EDUCATION IN JAPAN.

BY WILLIAM E. GRIFFIS,

Late of the Imperial Japanese College, Tõkiō, (Yedo,) Japan.

For the second time in her history, Japan is attempting the colossal enterprise of introducing a civilization. The movement towards the adoption of the external forces, if not the ideals, of European nations, which began within the last decade and is now attracting the attention of the civilized world, is no new thing in the history of Dai Nippon. The restless desire of her people for improvement, and the outworkings of that noble trait in the Japanese character which prompts to the desertion of an old and the adoption of a new idea, when proved to be better, are the principal motors of the national desire to enter within the comity of modern nations and, by mastering their ideas and following their examples, to become their equals. As in the first instance, in the early centuries, so now, they have declared their belief that "Education is the basis of all progress."

That the true position of this recent development of national life in the history of the empire may be fully understood, a very brief sketch of Japanese history may fitly open this paper.

The aborigines of Japan are the Ainos, a race of men now inhabiting the island of Yezo. From the very ancient prehistoric time, the islands of Dai Nippon were inhabited by these wandering tribes of hunters and fishermen. About the year 660 B. C., a band of conquerors who had come from the main land of Asia began the conquest of Southern Japan. In a few years they had possessed themselves of Kiushiu, Shikoku, and the central and southern portions of the main island.* Who these con

A great many errors in Japanese history and geography have become stereotyped in our text- and reference-books, which are reproduced in the notes and letters of tourists, and by book-makers, who, having never visited Japan, have copied from the old mistaken authorities. An almost perfectly uniform system of transliterating Japanese names into English has been adopted by Anglo-Japanese scholars, which it is hoped the educated people of this country will assist in popularizing. By this method Japanese names are given the simplest orthography, and their proximate pronunciation can be easily attained.

Final n is usually short.

e and i before a consonant are usually short.

Long vowels are marked by a bar over them, thus: Tōkiō.

The five large islands of Japan are Kiushiu, (nine provinces,) Shikoku, (four prov

querors were, whether Tartars, Coreans, Chinese, or Malays, is not known, though the probability is that they were Tartars. They brought agriculture and the rudiments of civilization with them, though they possessed neither writing, books, nor literature, except oral productions. From the blending of these two races sprang the ancient Japanese, who developed a type of physical structure and national life which later importations of blood, ideas, and customs have not radically altered.

In the later centuries, from the fourth to the eighth of the Christian era, after the conquest of Corea by the Japanese empress Jigō Kōgō, came letters, writing, books, literature, religion, ethics, politics, medicine, arts, science, agriculture, manufactures, and the varied appliances of civilization; and with these entered thousands of immigrants from Corea and China. Under the intellectual influence of Buddhism—the powerful and aggressive faith that had already led captive the half of Asia-of the Confucian ethics and philosophy, and Chinese literature, the horizon of the Japanese mind was immensely broadened. By the more material appliances borrowed from Corea-the pupil of Chinathe Japanese became a civilized people. In the time of the European "dark ages" the Japanese were enjoying what, in comparison, was a high state of civilization. Nevertheless, so definitely fixed and persistent was the original type of the Japanese national character, as the resultant of original ancestral impress, soil, climate, food, and natural influences, that the Japanese of to-day are a people differing widely from the Chinese in physique, temperament, character, habits, customs, and ideas.

Up to the twelfth century the Mikado was the sole ruler of his people; instead of the usual development of a priestly and a warrior-caste, there arose in Japan the civil and military orders. Towards the end inces,) Hondo, (main land,) Yezo and Saghalin, (Russian name,) or Kabafŭto, (Japanese name.) Foreign book-makers have, to a man, fallen into the error of calling the main island Niphon, or Nippon. There is no island having such a name. Dai Nippon, or Dai Nihon, (Great Japan,) is the name of the entire empire, or the Japanese archipelago. To restrict the term Nippon to one island is unwarrantable and wholly misleading. Hondo (main land) is the official name given to the largest island, and it is best to use this term. The Liu Kiu islands belong to Japan, and are governed by Japanese officers appointed by the Mikado. They are wrongly marked Loo Choo on our maps. The term Yedo, which can be spelled with but one d, (and is composed of ye, bay, and do, door, hence Bay-door,) has not been used either officially or popularly by the Japanese since 1868. Tokio (tō, east; kiō, capital) is the official and popular name of the Japanese capital. Tokei is another spelling and pronunciation used chiefly by those who affect Chinese learning. Ō'zaka is the correct orthography of the name of the second largest Japanese city. Kioto, not miako-a common noun-is the name of the old capital. Hakodaté, not Hakodadi, is the seaport in Yezo, (not Jesso or Yesso.) Nugata is on the west coast. Shimonoseki (not Simonosaki) is the name of the place on which the retainers of the daimio of Hagi, the chief city in Choshui, erected batteries and brought about the foreign naval and financial victory by which the batteries were destroyed, the town fired, and an indemnity of three million Mexican dollars extorted.

of the twelfth century, the military power of the empire fell into the hands of the Minamoto family of military chieftains. In old times every general was called a shō-gun, but Yoritomo, in 1186, was made seii-tai shō-gun, barbarian-repressing commander-in-chief or great general. This was the beginning of that great usurpation that lasted, with some intermission, until 1868. The Mikado in Kiōto was overawed by the military usurper at Kamakura or Yedo, though the prestige of the Mikado never diminished. The reverence of the people never abated, notwithstanding the people feared their iron-handed ruler, the Shō gur "The Shō-gun all men fear, the Mikado all men love," is a Japanese saying. Foreigners acquired the idea, which still lingers in our unrevised text-books, that there were "two emperors" in Japan, one "spiritual," the other "temporal." The truth is that there was but one emperor, the Mikado, and the Shō-gun was a military usurper. The term "Tycoon," (properly Tai-kun,) meaning "great prince" or "illustrious sovereign," was never used in Japanese official documents previous to the Perry treaty. It was an absurd fiction of authority, a piece of pompous bombast, designed to deceive the foreign envoys and treaty-makers as to the real relation of the Shō-gun to his master the Mikado. The Shō-gun was a vassal of the fourth grade, without the slightest shadow of right to make a treaty. His final assumption of authority in signing the treaties with foreigners without the consent of the Mikado was the occasion of his overthrow in 1868. Even without the presence of foreigners on the soil of Japan the duarchy would have fallen and a reversion to the ancient monarchy would have taken place. The presence of foreigners merely hastened what was already inevitable. It added momentum to the machinery of revolution already at work. The Shō-gunate fell in 1868; the feudal system was abolished in 1871.

It is not within the province of this paper to explain, as far as the writer may imagine he understands them, the causes and motives that led the new government to adopt, or profess to adopt, the modern ideal of civilization and to enter vigorously upon the path of reform. He can simply give the merest outline of the present state of education in Japan and contrast it with the old ideals and methods.

Under the old régime of the Shō-guns, all foreign ideas and influences were systematically excluded, and the isolation of Japan from the rest of the world was made the supreme policy of the government. Profound peace lasted from the beginning of the seventeenth century to 1868. During this time, schools and colleges, literature and learning, flourished. It was the period of scholastic, not of creative, intellectual activity. The basis of education was Chinese. What we consider the means of education, reading and writing, were to them the ends. Of classified science there was little or none. Mathematics was considered as fit only for merchants and shop-keepers. No foreign languages were studied, and their acquisition was forbidden. Whatever of European learning, through the medium of the Dutch tongue, was obtained, was

gotten secretly. Etiquette, physical and martial exercises, occupied largely the time and attention of the students. There was no department of education, though universities were established at Kiōto and Yedo, large schools in the daimio's capitals, and innumerable private schools all over the country. Nine-tenths of the people could read and write. Books were very numerous and cheap. Circulating libraries existed in every city and town. Literary clubs and associations for mutual improvement were common even in country villages. Nevertheless, in comparison with the ideal systems and practice of the progressive men of New Japan, the old style was as different from the present as the training of an English youth in medieval times is from that of a London or Oxford student of the present day. Although an attempt to meet some of the educational necessities arising from the altered conditions of the national life were made under the Shō-gun's régime, yet the first attempt at systematic work in the large cities was made under the Mikado's government, and the idea of a new national plan of education is theirs only. In 1871 the Mom Bu Shō, or department of education, was formed, of which the high counselor Oki, a man of indomitable vigor and perseverance, was made head. From the very first, however, the new government had given great attention to the work of education, and had re-organized on a larger scale the old Kai Sei Jō (place of reform) in Tōkiō, as the language-school was called. The Rev. Guido F. Verbeck, a missionary of the Reformed Church of America, who had been in Nagasaki since 1860, had mastered the language, instructed numbers of native young men, and won the confidence of the government, was appointed head of this school, which, under his administration, rapidly improved in organization, discipline, and standard of instruction. During the whole of Mr. Verbeck's connection with the education-department, his energy, industry, aud ability were beyond praise. He acted as adviser, organizer, and general factotum of the education-department. Education in foreign languages and science, foreign school-methods, discipline, standards, ideas, books, appliances, furniture, were all new things in Japan. Jealousy, suspicion, ignorance, had to be met and overcome, confidence inspired, and raw and refractory material for teachers and scholars had to be dealt with. Success finally crowned the efforts, and the Imperial College in Tokio is now not only the largest school in Japan, but is the first in discipline, standard, and organization, having a brilliant corps of professional instructors and hundreds of trained and earnest students.

According to the scheme of national education promulgated in 1872, the empire is divided into eight Dai Gaku Ku, (Daigakku,) or great educational divisions. In each of these there is to be a university, normal school, schools of foreign languages, high schools, and primary schools. The total number of schools will number, it is expected, over 55,000. Only in the higher schools is a foreign language to be taught. In the lower schools the Japanese learning and elementary science