ng abroad, either in their bodies or minds. All seaworthy ships were
destroyed. Under pain of imprisonment and death, all natives were
forbidden to go to a foreign country, except in the rare cases of urgent
government service. By settled precedents it was soon made to be
understood that those who were blown out to sea or carried away in
stress of weather, need not come back; if they did, they must return
only on Chinese and Korean vessels, and even then would be grudgingly
allowed to land. It was given out, both at home and to the world, that
no shipwrecked sailors or waifs would be welcomed when brought on
foreign vessels.

This inclusive policy directed against physical exportation, was still
more stringently carried out when applied to imports affecting the minds
of the Japanese. The "government deliberately attempted to establish a
society impervious to foreign ideas from without, and fostered within by
all sorts of artificial legislation. This isolation affected every
department of private and public life. Methods of education were cast in
a definite mould; even matters of dress and household architecture were
strictly regulated by the State, and industries were restricted or
forced into specified channels, thus retarding economic
developments."[3]

Starving of the Mind.

In the science of keeping life within stunted limits and artificial
boundaries, the Japanese genius excels. It has been well said that "the
Japanese mind is great in little things and little in great things." To
cut the tap-root of a pine-shoot, and, by regulating the allowance of
earth and water, to raise a pine-tree which when fifty years old shall
be no higher than a silver dollar, has been the proud ambition of many
an artist in botany. In like manner, the Tokugawa Sh[=o]guns (1604-1868)
determined to so limit the supply of mental food, that the mind of Japan
should be of those correctly dwarfed proportions of puniness, so admired
by lovers of artificiality and unconscious caricature. Philosophy was
selected as a chief tool among the engines of oppression, and as the
main influence in stunting the intellect. All thought must be orthodox
according to the standards of Confucianism, as expounded by Chu Hi.
Anything like originality in poetry, learning or philosophy must be
hooted down. Art must follow Chinese, Buddhist and Japanese traditions.
Any violation of this order would mean ostracism. All learning must be
in the Chinese and Japane