Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic

by Sidney Lewis Gulick

A few illustrations of this spirit of confidence from my own experience may not be without interest. On first coming to Japan, I found it usual for a Japanese who wished to take a jinrikisha to call the runner and take the ride without making any bargain, giving him at the end what seemed right. And the men generally accepted the payment without question. I have found that recently, unless there is some definite understanding arrived at before the ride, there is apt to be some disagreement, the runner presuming on the hold he has, by virtue of work done, to get more than is customary. This is especially true in case the rider is a foreigner. Another set of examples in which astonishing simplicity and confidence were manifested was in the employment of evangelists. I have known several instances in which a full correspondence with an evangelist with regard to his employment was carried on, and the settlement finally concluded, and the man set to work without a word said about money matters. It need hardly be said that no foreigner took part in that correspondence.

The simple, childlike trustfulness of the country people is seen in multiplied ways; yet on the whole I cannot escape the conviction that it is a trustfulness which is shown toward each other as equals. Certain farmers whom I have employed to care for a cow and to cultivate the garden, while showing a trustful disposition towards me, have not had the same feelings toward their fellows apparently.

This confidence and trustfulness were the product of a civilization resting on communalistic feudalism; the people were kept as children in dependence on their feudal lord; they had to accept what he said and did; they were accustomed to that order of things from the beginning and had no other thought; on the whole too, without doubt, they received regular and kindly treatment. Furthermore, there was no redress for the peasant in case of harshness; it was always the wise policy, therefore, for him to accept whatever was given without even the appearance of dissatisfaction. This spirit was connected with the dominance of the military class. Simple trustfulness was, therefore, chiefly that of the non-military classes. The trustfulness of the samurai sprang from their distinctive training. As already mentioned, when drawing up a bond in feudal times, in place of any tangible security, the document would read, "If I fail to do so and so, you may laugh at me in public."

Since the overthrow of communal feudalism and the establishment of an individualistic social order, necessitating personal ownership of property, and the universal use of money, trustful confidence is rapidly passing away. Everything is being more and more accurately reduced to a money basis. The old samurai scorn for money seems to be wholly gone, an astonishing transformation of character. Since the disestablishment of the samurai class many of them have gone into business. Not a few have made tremendous failures for lack of business instinct, being easily fleeced by more cunning and less honorable fellows who have played the "confidence" game most successfully; others have made equally great successes because of their superior mental ability and education. The government of Japan is to-day chiefly in the hands of the descendants of the samurai class. They have their fixed salaries and everything is done on a financial basis, payment being made for work only. The lazy and the incapable are being pushed to the wall. Many of the poorest and most pitiable people of the land to-day are the proud sons of the former aristocracy, who glory in the history of their ancestors, but are not able or willing to change their old habits of thought and manner of life.

The American Board has had a very curious, not to say disastrous, experience with the spirit of trustful confidence that was the prevailing business characteristic of the older civilization. According to the treaties which Japan had made with foreign nations, no foreigner was allowed to buy land outside the treaty ports. As, however, mission work was freely allowed by the government and welcomed by many of the people in all parts of the land, and as it became desirable to have continuous missionary work in several of the interior towns, it seemed wise to locate missionaries in those places and to provide suitable houses for them. In order to do this, land was bought and the needed houses erected, and the title was necessarily held in the names of apparently trustworthy native Christians. The government was, of course, fully aware of what was being done and offered no objection. It was well understood that the property was not for the private ownership of the individual missionary, but was to be held by the Christians for the use of the mission to which the missionary belonged. For many years no questions were raised and all moved along smoothly. The arrangement between the missionaries and the Christian or Christians in whose names the property might be held was entirely verbal, no document being of any legal value, to say nothing of the fact that in those early days the mention of documentary relationships would have greatly hurt the tender feelings of honor which were so prominent a part of samurai character. The financial relations were purely those of honor and trust.

Under this general method, large sums of money were expended by the American Board for homes for its missionaries in various parts of Japan, and especially in Kyoto. Here was the Doshisha, which grew from a small English school and Evangelists' training class to a prosperous university with fine buildings. Tens of thousands of dollars were put into this institution, besides the funds needful for the land and the houses for nine foreign families. An endowment was also raised, partly in Japan, but chiefly in America. In a single bequest, Mr. Harris of New London gave over one hundred thousand dollars for a School of Science. It has been estimated that, altogether, the American Board and its constituency have put into the Doshisha, including the salaries of the missionary teachers, toward a million dollars.

In the early nineties the political skies were suddenly darkened. The question of treaty revision loomed up black in the heavens. The politicians of the land clamored for the absolute refusal of all right of property ownership by foreigners. In their political furore they soon began to attack the Japanese Christians who were holding the property used by the various missions. They accused them of being traitors to the country. A proposed law was drafted and presented in the National Diet, confiscating all such property. The Japanese holders naturally became nervous and desirous of severing the relationships with the foreigners as soon as possible. In the case of corporate ownership the trustees began to make assumptions of absolute ownership, regardless of the moral claims of the donors of the funds. In the earlier days of the trouble frequent conferences on the question were held by the missionaries of the American Board with the leading Christians of the Empire, and their constant statement was, "Do not worry; trust us; we are samurai and will do nothing that is not perfectly honorable." So often were these sentiments reiterated, and yet so steadily did the whole management of the Doshisha move further and further away from the honorable course, that finally the "financial honor of the samurai" came to have an odor far from pleasant. A deputation of four gentlemen, as representatives of the American Board, came from America especially to confer with the trustees as to the Christian principles of the institution, and the moral claims of the Board, but wholly in vain. The administration of the Doshisha became so distinctly non-Christian, to use no stronger term, that the mission felt it impossible to co-operate longer with the Doshisha trustees; the missionary members of the faculty accordingly resigned. In order to secure exemption from the draft for its students the trustees of the Doshisha abrogated certain clauses of the constitution relating to the Christian character of the institution, in spite of the fact that these clauses belonged to the "unchangeable" part of the constitution which the trustees, on taking office, had individually sworn to maintain. Again the Board sent out a man, now a lawyer vested with full power to press matters to a final issue. After months of negotiations with the trustees in regard to the restoration of the substance of the abrogated clauses, without result, he was on the point of carrying the case into the courts, when the trustees decided to resign in a body. A new board of trustees has been formed, who bid fair to carry on the institution in accord with the wishes of its founders and benefactors, as expressed in the original constitution. At one stage of the proceedings the trustees voted magnanimously, as they appeared to think, to allow the missionaries of the Board to live for fifteen years, rent free, in the foreign houses connected with the Doshisha; this, because of the many favors it had received from the Board! By this vote they maintained that they had more than fulfilled every requirement of honor. That they were consciously betraying the trust that had been reposed in them is not for a moment to be supposed.

It would not be fair not to add that this experience in Kyoto does not exemplify the universal Japanese character. There are many Japanese who deeply deplore and condemn the whole proceeding. Some of the Doshisha alumni have exerted themselves strenuously to have righteousness done.

Passing now from the character of trustful confidence, we take up its opposite, suspiciousness. The development of this quality is a natural result of a military feudalism such as ruled Japan for hundreds of years. Intrigue was in constant use when actual war was not being waged. In an age when conflicts were always hand to hand, and the man who could best deceive his enemy as to his next blow was the one to carry off his head, the development of suspicion, strategy, and deceit was inevitable. The most suspicious men, other things being equal, would be the victors; they, with their families, would survive and thus determine the nature of the social order. The more than two hundred and fifty clans and "kuni," "clan territory," into which the land was divided, kept up perpetual training in the arts of intrigue and subtlety which are inevitably accompanied by suspicion.

Modern manifestations of this characteristic are frequent. Not a cabinet is formed, but the question of its make-up is discussed from the clannish standpoint. Even though it is now thirty years since the centralizing policy was entered upon and clan distinctions were effectually broken down, yet clan suspicion and jealousy is not dead.