New-York tribune., 1905-10-29

II ms. ]
tain, plain and coast, and knowing intimately the
lives of hundreds of students, both by conversation
and because they, girls and boys wrote out for me
with the franknesS of youth their autobOgrap phes,
| give some solid reasons why, apart from many
years of research, | take view somewhat different
from that of the former honored director of the
Toxic hospital.
Now what he and others have said in strongest
terms concerning the Japanese may have applied,
and does yet apply, to some indeed to many, OF
the fifty millions of the Mikados subjects, viz:
that they are savage" and "hea.then,' and that
of them, from age-past inheritance like
some Americans, have negrod blood IN their VEINS.
But how any scholar correctly say or use the
phrase the five great Daimio families to which
every Mikado has belonged, when the term and
thing (Daimio) did not originate until after the
blood succession of the Mikados had been long
established?
How can any scientific call all the former
social pariahs of Japan curly headed negrold
Eta? When existing, the Eta were not an ethn1c
division at ALL for historically their ancestors were
political traitors in the time of Masakado Corean
prisoners or under the ban of Buddhism because OF
their trade which required the handling of corpses
in order to obtain leather. L have studied the Eta
and photograp phed them when they such,
and compared them when they lived in different
parts of the Empire. In 1873, by decree OF the
Mikado in itself as morally noble as Lincoln
emancipation the Eta raised to citizenship,
and for the part lost lnd1st1ngu1shaby III
the body of the people; though some are now, IN
these meat-eatng and shoe-wearing days, rich
butchers and shoe factors. The curly negrod
notion concerning all the Eta is unsclentltc
How can a discriminating student OF the science
of religion call the Japanese " q nation of idolaters,
when no true Shinto temple contains sl1nulacra to
be worshiped while Confucianism abhOrs the craven
image Tens of thousands of men living in Japan
to-day like their ancestors during centuries OF
wears now gone would if they had their own way
sweep every idol out of the land. Again and again
have noble-rninded Daimos done that very thing
In the sixteenth century this motive wrought
powerfully in the aid given to the Portuguese mis-
sionaries, until undeceived by the erection OF new
images imported from Europe
How can a scholar talk about the yellow dragon,
except as specimen of imported Chinese folklore!
Who that knows anything of Japanese religion can
see in Kompira "a most vulgar and unscholarly name
for Koto-hra) anything but soldiers fetish, wor-
SHIPPED only by a restricted number of people! 10
talk of 'Yemra' the Indian Yama, of the great
Judges of male sinners in the Buddhist hels, as a
Shinto dety, is much like locating desert Arabs
linn" in a Christian baptstry. tumble OF
religions yes, perhaps, but to say that every
one worships snake gods is about literally true
as to say that every American wOrships the golden
calf In rhetoric, perhaps, many do. In treating
such serious questions need science more than
sound As for the Japanese graduate from Har-
ward when at home, putting off his 'ar1nOr - OF