Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1924-11-26

guages, with their grammars and die
tionaries. They also trained the in
tellectuals, and introduced likewise
photography and the finer arts.
The third, G. F. Verbeck, was a
marine engineer and master of seven
or eight languages. For years, when
the Gospel was still unpalatable, he
taught the Japanese everything they
wished to know. Then he organized
their university, taught them the spirit
of occidental law and custom, ex-
planned the freedom of the press and
how church trustees held property.
He also proposed the great embassy
Of 1924 around the world to study
the details of Western civilization, half
the personnel being chosen from his
pupils.
Quick to Follow Their Guides.
Back of all was the nations youth,
with its vigor, its innate capacity to
select adopt adapt, and become
adopts. Both geologically and in hui
man history, Japan is the youngest
country in Asia.
II d
eign helpers or the soil gave their
time and talents to aid Japan; but
after 1870 and until 1900 and later,
ArgOnauts from the West came in
fleets to cover Japan with a golden
| fleece. No fewer than 5000 yatoi
(salaried foreigners), experts in every
line and field of human endeavor, were
called out and employed. These men
started the first railways, telegraphs,
lighthouses, navy yards, foundries,
mercantile projects, mechanical inven-
tions, appliances, and agencies.
Yet the Japanese already had the
capacity and ambition. The aliens
were only the guides, helpers, and
servants. An American missionary,
Jonathan Goble, invented the jinriki-
! sha, that has rolled round the world.
Nevertheless the yatoi did but teach
the rudiments and point the way. 1t
was the Japanese who made the New
Japan.
When feudalism had been abolished,
in 1871, and the once-despised mer-
chant was given honor and oppor-
tunity, he unfolded the pinions of a
| to capture the markets of Asia. It
was like giving wings to tiger"
AS early as 1860 young men had
been sent to Holland for naval educa-
ton; but it was under British officers
that the imperial navy was recon
structed, while French first, and then
Germans, recreated the military sys-
TEN. (Admiral Togo was for IL
years under British naval Instruction.
! To Americans was given the task of
being borrowed from Belgium.
Only the learned Japanese, in 1870,
! could by ear or eye read anything
higher than shop accounts or fiction.
All erudition was in the hieroglyphics
of China 1t was said by aliens first
tackling the Japanese script and style
of speech that there were seven dis
| tinct languages In one. At times Jap
anese gentlemen In conversation
seemed to have graduated from an old
time school for the deaf, for they used
their fingers and the palms of their
hands most industriously to show just
what ideographs they were using or
the meaning they wished to convey.
Their New Education.
A reform in this direction meant the
uplift of humanity and the manifold
increase of the nations resources
through productive individual ability.
These facts seem to explain the ma
| tional renaissance better than official
statistics, imposing as these figures OF
millions are, or even the present-day
reports of trained alien journalists.
The new education uplifted a whole
nation. Almost every village and ham,
let pulses with new life. The victories,
| both over China and Russia and in the
worlds markets, were won first in
| Japan's public schools. In 1920 these
ers and $780,, 1892 pupils-an almost I'M
paralleled record, even in, the Occident.
| In all this there is living parable.
In Old Japan man was too much like
a beast, while the beast was too much
like a man. Herein are the parent
facts. For ages, and even until to-
day, Japan has suffered from too much
! hand labor. She needs more live ami
! mails at the pillow and in the fields, the
/ streets and the mills. while she needs
to uplift her men and women.
What has really made the New
Japan is this emergence in social life
of the new spirit Of personality and of
individuality. The old civilization was
communal. The new national life is
based, in the main, on the assertion
of the inherent powers of the indi-
vldual, yet in unity Of purpose with
| tho commonwealth