The New York herald., 1921-04-17

American seed-ideas, suggestions, stim-
ulus. models and personalities COM
PEELED growth in Japan. No less
man. who represented printing, author
ship, lexicosraphy and diplomacy, than
our own DR.. s. Wells Williams OF
China. told Mayeshima (now baron
and long Postmaster -GeneraD about
the western system of mail transporta-
ton, showing its influence on the more
advanced achievements of Western
nations. Thereupon a mail route $50
miles long from Toxic to Osaka, was
started.
How the men of the press sur
mounted all obstacles and ultimately
achieved the political awakening OF
the masses Is told with alluring lit
erary art in these twelve chapters.
1t is no exaggeration to say that Jap
anese journalism virtually created a
new nation. Japan Is to-day, OF all
countries. the most wonderfully com
pact. 1t has unity which excels
that OF any Asian and many Euro
pean nation. Not only has the print
ing press made modern Japan, but,
for national strength and safety, pens
and types have been more powerful
than swords and CANNON. The reign of
force has passed before that Of dis
cussion.
Certainly editor and reporter have
marched abreast If not ahead of the
soldier, merchant and manufacturer
The variety OF special and class peri
odicals is as striking a phenomenon
as is that OF the great dailies. which
build up and overthrow cabinets and
dictate national policies.
1t was of the Japan Of the jigsaw
made map. comminuted by feudalism
and divided into three hundred news
tight compartments. that we first
heard intimately from a seat mate
at college, son of the ex-American en-
yoy in Yedo. 1t was in 1866 that the
lads from Nippon came among us. at
Rutgers on the Raritan Later, in the
early seventies. | knew on the soil
most OF the men, foreign and native.
who with type and ink were building
even better than they knew.
To-day in Japan's capital there are
scores of political leaders and states
men whose training was in newspaper
offices, while the exchange of power
and influence from that welded by
the department head or diplomatist TO
that issuing from the EDITORS sanctum
is far from being unusual.
DIR. Kawabe's book, considered as
connected narrative Illuminating 10
student and reader, and equipped as it
is with a photography and index, is ex
cellent Yet his accuracy or his fairness
toward the many Americans and other
foreigners who were the nursing fa-
theirs of Japanese journalism is not con-
spicuous. Perhaps he would give DR..
Johnson's famous answer 10 explain
This omissions. but with the biographies
Of these men and such books as The
Mikado. Institution and Person" or
at hand, what excuse is there for
printing such glaring solecisms as
DIR. Hebon"? This is meantfor James
Curtis Hepburn, NJ. D.. who, in 1859,
left a thirteen thousand dollar medical
practice In New York city for a thou
sand dollar salary as a missionary at
the ends of the earth. He did more
than serve Japan forty years, intro
ducing modern surgery and medicine
and making the Japanese English die
tionary or this monumental work
Japanese scholar declared that all
successors were but second editions Of
Hepburn. II was while living at DR..
Hepburn's house that Ginko Ishida in
| 1864 first Japanese editor and pub
Usher. heard of an American thing
called a newspaper" And why should
the famous ophthalmologist, John Cut
| ting Berry Of Worcester. Mass. prison
reformer. trainer and introducer OF
women nurses and rebuilder in general
OF Japanese civilization from 1872 10
1898, be spoken Of as a Dutchman
educated at Cambridge?
1t was Dr. Berry who in addition
To his score of other achievements. put
the financial foundation under native
journalism by letting the japanese
into the secrets OF advertisements,
when he established in Yokohama in
1866 the Bdnkoku Shimbun. or Cniver-
sity News. How the achievements
of John r. Black. tho Scot who from
/ 1872 TO 1874 published in the vernacu-
lar what was really the initial modern
newspaper, on true Occidental model,
printing even political editorials, can
be omitted from any history Of
japanese journalism, passes our COM
prehension. Blacks newspaper was
uppressed-through pressure upon
ind deal" with Sir Harry Parkes, the
British Minister-but he wrote Young
Japan" an invaluable book, and con-
tinued editorial work in China. Nor
even though they published their
papers in English, ought Howells and
Brooks Of the Man and the Herald
respectively Of Yokohama, and =. II.
House, former New York journalist
who published the Toxic Journal be
forgotten. such work Is incomplete
without a chapter on those foreign
| Journals which for over nifty years,
with their steady streams Of informa !
tion, criticism, comment and interpre-
tation. have helped nightly 70 educate
| the nation and to create the-Japan OF
to-day. However, we may all rejoice
with DIR. Kawabe and join with him
both In attest and congratulation, ~
he closes his history and we his book.
with the belief that the fetich-lke
na,ionaHSn of the preceding two