Nitobé Inazo - Japanese Nation

This is an important document in the history of Japanese-American relations. In 2002, President George W. Bush spoke of the great Japanese scholar and statesman Inazo Nitob, who envisioned a future of friendship between the two nations. This book is one of the means by which Nitob sought to build a bridge over the Pacific. Writing before World War I, he presents a detailed account of Japan and the Japanese in terms easily understandable to western readers, emphasising points of similarity rather than difference, often citing the work of western historians and philosophers in order to explain Japanese practices, always searching for common aims and goals. He deals with the effect of the past on the present, national characteristics, religious beliefs, morals and moral ideals, education, economic conditions, Japan as a coloniser, relations between the United States and Japan, and America's influence in the Far East, concluding with the hope that wherever else war may break out, lasting peace would reign over the Pacific. In this he was disappointed, but the fact that Nitob is cited today as the architect of Japanese-American friendship makes this volume essential reading for historians.

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The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies D. C. Holtom

History of Japanese Religion Masaharu Anesaki

Ainu Creed and Cult Neil Gordon Munro

Japan: its Architecture, Art and Art Manufactures Christopher Dresser

Home Life in Tokyo Jukichi Inouye

An Artist's Letters from Japan John La Farge

The Kwaidan of the Lady of Tamiya James S. de Benneville

The Haunted House James S. de Benneville

We Japanese Frederic de Garis and Atsuhara Sakai

The Nightless City of the Geisha J. E. de Becker

The Gardens of Japan Jiro Harada

History of Japanese Thought Hajime Nakamura

Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings Edward S. Morse

Japanese Buddhism Charles Eliot

Lafcadio Hearn's Gleanings in Buddha Fields Lafcadio Hearn

In Far Japan Frank H. Hedges

Behind the Japanese Mask Robert Craigie

The Flowers and Gardens of Japan Florence Du Cane and Ella Du Cane

Learning the Sacred Way of the Emperor Yutaka Hibino

Japanese Marks and Seals James Lord Bowes

Japan and Its Art Marcus B. Huish

The Last Genro Bunji Omura

Japanese Names and How to Read Them A. J. Koop and Hogitaro Inada

The Theory of Japanese Flower Arrangements Josiah Conder

Traveller from Tokyo John Morris

Diaries of the Court Ladies of Old Japan Annie Shepley Omori and Koichi Doi

The Art of Japanese Gardens Loraine E. Kuck

The Religion of the Samurai Kaiten Nukariya

Ancestor-Worship and Japanese Law Baron Nobushige Hozumi

In the Bamboo Lands of Japan Katharine Schuyler Baxter

Human Bullets Tadayoshi Sakurai

Japan: Aspects and Destinies W. Petrie Watson

Japan and Things Japanese Mock Joya

The Honorable Picnic Thomas Raucat

American Geisha Marion Taylor

The Tale of Lady Ochikubo Translated by Wilfred Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa

Japanese Nation Lnazo Nitob

First published in 2006 by
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Kegan Paul, 2006

Printed in the United States

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

ISBN-13: 978-0-7103-1141-2
ISBN-10: 0-7103-1141-9

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Nitobe, Inazo, 18621933
The Japanese nation : its land, its people and its life. (The Kegan Paul Japan library)
1. National characteristics, Japanese 2. Japan 3. Japan Relations United States 4. United States Relations Japan
I.Title
952'.031

ISBN-13: 9780710311412
ISBN-10: 0710311419

To

THE UNIVERSITIES OF

BROWN

COLUMBIA

JOHNS HOPKINS

VIRGINIA

ILLINOIS

MINNESOTA

UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES WERE DELIVERED THE LECTURES WHICH

GAVE IT BIRTH

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE

T HE present work is the outcome of my labours as Japanese exchange professor in this country, during the academic year of 191112, and I take this opportunity of explaining how my work began and ended.

The idea of sending public men of note unofficially from this country to Japan and from Japan to the United States, owes its inception to Mr. Hamilton Holt of New York City. When his plan had been developed to a certain degree of feasibility, the task of carrying it into effect was accepted by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, in whose hands the idea took the more practical if the less ambitious form of an exchange professorship, and he interested certain typical universities to join in putting it into effect. After the enterprise was fairly launched, the responsibility for its continu-ance was passed on to, and made a part of, the work of the Carnegie Peace Endowment. My labours commenced after the project had reached its second stage of developmentnamely, while the Universities concerned had the matter in their immediate charge.

In the spring of last year, the six American Universities of Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Virginia, Illinois, and Minnesotarepresenting the Eastern, Southern, and Middle-Western portions of the Continentunited in instituting an exchange of lecturers with Japan. The object of the schemeas I take itis the interchange of right views and sentiments between the two peoples, rather than a mutual giving and taking of strictly academic knowledge. The appointees, whether men of science or men of affairs or of literary reputation, are expected to be convoys of warm human feeling rather than of cold scientific truth.

Through President Butler and our Embassy in Washington, negotiations were started between the said Universities and the Japanese Government. The latter expressed its readiness to meet the proposal; whereupon the association formed of those business men who visited this country a few years ago, entered into the spirit of the undertaking by assuming the financial responsibility, provided the Government would help by recommending a man for the task.