j.a.pan seems committed to the opposite policy. What are the steps by which she has effected this apparent national reversal of att.i.tude?
We should first note that the absolutism of the Tokugawa Shogunate served to arouse ever-growing opposition because of its stern repression of individual opinion. It not only forbade the Christian religion, but also all independent thought in religious philosophy and in politics. The particular form of Confucian moral philosophy which it held was forced on all public teachers of Confucianism. Dissent was not only heretical, but treasonable. Although, by its military absolutism, the Tokugawa rule secured the great blessing of peace, lasting over two hundred years, and although the curse of j.a.pan for well-nigh a thousand preceding years had been fierce inter-tribal and inter-family wars and feuds, yet it secured that peace at the expense of individual liberty of thought and act. It thus gradually aroused against itself the opposition of many able minds. The enforced peace rendered it possible for these men to devote themselves to problems of thought and of history. Indeed, they had no other outlet for their energies. As they studied the history of the past and compared their results with the facts of the present, it gradually dawned on the minds of the scholars of the eighteenth century, that the Tokugawa family were exercising functions of government which had never been delegated to them; and that the Emperor was a poverty-stricken puppet in the hands of a family that had seized the military power and had gradually absorbed all the active functions of government, together with its revenues.
It is possible for us to see now that these early j.a.panese scholars idealized their ancient history, and a.s.signed to the Emperor a place in ancient times which in all probability he has seldom held. But, however that may be, they thought their view correct, and held that the Emperor was being deprived of his rightful rule by the Tokugawa family.
These ideas, first formulated in secret by scholars, gradually filtered down, still in secrecy, and were accepted by a large number of the samurai, the military literati of the land. Their opposition to the actual rulers of the land, aroused by the individual-crushing absolutism of the Tokugawa rule, naturally allied itself to the religious sentiment of loyalty to the Emperor. Few Westerners can appreciate the full significance of this fact. Throughout the centuries loyalty to the Emperor has been considered a cardinal virtue. With one exception, according to the popular histories, no one ever acknowledged himself opposed to the Emperor. Every rebellion against the powers in actual possession made it the first aim to gain possession of the Emperor, and proclaim itself as fighting for him.
When, therefore, the scholars announced that the existing government was in reality a usurpation and that the Emperor was robbed of his rightful powers, the latent antagonism to the Tokugawa rule began to find both intellectual and moral justification. It could and did appeal to the religious patriotism of the people. It is perhaps not too much to say that the overthrow of the Tokugawa family and the restoration of the Imperial rule to the Imperial family would have taken place even though there had been no interference of foreign nations, no extraneous influences. But equally certain is it that these antagonisms to the ruling family were crystallized, and the great internal changes hastened by the coming in of the aggressive foreign nations. How this external influence operated must and can be told in a few words.
When Admiral Perry negotiated his treaty with the j.a.panese, he supposed he was dealing with responsible representatives of the government. As was later learned, however, the Tokugawa rulers had not secured the formal a.s.sent of the Emperor to the treaty. The Tokugawa rulers and their counselors, quite as much as the clan-rulers, wished to keep the foreigners out of the country, but they realized their inability. The rulers of the clans, however, felt that the Tokugawa rulers had betrayed the land; they were, accordingly, in active opposition both to the foreigners and to the national rulers. When the foreigners requested the j.a.panese government, "the Tokugawa Shogunate," to carry out the treaties, it was unable to comply with the request because of the antagonism of the clan-rulers. When the clan-rulers demanded that the government annul the treaties and drive out the hated and much-feared foreigners, it found itself utterly unable to do so, because of the formidable naval power of the foreigners.
As a consequence of this state of affairs, a few serious collisions took place between the foreigners and the two-sworded samurai, retainers of the clan-rulers. The Tokugawa rulers apparently did their best to protect the foreigners, and, when there was no possible method of evasion, to execute the treaties they had made. But they could not control the clans already rebellious. A few murders of foreigners, followed by severe reprisals, and two bombardments of native towns by foreign gunboats, began to reveal to the military cla.s.s at large that no individual or local action against the foreigners was at all to be thought of. The first step necessary was the unification of the Empire under the Imperial rule. This, however, could be done only by the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate; which was effected in 1867-68 after a short struggle, marked by great clemency.
We thus realize that the overthrow of the Shogunate as also the final abolishment of feudalism with its clans, lords, and hereditary rulers, and the establishment of those principles of political and personal centralization which lie at the foundation of real national unity, not only were hastened by, but in a marked degree dependent on, the stimulus and contribution of foreigners. They compelled a more complete j.a.panese unity than had existed before, for they demanded direct relations with the national head. And when treaty negotiations revealed the lack of such a head, they undertook to show its necessity by themselves punishing those local rulers who did not recognize the Tokugawa headship.
With the establishment of the Emperor on the throne, began the modern era in j.a.panese history, known in j.a.pan as "Meiji"--"Enlightened Rule."
But not even yet was the purpose of the nation attained, namely, the expulsion of the polluters of the sacred soil of j.a.pan. As soon as the new government was established and had turned its attention to foreign affairs, it found itself in as great a dilemma as had its predecessors, the Tokugawa rulers. For the foreign governments insisted that the treaties negotiated with the old government should be accepted in full by the new. It was soon as evident to the new rulers as it had been to the old that direct and forcible resistance to the foreigners was futile. Not by might were they to be overcome.
Westerners had, however, supplied the ideals whereby national, political unity was to be secured. Mill"s famous work on "Representative Government" was early translated, and read by all the thinking men of the day. These ideas were also keenly studied in their actual workings in the West. The consequence was that feudalism was utterly rejected and the new ideas, more or less modified, were speedily adopted, even down to the production of a const.i.tution and the establishment of local representative a.s.semblies and a national diet. In other words, the theories and practices of the West in regard to the political organization of the state supplied j.a.pan with those new intellectual variations which were essential to the higher development of her own national unity.
A further point of importance is the fact that at the very time that the West applied this pressure and supplied j.a.pan with these political ideals she also put within her reach the material instruments which would enable her to carry them into practice. I refer to steam locomotion by land and sea, the postal and telegraphic systems of communication, the steam printing press, the system of popular education, and the modern organization of the army and the navy. These instruments j.a.pan made haste to acquire. But for these, the rapid transformation of Old j.a.pan into New j.a.pan would have been an exceedingly long and difficult process. The adoption of these tools of civilization by the central authority at once gave it an immense superiority over any local force. For it could communicate speedily with every part of the Empire, and enforce its decisions with a celerity and a decisiveness before unknown. It became once more the actual head of the nation.
We have thus reached the explanation of one of the most astonishing changes in national att.i.tude that history has to record, and the new att.i.tude seems such a contradiction of the old as to be inexplicable, and almost incredible. But a better knowledge of the facts and a deeper understanding of their significance will serve to remove this first impression.
What, then, did the new government do? It simply said, "For us to drive out these foreigners is impossible; but neither is it desirable.
We need to know the secrets of their power. We must study their language, their science, their machinery, their steamboats, their battle-ships. We must learn all their secrets, and then we shall be able to turn them out without difficulty. Let us therefore restrict them carefully to the treaty ports, but let us make all the use of them we can."
This has virtually been the national policy of j.a.pan ever since. And 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan. It has sent hundreds of its young men to foreign lands to learn and bring back to j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan. The whole of New j.a.pan 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 j.a.panese policy. No foreigner may hope to obtain a permanent position in j.a.panese 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan. Such information may be procured from Henry Norman"s "Real j.a.pan," Ransome"s "j.a.pan in Transition," and Newton"s "j.a.pan: Country, Court, and People." It is enough for us to realize that j.a.pan 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 const.i.tutional and representative. Town, provincial, and national legislative a.s.semblies 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 cla.s.sics--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 const.i.tution, and enforced by the courts.
Chinese medical practice has largely been replaced by that from the West, although many of the ignorant cla.s.ses 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 j.a.panese history. Instead of being a country of farmers and soldiers, j.a.pan is to-day a land of farmers and merchants. Wealth is growing apace.
International commerce, too, has sprung up and expanded phenomenally.
j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan,--that some have urged the re-writing of j.a.panese history, making the first year of Meiji (1868) the year one of j.a.pan, 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 j.a.panese 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 demiG.o.ds 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.panese what part of j.a.pan is his native home, I must use this word. And if a j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan 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 pa.s.sing 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. j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan; 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 j.a.pan to pay undue respect to moneyed men, said, in the course of a long speech, "You j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan. 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan 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 k.u.mamoto 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 k.u.mamoto Ken, or Province, that the governor required the school to dismiss that teacher. There is to-day a strong party in j.a.pan which makes "j.a.panism" 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 j.a.pan, to the throne 2560 years ago (660 B.C.). The festival itself, however, was inst.i.tuted by Imperial decree ten years ago (1890).
The transformation which has come over j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan?
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 j.a.panese racial characteristics, believing that this alone gives the light needed for the solution of the problem.[B]
III
THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS
What const.i.tutes progress? And what is the true criterion for its measurement? In adopting Western methods of life and thought, is j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses, the extremes of poverty did not exist.
Were we to rest our inquiries at this point, we might say that in truth the j.a.panese 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 cla.s.ses of society were accompanied by many undesirable features.
Prominent among them was the domineering spirit of the military cla.s.s.
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 j.a.panese 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.