The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1909-08-25

after MILL is going up which are today throwing
down the gauntlet to European industrialists, tell
ing them, in so many words, that new competitor
has come into the field that is no respecter of the
zones of trade and political influence" While the
yellow peril" is baseess scare, and there is no
reason for fearing that Asian hordes will lay low
Europeans and Americans there is every reason
to believe that the Oriental will, within this gen
GRAFTON, seriously question the industrial suprem
acy of the Occidental in the Orient
Caste is rapidly disappearing.
II, HIS wave of democracy that has swept over all
Asia has broken the back of that iend-caste-
which kept the Orient in the sloughs of degrade
ton for many century. Today the Oriental has
learned the dignity of labor. He is, therefore,
taking to trades and professions, which his fore
fathers would have dreamed of pursuing.
Manual work is no longer a scare-crow to high,
caste Hindu or Chinese. Moreover, the self-same
Hindu or Chinaman is going to America Eu-
rope both, to learn how to manufacture the
goods that his country needs.
Not only has the surge of democracy demol-
ished the fortresses of governmental and indus
trial despotsm and modernized the Orient in
these respects; but also the social fabric of the
East has been hard hit and is in of
ganization on saner basis. The Asian has
changed his attitude in two important respects.
He has learned that the cornerstone of his future
welbeing is righteous and equitable treatment
of women. He has also realized that the most
valuable asset of nation consists of its children
and young folks How revolutionary is this att-
tude toward the rising generation which Asia is
increasingly assuming, it is difficult for the Occ
dental to grasp. 1t virtually means the reversal
of the whole sociological order in the Orient So
far, the patriarchial ideas have been the fetiches
before which the Asian has bowed and scraped
The children have been the property, to speak,
of the pater familias. The young folks, apart
from the family, have had rights The joint
family system has exercised absolute sway
over the people individuals. The parents or
legal guardians of the young persons have edu-
Gated them according to their conceptions
the marriage has been solemnized by them with
out the consent of the contracting parties-the
newly-wedded bride has gone into the family of
the parents of the bridegroom and submitted her
self to the autocracy of the mothern-law-the
has earned his wages and turned them over
to the head of the family and, like school child
has been given a small portion of his earnings
pocket money!" The spirit of times has
been antagonistic to such arrangements these
The Orient is giving way tardly and somewhat
ungracefully, but nevertheless surely with the re
suit that the social order is changing. The indi
vidual is beginning to assert his or her rights
and the spirit of savishness to tradition and the
past to the dctum of the priest and to the meth
DDS of forebears, is gradually becoming thing
of days gone by The revolution has but yet com
menced 1t has yet to accomplish a great deal be
fore Asia will be thoroughly democratized.