Jpn 158.76

1876. Oct. 23,

minot Fund

83.20

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by

HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

ΤΟ

JAPANESE LOVERS OF KNOWLEDGE IN EVERY AGE:

THE DEAD,

WHO FIRST KINDLED THE SACRED FIRE, WHO PASSED ON THE TORCH;

THE MARTYRS,

WHO SUFFERED DEATH FOR THEIR LOYALTY, PATRIOTISM, DEVOTION TO NATIONAL

UNITY, RESTORATION, AND REGENERATION;

THE STUDENTS,

WHO, IN NOBLE THIRST FOR TRUTH, FOUND HONORED GRAVES IN ALIEN SOIL;

THE LIVING,

WITH WHOM RESTS THE FUTURE OF THEIR BEAUTIFUL LAND,

THIS SKETCH

OF THEIR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE, MADE IN THE INTEREST OF TRUTH, AND

SET DOWN WITHOUT EXTENUATION OR MALICE, IS,

WITH FRATERNAL REGARD,

DEDICATED

BY THEIR COMRADE AND FRIEND,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

JAPAN, once in the far-off Orient, is now our nearest Western neighbor. Her people walk our streets; her youth sit, peers and rivals of our students, in the class-room; her art adorns our homes, and has opened to us a new Gate Beautiful. The wise men from the West are, at this writing, opening their treasures of tea, silk, gold-lacquer, bronzes, and porcelain at the first centennial of our nation's birth.

We hail the brightness of the rising of this first among Asiatic nations to enter modern life, to win and hold a place among the foremost peoples of the earth. It is time that a writer treated Japan as something else than an Oriental puzzle, a nation of recluses, a land of fabulous wealth, of universal licentiousness or of Edenic purity, the fastness of a treacherous and fickle crew, a Paradise of guileless children, a Utopia of artists and poets. It is time to drop the license of exaggeration, and, with the light of common day, yet with sympathy and without prejudice, seek to know what Dai Nippon is and has been.

It has been well said by a literary critic and reader of all the books on the subject that to write a good history of Japan is difficult, not so much from lack of materials, but from the differences in psychology. This I realize. My endeavor, during eight years' living contact with these people, has been, from their language, books, life, and customs, to determine their mental parallax, and find out how they think and feel.

I have not made this book in libraries at home, but largely on the soil of the mikado's empire. I have slight obligation to acknowledge to foreign writers, except to those working scholars in Japan who have written during the last decade with knowledge of the language. To them I owe much; first and most of all to Mr. Ernest Satow, who, in the special department of historical research, stands leader. To Messrs. Aston, Mitford, Pfoundes, Hepburn, Brown, Blakiston, Von Brandt, and Parkes, I am also indebted. I am under many obligations

to the editor of The Japan Mail. This scholarly paper, published in Yokohama, is a most valuable mirror of contemporaneous Japanese history, and a rich store-house of facts, especially the papers of the Asiatic Society of Japan. The Japan Herald and The Japan Gazette have also been of great service to me, for which I here thank the proprietors. The constant embarrassment in treating many subjects has been from wealth of material. I have been obliged to leave out several chapters on important subjects, and to treat others with mere passing allusions.

In the early summer of 1868, two Higo students, Isé and Numagawa, arrived in the United States. They were followed by retainers of the daimiōs of Satsuma and Echizen, and other feudal princes. I was surprised and delighted to find these earnest youth equals of American students in good-breeding, courtesy, and mental acumen. Some of them remained under my instruction two years, others for a shorter time. Among my friends or pupils in New Brunswick, New Jersey, are Mr. Yoshida Kiyonari, H. I. J. M. Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington; Mr. Takagi Samro, H. I. J. M. Vice-consul at San Francisco; Mr. Tomita Tetsunosŭké, H. I. J. M. Consul at New York; Mr. Hatakeyama Yoshinari, President of the Imperial University of Japan; Captain Matsumura Junzo, of the Japanese navy. Among others were the two sons of Iwakura Tomomi, Junior Prime Minister of Japan; and two young nobles of the Shimadzu family of Satsuma. I also met Prince Adzuma, nephew of the mikado, and many of the prominent men, ex-daimios, Tokugawa retainers, soldiers in the war of 1868, and representatives of every department of service under the old shogunate and new National Government. Six white marble shafts in the cemetery at New Brunswick, New Jersey, mark the resting-place of Kusukabé Taro, of Fukui, and his fellow-countrymen, whose devotion to study cost them their lives. I was invited by the Prince of Echizen, while Regent of the University, through the American superintendent, Rev. G. F. Verbeck, to go out to organize a scientific school on the American principle in Fukui, Echizen, and give instruction in the physical sciences. I arrived in Japan, December 29th, 1870, and remained until July 25th, 1874. During all my residence I enjoyed the society of cultivated scholars, artists, priests, antiquaries, and students, both in the provincial and national capitals. From the living I bore letters of introduction to the prominent men in the Japanese Government, and thus were given to me opportunities for research and observation not often afforded to foreigners. My facilities for regular and