The custom of speaking of our friends of the Island Empire as "the little Japanese," is a fault that should be promptly mended. Japan is small, it is true, but the people are numerous to the point of wonderment. Consequently, it can do no harm to memorize these facts: That Japan has an area actually 27,000 square miles greater than the British Isles, and 5,000,000 more inhabitants; in other words, the population of Japan is 47,000,000, while that of Great Britain and Ireland is but 42,000,000. That Japan's population exceeds that of France by 8,000,000, of Italy by 14,000,000, and of Austro-Hungary by nearly 2,000,000. That outside of Asia there are but three countries in all the world with greater populations than Japan—Russia, the United States, and Germany. There was reason for calling the Jap the "Yankee of the East," or the "Englishman of the Orient," for otherwise the phrases could not have been forced into popular use.
It is the judgment of many who have studied the Japanese at close range that they are endowed with attributes of mind and body which make them equal, man for man, with the people of America and Great Britain. Asiatic though they are, it will be unwise to permit the brain to become clogged with the idea that they are "Asiatics" in the popular acceptance of the word. The Japan of the present is the antithesis of "Asiatic," and the Japan of the near future promises to be a country best measured by Western standards.
The Japanese are athirst for knowledge, and impatient for the time to arrive when the world will estimate them at their intellectual value, and forget to speak of them as the little "yellow" men of the East. This is manifested to a visitor many times every day. Their greatest craving is to know English, not merely well enough to carry on trade advantageously, but to read understandingly books that deal with the moderate sciences, and other works generally benefiting. Yokohama and Tokyo possess a score of establishments where practically every important volume of instruction, whether it be English or American, is reproduced in inexpensive form, and widely sold. For many years English has been taught in Japan's schools, but thousands of boys and men in cities and towns are each year acquiring the language by study in odd hours.
Examine the dog-eared pamphlet in the hands of the lad assisting in the shop where you are purchasing something, and you are almost certain to find it an elementary English book. Merchants know English well, as a rule; but with many of them the desire for knowledge is not satisfied with the acquisition of English—they desire to know other languages. In Yokohama I know a merchant of importance whose English is so good that one is drawn to inquire where he learned it. The answer will be that he studied odd hours at home and when not serving customers. And the visitor may further be informed by this man that he is also studying German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs him in the graceful language of France. And this merchant is but a type of thousands of Japanese who are daily garnering knowledge.
It is a pleasing incident for the visitor from America to read of a meeting in the Japanese capital of the local Yale Alumni Association—quite as pleasing as to see base-ball played in every vacant field convenient to a large town. Returning schoolboys have carried the game home to their companions, and in the voyage across the Pacific it has lost none of its fine points. For thirty years and longer the Japs have been learning English with the industry of beavers. And ambition has been responsible for this, the dogged determination to be somebody, and the patriotic wish to see Japan stand with the progressive nations of the earth. The power to keep such a people down does not exist. Preparation is a subject never absent from the thoughts of the Japanese. It was preparation that gave them victory after victory over the creatures of the Czar. Now they are fairly launched upon a brilliant career in trade and commerce. But Japan can merely fabricate our raw materials, thereby occupying a field in Asia that up to now Uncle Sam has made no determined effort to secure.
INDEX
Agra, Indian city of unrivaled interest, [168];
its Taj Mahal, [168-184]