say
that they are theorizers, and numberless experiences confirm this
view.

They project great undertakings; they scheme; they discuss
contingencies; they make enormous plans; all with an air of
seriousness and yet with a nonchalance which shows a semi-conscious
sense of the unreality of their proposals. In regard to Korea and
China and Formosa, they have hatched political and business schemes
innumerable. The kaleidoscopic character of Japanese politics is in
part due to the rapid succession of visionary schemes. One idea reigns
for a season, only to be displaced by another, causing constant
readjustment of political parties. Frequent attacks on government
foreign policy depend for their force on lordly ideas as to the part
Japan should play in international relations. Writing about the recent
discussions in the public press over the question of introducing
foreign capital into Japan, one contributor to the _Far East_ remarks
that "It has been treated more from a theoretical than from a
practical standpoint.... This seems to me to arise from a peculiar
trait of Japanese mind which is prone to dwell solely on the
theoretical side until the march of events compels a sudden leap
toward the practical." This visionary faculty of the Japanese is
especially conspicuous in the daily press. Editorials on foreign
affairs and on the relations of Japan to the world are full of it.

I venture to jot down a few illustrations of impractical idealism out
of my personal knowledge. An evangelist in the employ of the Kumamoto
station exemplified this visionary trait in a marked degree. Nervous
in the extreme, he was constantly having new ideas. For some reason
his attention was turned to the subject of opium and the evils China
was suffering from the drug, forced on her by England. Forthwith he
came to me for books on the subject; he wished to become fully
informed, and then he proposed to go to China and preach on the
subject. For a few weeks he was full of his enterprise. It seemed to
him that if he were only allowed the opportunity he could convince the
Chinese of their error, and the English of their crime. One of his
plans was to go to England and expostulate with them on their
un-Christian dealings with China. A few weeks later his attention was
turned to the wrongs inflicted on the poor on account of their
ignorance about law and their inability to get legal assistance. This
idea held him longer than the previous.

He desir