Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-27
The West Does
Not Under
stand the East

IT is yet too early to state with accuracy the
complex effect of the Russo Japanese War
upon the West and the East But it seems
to full time that check should be
put upon the announcements of those we'll
intentioned but extremely ignorant persons who
believe that Japanese triumph will be
triumph OF paganlsm and that the word
pagan" is synonymous with the word : APP
enese" Such attacks not serious, except
far as they tend to confuse the unthinking
and uniformed section of the people. Pre-
iudce is not principle, and fancies not facts.
But the international situation is at present
peculiar one-one to history, perhaps-and
public opinion undoubtedly needs educating on
both sides of the Pacific. The West does not I'm
derstand the East and the East does not under
stand the West. Specifically, their respective
ideals and purposes seem widely separated; funda-
mentally they harmonious and identical. And
it is as modest contribution to the literature of
public education that this article is written.
First let consider the view which each takes
of the other and the standpoints from which these
respective views have been taken. The people
of Asia regard the Occidentals barbarians and
foreign devils, because they have to them
with rifles, and battle-ships, to rob, grab
and STAY to seize territory to which they had
shadow of title and which definitely and unde-
niably belonged to Others This long series of
robberies appears to the Oriental mind as a most
heinous, lawless and outrageous series of crimes
and in the whole scope of their teaching and their
philosophy there can be found for it no rational
explanation, pallation whatever
From the viewpoint of the West, however, the
Orientas barbarians-only half civilized. To
Gust them from their territory, to occupy it and
appropriate its natural resources has been noble
work of civilization, while to impress upon the
inhabitants the principles of the Christian religion
has been duty clearly imposed by the Bible itself
How far Christianity and how far commerce have
inspired this policy need not be considered here
The point is that from the Occidental point of
view the AsiatiCs have been Prlor1 barbarans and
any suggestion that they had any rights would have
been heard with great surprise few years ago.
The present has brought great and wide
spread change of view in this respect. The first
surprise the intellectual power of Japan The
Western world learned with astonishment that the
Japanese not had been supposed mere
imitators, but actually originators; that they
had not merely copied such institutions in America
and Europe appealed to them but had SO clearly
grasped the underlying principles in all these de-
partments of applied science that they had been
able to develop them to height hitherto unknown
anywhere In hygiene, in the sanitary of
great armies, in transportation, in commissariat
in antlseptlc surgery, in strategy, in the equip
ment and conduct of battle-shps, in torpedo
practice, in their rifle, in their powder
and generally speaking in other highly valuable
discoveries, inventions and improvements in the
peaceful branches of applied science, Japan
has revealed high intellectually which has won
the whole worlds applause England must
adopt Japan's system of training stokers,' says