James A. B. Scherer - Japan To-day

Routledge Revivals

This book, first published in 1904, aimed to provide an overview of the aspects of everyday Japanese life at the beginning of the twentieth century. This book will be of interest to students of history and Asian Studies.

James A. B. Scherer

First published in 1904

by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.

This edition first published in 2015

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1904 James A. B. Scherer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 04009638

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-91281-6 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-69175-6 (ebk)

JAPAN TO-DAY

BY

JAMES A. B. SCHERER, PH.D.

Formerly Teacher of English in the Government School at Saga, Japan; Now President of Newberry College, South Carolina; Author of "Four Princes; or, The Growth of a Kingdom"

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRBNER & CO. LTD.

DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, LONDON, W. 1904

The Hermit becomes a HeroThe Educational Progress of JapanThe Military Progress of Japan and a Comparison with RussiaA View of Japan To-Day

JAPAN TO-DAY

I
THE CYNOSURE

It is only a little country, being smaller than the State of California. Only a twelfth of its land is arable,that is to say, scarcely more than the territory of our own little Maryland. It has a few mines of coal and copper and iron, with less of silver and gold. It lies off the central eastern coast of the vast continent of Asia, a narrow crescent, bent like Diana's bow,shaped like the rising moon, and named for the Rising Sun, bending as far as it can towards the west. It is only a little country, filled with forty millions of little brown people, but it is the cynosure of the eyes of all nations. For exactly fifty years has this been true. In 1854 Commodore Perry opened it, a veritable box of curios for the Western world, whose curiosity for its contents has seemed insatiable. In 1894 curiosity deepened into wonder, when this little bow-shaped country suddenly pierced the rusty mail of China with the swift, sharp arrow of war, and made that dozing giant rub his eyes. In 1904 wonder has become amazement, as Japan has undertaken to celebrate her fiftieth jubilee of enfranchisement among the nations by a doughty wrestling match with the colossal Slav,a pygmy gone out against a giant.

How can these things be? How has it been possible for a nation apparently to be born in a day, suddenly emerging from sheer Oriental hermitage to become the cynosure of every eye? What accounts for Japan's rapid development from a curio-box to a world-power, so that to-day she is rightly entitled to be called the gate to the Orient? The answer is in one word: Education.

But education predicates two things: advantages and ability. It is of no use to bring opportunity to a man unless he has the grasp which will enable him to seize it by the forelock. Culture will avail him nothing unless he has capacity, just as land must have native fertility before it will respond to cultivation. The mental soil of the Japanese has had a rapid receptivity without parallel in the history of the world.

For five years I taught Japanese students. Simply as students, they are ideal. I can see them now, as they sat there, apparently so stoical, so Easternly impassive. But those sleepy-looking eyes were wide awake. Their minds were drinking with a thirst that could never be quenched. And when the next day came, they had digested the lesson of the day before, in every atom, and were clamoring with a hundred questions for more. I do not say that they are an originative race; in a subsequent chapter I shall show that they are not. But I repeat that for quick receptiveness and rapid, thorough assimilation of mental food they are unparalleled.

In the seventh chapter of this volume I shall sketch the actual experiences of an American teacher in a modern Japanese school; while in the tenth chapter we shall trace the rapid transition of Japan from the darkness of medival feudalism to the enlightenment of the Western world. For the present we need just a clear notion of the educational methods which have made the Japan of To-Day.