J. W. (John William) Robertson Scott - The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People

The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...117

[Illustration: BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL]

[Illustration: JJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL.]

THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FAR EASTERN THE PEOPLE OF CHINA JAPAN, GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD. (Nippon Eikoku oyobi Sekai.) THE IGNOBLE WARRIOR. (Koredemo Bushika.) THE NEW EAST. (Tokyo.) Vols. I, II & III. (Edited.) AGRICULTURAL A FREE FARMER IN A FREE STATE. (Holland.) WAR TIME AND PEACE IN HOLLAND. (With an Introduction by the late LORD REAY.) THE LAND PROBLEM: AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY SUGAR BEET: SOME FACTS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS. A Study in Rural Therapeutics. THE TOWNSMAN'S FARM THE SMALL FARM POULTRY FARMING: SOME FACTS AND SOME ILLUSIONS THE CASE FOR THE GOAT. (With Introductions by the DUCHESS OF HAMILTON and SIR H. RIDER HAGGARD.) COUNTRY COTTAGES THE STORY OF THE DUNMOW FLITCH IN SEARCH OF AN 150 COTTAGE. (Edited.) THE JOURNAL OF A JOURNEYMAN FARMER. (Edited.)

THE FOUNDATIONS
OF JAPAN

NOTES MADE DURING JOURNEYS OF

6,000 MILES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS AS

A BASIS FOR A SOUNDER KNOWLEDGE

OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

BY J.W. ROBERTSON SCOTT

("HOME COUNTIES")

WITH 85 ILLUSTRATIONS

"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door, yet it is a little window"

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1922

TO

SCOTT SAN NO OKUSAN

FOR WHOLESOME CRITICISM

A concern arose to spend some time with them that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them when the troubles of War were increasing and when travelling was more difficult than usual. I looked upon it as a more favourable opportunity to season my mind and to bring me into a nearer sympathy with them.Journal of John Woolman, 1762.

I determined to commence my researches at some distance from the capital, being well aware of the erroneous ideas I must form should I judge from what I heard in a city so much subjected to foreign intercourse. Borrow.

---

INTRODUCTION

The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of the West with Asia which the historian of the future will unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time.

I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was told chiefly during rural journeysmore than half the population is ruralextending to twice the distance across the United States or nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John o' Groats.

These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other volume has explored. Because they fall short of what was planned, and in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may be pardoned on the beginnings of the bookone of the many literary victims of the War.

The first book I ever bought was about the Far East. The first leading article of my journalistic apprenticeship in London was about Korea. When I left daily journalism, at the time of the siege of the Peking Legations, the first thing I published was a book pleading for a better understanding of the Chinese.

After that, as a cottager in Essex, I wroteabove a nom de guerre which is better known than I ama dozen volumes on rural subjects. During a visit to the late David Lubin in Rome I noticed in the big library of his International Institute of Agriculture that there was no took in English dealing with the agriculture of Japan. During the early "business as usual" period of the War, when no tasks had been found for men over military ageMr. Wells's protest will be rememberedit occurred to me that it might be serviceable if I could have ready, for the period of rural reconstruction and readjustment of our international ideas when the War was over, two books of a new sort. One should be a stimulating volume on Japan, based on a study, more sociological than technically agricultural, of its remarkable small-farming system and rural life, and the other a complementary American volume based on a study of the enterprising large farming of the Middle West. I proposed to write the second book in co-operation with a veteran rural reformer who had often invited me to visit him in Iowa, the father of the present American Minister of Agriculture. Early in 1915 I set out for Japan to enter upon the first part of my task. Mr. Wallace died while I was still in Japan, and the Middle West book remains to be undertaken by someone else.

The Land of the Rising Sun has been fortunate in the quality of the books which many foreigners have written. But for every work at the standard of what might be called the seven "M's"Mitford, Murdoch, Munro, Morse, Maclaren, "Murray" and McGovernthere are many volumes of fervid "pro-Japanese" or determined "anti-Japanese" romanticism. The pictures of Japan which such easily perused books present are incredible to readers of ordinary insight or historical imagination, but they have had their part in forming public opinion.

The basic fact about Japan is that it is an agricultural country. Japanese stheticism, the victorious Japanese army and navy, the smoking chimneys of Osaka, the pushing mercantile marine, the Parliamentary and administrative developments of Tokyo and a costly worldwide diplomacy are all borne on the bent backs of Ohyakusho no Fufu, the Japanese peasant farmer and his wife. The depositories of the authentic Yamato damashii (Japanese spirit) are to be found knee deep in the sludge of their paddy fields.

One book about Japan may well be written in the perspective of the village and the hamlet. There it is possible to find the way beneath that surface of things visible to the tourist. There it is possible to discover the foundations of the Japan which is intent on cutting such a figure in the East and in the West. There it is possible to learn not only what Japan is but what she may have it in her to become.

A rural sociologist is not primarily interested in the technique of agriculture. He conceives agriculture and country life as Arthur Young and Cobbett did, as a means to an end, the sound basis, the touchstone of a healthy State. I was helped in Japan not only by my close acquaintance with the rural civilisation of two pre-eminently small-holdings countries, Holland and Denmark, but by what I knew to be precious in the rural life of my own land.

An interest in rural problems cannot be simulated. As I journeyed about the country the sincerity of my purposethere are few words in commoner use in the Far East than sinceritywas recognised and appreciated. I enjoyed conversations in which customary barriers had been broken down and those who spoke said what they felt. We inevitably discussed not only agricultural economy but life, religion and morality, and the way Japan was taking.

I spoke and slept in Buddhist temples. I was received at Shinto shrines. I was led before domestic altars. I was taken to gatherings of native Christians. I planted commemorative trees until more persimmons than I can ever gather await my return to Japan. I wrote so many

Next page

1234567...117

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People»

Look at similar books to The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Tazuko Ajiro Monane

Japanese Made Easy: Revised and Updated: The Ultimate Guide to Quickly Learn Japanese from Day One

John E.L. Robertson

Paducah, Kentucky: A History

John E. Van Sant

Pacific Pioneers: Japanese Journeys to America and Hawaii, 1850-80

John Condon

With Respect to the Japanese: Going to Work in Japan

Walsh

Read Japanese kanji today: the easy way to learn 400 practical kanji

Nagatsuka Takashi

The Soil: A Portrait of Rural Life in Meiji Japan

Tuttle Publishing

Essential Japanese Phrasebook & Dictionary: Speak Japanese with Confidence!

Scott Rutherford

Japanese for Travelers Phrasebook & Dictionary

Scott

Japanese for Travelers: Useful Phrases Travel Tips Etiquette

William Scott Wilson

Walking the Kiso Road: A Modern-Day Exploration of Old Japan

Scott Robertson

How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments From Your Imagination

William Howard Armstrong

Sounder

Discussion, reviews of the book The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys of 6,000 Miles in the Rural Districts as a Basis for a Sounder Knowledge of the Japanese People and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.