Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-30

Written for The Evening Star by Bassett Staines.
You wouldn't think it to look at them"
said an American resident of Tokyo, as he
showed tourist friend battalion of the
mikado's troops at drill, "but those little
fellows are as good soldiers as any army In
the world. Do you see that officer?" point
ing to a company commander barely five
feet tall. HE comes of samurai blood.
His ancestors have been warriors for 1900
years, and he could no more help fighting
than a well-bred terrier could. And his
comrades are like him.
It has often been said that the Japanese
are at once intensely modern and pro-
feundly medieval. This is especially true
Of the Japanese officer who has been
trained in Germany, England, France or
the United States He is full of western
learning and western notions; he knows as
much about his profession as German
staff officer, and he would not seem out of
place in the highest social circles of Eu-
ropean capital But he never imbibes the
cosmopolitan spirit, or any of the fashion
able cynicisms of the occident. He does not
forget that he comes of samurai blood, and
he goes back to Japan with his head still
crammed full of the old faith taught him
in his boyhood by his samurai tutor
he UeSpSeS lTdue, anu DeleSeS THAI
money-making is fit only for the low-born
and base minded He thinks it is unmanly
to seek for the favor of women by wearing
fine clothes and displaying his skill and ac-
compliShmentS He deems luxury vain and
foolish. and lives a simple, hardy, athletic
life. Finally, he believes with his whole
soul that honor and arms are inseparably
connected. and consequently he worships
his single sword as fervently as his samu-
raj ancestors worshiped their brace of
weapons.
In the Rank and File.
In the enlisted ranks of the Japanese
amy and navy there is also a fair sprin-
king of this samurai class. Even today
nearly all japanese of that heroic ancestry
are either fighting men or follow some
professional or intellectual vocation. The
old prejudice against trade survives as
keenly as ever. But the rank and file of
the mikado's forces is principally made up
of the coele class, brought in by the wide
drag-net of a CONSUMPTION law which
renders all male Japanese between the ages
of seventeen and forty liable for military
service.
For over two thousand years the samurai
alone were allowed to bear arms in Japan.
They were skilled in the arts of war; and
to them only were impaired the polite
breeding and superior training of the gen.
tleman. 1t is astonishing. therefore, that
the coolie Japanese, whose ancestors were
never permitted to fight, should have
proved themselves just as good soldiers as
those descendants of the Samuraf with
whom they fought shoulder to shoulder in
Korea, in Manchuria and on the road to
Picking. But such is the fact. Many of the
bravest deeds in the history of modern
Japan were performed by soldiers and
sailors belonging to the coolie class
When Rudyard Kipling was scampering
around the world as the special correspond
ent of the Pioneer and other Indian news
in low rx-i{I h. ~->,1:k
qualities of the Japanese infantry and ex-
pressed wish that he might live to see a
light between them and the Ghurkhas,
those terrible little warriors who have won
SO much renown along the Indian frontier.
But he spoke contemptuously of the jap
anese officers, whom he saw only with the
casual eye of the globe trotter. Gen. Grant,
with the insight of the trained soldier saw
deeper. During his visit to japan he de-
clared that the officers turned out by the
staff college, the military academy and
other educational institutions of the army
were among the finest in the world
Training Young Officers.
There are usually from 1900 to 500 stu
dents in training to be officers of the Jana
nese army. Expense is not considered in
teaching them; they are given the best of
everything, from a professional point of
view. Besides the staff college and the
military academy, there are a cadet school
d IHouei ScHooi dn artillery ana engineering
school, cavalry school, a gunnery school
for field artillery, an entirely distinct gun
merry school for garrison artillery and vari-
GUS other Institutions.
Formerly a large proportion of Japanese
officers were sent abroad, principally to
Germany, to receive their training. These
man built up the present organizat ton of the
Japanese army and established the various
schools and colleges referred to. 1t is no
longer necessary for any soldier of the mi
kado to leave his island home in order to
learn his trade. The japanese officers sent
to foreign countries nowadays are experts
and their mission is to discover whether the
military authorities of that country possess
any ideas In organization. equipment, train
ing or discipline which are better than those
of Japan. The military attache of the JAP
anese embassy in London frankly stated the
other day that there were only two or three
small things in the British army worth
copying by Japan. And we shall soon