The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-01-13

the Japanese TO reality also I'm legislation
and social life. Spurred on by ambition TO
obtain equality with foreign nations. Japan
prepared nobly for the time when she
should be one in the sisterhood of nations,
not looked down upon but admired.
THINGS ACCOMPLISHED.
II would take a long chapter TO tell of all
that has been done in the moral uplifting
OF her people. Here are a few: the CIV
ing of citizenship 10 her former pariahs,
the Eta; manifold reforms in every grade
of society: the opening Of the army and
navy. the schools. courts and lines OF
promotion to all her people; entire change
in the system Of family names and aliases,
by which justice was constantly thwarted;
the abolition OF persecution and Of the ban
upon and insults to the Christian religion;
the doing away with judicial torture. the
Improvement of her prison system; the ele-
walton of the status of women; the dis
cussion in her newspapers OF the loftiest
moral questions and the unceasing editorial
demands for ameliOration of abuses, social
and moral. as we'll as political, etc. All
this reveals a new world of thought and
life as compared with the old days but a
generation back.
1t has been brought home pretty clearly
to many statesmen's minds that Japan's
medieval moral system and social meth
DDS, good enough for feudalism and an
island full of hermits, would not stand the
strain and stress of the best civilization Of
the planet. This last is their goal. De-
termined TO win, hey see that their moral
foundations must be enlarged and strength
ened. Despite their white-gloved police
and their elaborate codes. both new and
old, there is need, as a japanese editor
says, of moral oil with which to run the
new machinery. Government cannot touch
what is inside of a man. 1t can control only
that which is outside. Thinkers feel the
need Of something that will go deep down
and touch the man himself. 1t is perfectly
astonishing how editors and scholars are,
liz "A. d. 1900, writing on moral subjects,
and in a spirit antipodally different from
that of fifty years ago. The names of
Fukzawa and Shimada, leaders in journal
ism, are i'm the forefront of those who de-
mand purity in the home.
The race in Japan is now for dollars. New
sources of wealth are opening everywhere.
How the money is made may trouble no
more the conscience of a Japanese than
OF other mortals. Even the village now
VIII lAS oA0oG AtAS9 IL
temptations through INSCRIPTIONS men and
women to the young. When 1 lived in Japan
the village was additionally. at least, as
Eden, the city. as Sodom. Now Sodom and
Eden have united. 1t is simply a question
of headquarters and branch establishments.
Statesmen discover a hundred new foun-
tains of vice springing up where the law
cannot reach. Hence, for their new con-
stitutional structures they see that mighty
moral buttresses of a new sort are needed.
Patent to all who will read IL IS the new
civil code. After twenty years of prepara-
ton and many months of fierce debate, 1t
has, since July 16. 1898, been the law of
the land. OF course, the Issue of a statute
cannot in a day change a nations habits,
but with time this code means the re-
construction Of the whole japanese family
system. This in turn means the purifying
of the very center of the nations moral
power.
Heretofore Japanese sons and daughters
could marry only by parental permission.
The new code wisely puts a limit on pa
rental authority by allowing a man of
thirty and a woman of twenty-five to mar
ry regardless of the parents consent. Con-
cubinage, which is and will be for some
time to come an institution" is bound to
go, for among other reasons the makers
of the civil code POSSIBLY taking a hint
from our constitutional fathers, who would
| hot admit the word slave or slavery in our
national i~nstrument) have kept out the
terms concubine and ~concubinage. This
actually means a moral awakening. Mar
riage will become wedlock and concubinage
will die out. The new code provides for
the making of a will. In time it will kill
that abominable system Of adoption-that
bane of the Japanese social system, which
fills so large a space in law. affecting as it
does a thousand relations of life. Whereas
in the civil code the word marriage is
treated of in only twenty-eight articles of
seven pages. the word adoption is discussed
in forty articles of ten pages. covering the
laws on this point. This semi-barbarous
| Japanese system of adoption upsets all our
western ideas OF heredity, self-respect and
even decency, violating the very notion of
family. Even the japanese sneer at it in
their own familiar proverb, 80 long as
| you have one peck Of beans dom become
an adopted son."
SYMPTOMS OF REACTION.
OF course, in so radical a reformation,
| there are spasmodic reactions. For a time.
in 1899, it seemed as though the department
of education had been captured by the re-
| dictionaries and was to be the home Of the
owls and the bats. Apparently it had
become a sort of Tsung-Li-Yamen, to OPP
/ pose everything like moral progress and
especially to entrench m~edievalism and
| stereotype bigotry. But to-day the stupid
| regulations of 1899 are practically a failure,
and religious thought is freer, deeper and
wider as a consequence. Once a professor
in the Imperial University could be retired
from office because he dared 10 apply the
canons of criticism 10 Japanese history,
Now ii is becoming safe TO challenge ma
tive mythology. High officers, who are
men in every other line of thinking. cease
to be children, when discussing ancient
history.
The vital difficulty with the patriotic
Japanese is that to insist upon monogamy
might, in his view. imperil the continuance
of the imperial line. The reactionary and
medieval edicts of the Education Depart
ment last yer had this nightmare in view.
Ultra conservatives have opposed the re-
ligion of the West because it insists upon
one wife to one man. Yet even the Jap
anese government will find that it canno.
build a dam that will keep back the rising
tide of n national conscience. The re-