The Spell of Japan

by Isabel Anderson

At the present time, the government schools teach Western branches, but they are hampered by a narrow-minded educational board with antiquated methods, and tied up by miles of red tape, so that their teaching of Western studies is away behind the times. We might consider the English heard all over Japan a fair sample of the superficiality that prevails, but, to be impartial, we must take into account the difficulties that have to be overcome by students and teachers. Because of the ideographs and other peculiarities of their own tongue, it is far more difficult for the Japanese to learn English than for us to learn French or German.

Government schools are superior in Japanese branches—they teach Japanese and Chinese classics and ethics, Japanese law and ideals better than the mission schools—and certificates from them give better positions, so ambitious Japanese go to them, but in Western subjects they try to do too many things. The students work only for examinations, not for really substantial progress. This is noticeable, except in rare individuals, who would probably progress under any conditions. The best Japanese educators realize this as well as the foreigners and greatly deplore it.

The reason that some of the mission schools are not so good as they might be is that they are too much occupied with proselyting, and hardly give more than superficial training to students. It would be better for the Japanese in the end if more real educators were sent out rather than so many preachers. If the mission schools would combine in having Japanese teachers for Japanese subjects, there could be concentration of effort and expense.

There is also a crying need, my friend says, of schools for foreign children, because there are no good ones in Japan, and it is expensive to send the boys and girls to America or Europe. An international foreign language school, too, is much needed. The ignorance of foreign tongues is one of the greatest barriers to amicable relations with other countries. The inscrutability of the Japanese, which we hear so much about, is due principally to their lack of familiarity with languages.

To understand the religious situation in Japan at all, it is necessary to take another backward glance over her history. Except during the two hundred and fifty years of the Tokugawa Period, the country has always been open to foreigners and foreign ideas. Chinese and Koreans, who brought new religions, a new civilization and a new philosophy, were gladly received. Young men from Japan sought learning in other countries, even in distant India. So, when Francis Xavier and his intrepid Jesuits made their way thither in the sixteenth century, they found a cordial welcome awaiting them.

For fifty years Christian work went on; hundreds of thousands of Japanese accepted the Roman Catholic faith. But the Roman Church claims to be superior to the State, and the rulers of Japan saw reason to believe that the priests were aiming at political power. At once they reversed their former policy, branded Christianity as "Ja-kyo," the "Evil Way," and set about its extermination. Thousands of converts laid down their lives for the new faith in the terrible persecution that followed; foreigners were driven out of Japan, and her own people were forbidden to leave her shores.

After the "Long Sleep" of the Tokugawa Period, the Meiji Era, known as the "Awakening," began in 1867. Once more Christianity was brought in, but this time in the guise of Protestantism, and again it made rapid progress. By the middle of the eighties some Japanese leaders of opinion were even advising that it should be declared the national religion, although this was largely for political reasons. However, full religious liberty was granted in 1889.

In the early nineties came the reaction. The conservative element in the nation began to make itself heard against the mad rush for new things. Japanese students returning from abroad brought stories of vice and crime in Christian lands. The Japanese began to discover, too, that the standard of Christian ethics was a higher one than they had ever known, and demanded a change of life as well as of belief, and that the diplomacy of so-called Christian countries was often anything but Christian. So those who had simply "gone with the crowd" into the Christian ranks fell away. The churches were sifted.

This revulsion of feeling was not lasting. Gradually the Japanese came to modify their conclusions. Those who remained in the churches did so from conviction, and a stronger church was the result. In this period of reaction Japan simply stopped to take breath, to adjust itself to the new life upon which it had entered. Progress now may be slower, but it is more substantial.

The missionary question is absorbing, if one has time to see what has been done and what is being done now in the schools and kindergartens and hospitals, although to-day these Christian teachers are not playing so important a rôle as they did a few years ago. At first the Japanese went to the foreigners as their advisers and teachers, but now that they have travelled more and know more of Western ideas they do not need them so much. Six hundred thousand dollars goes yearly from America to Japan for missions. Japan is a poor country, but some people feel it is time for the rich men there to come forward and contribute to their own charities, rather than to let foreigners do so large a share. I feel that there is more need of missionaries in China to-day, especially medical missionaries.