The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-08-10


shrines are brought all the cares,
troubles and hopes of daily life Binzura
Soups Chealth-gods) regulate their
health; the Schichinlen, seven-headed
snakes. Dai-Butzus. Great Buddhas.
Fudo-S Sans, fire~gQds in blazing flames.
the Seven Precious Jewels of the
Dragon Shrines, the idol JiZo, scrubbed
with straw to make it clcan-these are
the gods who control the national heart
and direct the national impulses.
There is no belief in immortality except
a period of publication for the wicked
who have sinned against the emperor.
Shinto priests are the intercess0rs be-
tween the people and Yemma (Satan0
and money can buy salvation. Every
one of the magnificent Japanese sailors
on the magnificent ships in the magnifi-
cent battle of the Sea of Japan wor-
ships at the shrine of the Snake-God
whose temples line all the coasts. 1t
thus may be understood that their vir-
tues are not our virtues, their ways are
not our ways.
1t therefore becomes not only inter-
esting but highly important to inquire
what ethical or moral teachings come
from these affairs, what principles of
conduct, what ideas of duty, necessar-
lily must guide them in their view of
ourselves and their future dealings
with ourselves. And by way of preface
a word or two must be said is to their
most salient characteristics, the quality
which every persons has had impressed
/ upon him who ever has had any deal
ings with Japanese. This is the
quality which invariably accompanies
quick intelligence and low cunning,
viz, that overaluation Of oneself which
We call cOnceit and arrogance.
To them we are and always will be
western barbarians. Keenly aprecia-
| tive of all we have learned, they yet as
nation laugh at us for what we are.
1 intimately knew in Japan graduate
of Harvard, who returned to his own
| country in a silk hat, creased trousers,
all the external embellishments of uor
civilization. which ne wore for a day
or two with the pride of the travellers
and the cynical amusement of the true
Japanese. One day afterward at his
home, I found him squatting bare
| legged on a mat in regulation suspen-
sorry and kimono. His cynical, con-
temptuous smile when I referred to the
change was the rarely revealed but
| true opinion of us which pervades all
| Japan.
A nation of hypocrites and liars in
all their dealings with us, this fact
best and most undeniably appears their
own literature, and along with it the
frank unconscious and extreme self
conceit of which have spoken.
A book has just been published in
| New York by DR.. Inazo Nitobe, pro-
fessor in the University of Kioto which
| is full of interest as much from its re-
violation of the Japanese conceit as
| from its description of the japanese
view of things. In it's preface the emf
| nent doctor describes his surprise Whine
first asked by a Belgian jurist as to
religious teaching. The bland frank
ness with which he admits that he new
| err had any is the Japanese conceit at
it's best. After some though he dis
covers that all the ethical training he
ever had came from Bushido, and
Bushido is the subject of his book
Hiss description of Bushido thereafter
becomes interesting, because it bears
directly upon the subject in issue, the
moral condition of the Japanese and of
Japan. The more one studies Bushido,
the sure one becomes that devotion to
it's principles must leave any nation
without honor and without honesty.
and this fact the eminent doctor does
not even attempt to deny. Artif1ciaiity,
a veneer of sympathetic politeness,
these are Bushido's virtue and these
to-day are the virtues of Japan and of
the japanese. Altruism, in our sense
of it, is unknown, though sympathy for
the weak and the doWntrodden is pre-
scribed as lordly virtue of the strong
and lordly Samural
| The love of woman is not worthy
thing and must not be dwelt upon,
woman being an inferior creature who
ministers to the appetite And this
view of woman except as the mother of
warriors is the actual prevailing view
of an exceedingly sensual and brutal
race. Bushido is the handbook of
lchivalry and of the chivalric virtues.
1t pedestals not love- but was and all
the Virutes of the warrior. The pro-
fession of arms is the highest and
noblest. In the descending social scale
leone first the knight, then the tiller
of the soil, then the mechanic. arm last
land lowest the merchant. "a loose
business morality has indeed been the
worst blot upon our national reputa-
tion," blandly remarks this undeniable
authority. And he is Endorsed by all
the foreign merchants who deal with
his people in a way that naturally must
be gratifying. Lying and cheating are
the rule in all Japanese commercial
transactions. "a Chinaman's word is
as good as his bond. A japanese will
break any contract that does not hap
lpen to suit him"-this is the dictum
of every foreigner who deals with these
two people.
Japan has it's great men, AS mat
ter of fact, it seems to have a remark
ably large proportion of them, though
this ever has been a fact character
istic of mixed races. But it should
never be forgotten that however broad
and brilliant they may be mentally
they are Japanese at heart, and no
small element of their country, their
people and their traditions. Baron
Kaneko, the enlssary of the emperor,
to- nlAI 1,N +o1LJ