"I Believe" and other essays

by Guy Thorne

Now I am no alarmist, but the Japanese have invented for themselves a high explosive, the shimose powder. I am no alarmist, but the Japanese have just launched the Satsuma, possibly the most powerful of all men-of-war. I am no alarmist, but the Japanese are turning school-masters and drill sergeants to four hundred millions of Chinamen, and the Chinese have been pronounced by General Gordon and Lord Wolseley to be excellent soldiers. Sir Robert Hart, the Englishman most likely to prove an accurate prophet, has warned us against the renaissance of China. The guns of Togo’s fleet have served Europe with notice to quit the further East, and what the Japanese have taught themselves, they may teach the Chinamen undisturbed.

The pre-eminence of Japan in the Far East to-day is due to her admirable system of education.

From Japan by the Japanese, a work edited by Mr. Alfred Stead, and published by Mr. Heinemann, I propose to select certain information which may startle even retrograde educationalists. Japan by the Japanese is a collection of studies on Japan written by no globe-trotters, but by Japanese thinkers and statesmen of the highest eminence. In the list of contributors I notice the Marquis Ito, Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama, Count Okuma and Baron Suyematsu. The essays on education are from the pens of Count Okuma, Baron Suyematsu, and other specialists. My humble opinion is that the authorities who direct the teaching of Modern History at Oxford would do well to substitute Japan by the Japanese for Aristotle’s Politics, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Maine’s Ancient Law, which are the only text-books in Political Science prescribed by the University Examination Statutes. I may be peculiar, but I prefer the views of Ito, Oyama and Okuma to those of Aristotle, Hobbes and Maine.

As my last essay dealt with the education supplied at Oxford University, it will be well to begin by considering the Universities of Tokyo and Kyoto. Six colleges comprise the former and five the latter. But, unlike the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge these colleges are schools for the highly specialized study of some art or science. At Tokyo the colleges are those of Law, Medicine, Engineering, Literature, Science, and Agriculture; at Kyoto of Law, Medicine, Literature, Science, and Engineering. At both Universities there is also a University Hall established for the purpose of facilitating original investigation in Arts and Science.

One thing is very noticeable in comparing the University of Tokyo with the University of Oxford. Amongst the least popular of the Honour Schools at the institution on the banks of the Isis is the Law School. At Tokyo the College of Law, in which the student has the option of specializing on Law or Politics, is by far the favourite. After Law comes the College of Engineering, and the College of Literature is a bad third.

It is to the College of Literature (the equivalent of which at Oxford are the Honour Schools of Languages, dead or living, and the School of Modern History) that I would call the reader’s special attention. The Modern History School is the most popular of the Honour Schools at Oxford; but at Tokyo between 1890 and 1900 there were only 106 students who devoted their time to General History, and 87 to Japanese History. On the other hand, no less than 651 were engaged in preparing themselves in Law, and 390 in Politics.

In September 1901, 567 undergraduates were attending a Law course, 409 lectures on Politics; but only 28 were listening to teachers of Japanese History, while 48 were enrolled in the classes for General History.

The advocates of Greek insist that the Greek language is the finest of all instruments for training the human mind. The Japanese do not agree with our retrogrades. Greek, apparently, is not taught at any School or University, though Latin is amongst the subjects which a Japanese medical student is expected to have mastered.

Another great distinction between the Japanese and the English system is, that only picked men are permitted to avail themselves of a University education. Further, before proceeding to the University the undergraduate must have passed through a school specially preparing him for one of the University Colleges.

“This type of school,” observes Professor Sawayanagi, “is exclusively peculiar to the educational system of Japan, as there is no equivalent either in Europe or America.”