cials. The college was duly
organized under the name of Gakushu-jo (afterwards changed to
Gakushu-iri). The Yedo treasury went so far as to contribute a
substantial sum to the support of the institution, and early in the
reign of Komei the nobles began to look at life with eyes changed by
the teaching thus afforded. Instructors at the college were chosen
among the descendants of the immortal scholars, Abe no Seimei,
Sugawara no Michizane, and others scarcely less renowned. The Emperor
Ninko had left instructions that four precepts should be inscribed
conspicuously in the halls of the college, namely:

Walk in the paths trodden by the feet of the great sages.

Revere the righteous canons of the empire.

He that has not learned the sacred doctrines, how can he govern
himself?

He that is ignorant of the classics, how can he regulate his own
conduct?

A manifest sign of the times, the portals of this college were soon
thronged by Court nobles, and the Imperial capital began to awake
from its sleep of centuries. The Emperor himself evinced his
solicitude about foreign relations by fasting and by praying at the
shrines of the national deities, his Majesty's constant formula of
worship being a supplication that his life might be accepted as a
substitute for the safety of his country. The fact was that the
overthrow of the Yedo Bakufu had begun to constitute an absorbing
object with many of the high officials in Kyoto. It had hitherto been
an invariable rule that any policy contemplated in Yedo became an
accomplished fact before a report was presented in the Imperial
capital. But very soon after his coronation, the Emperor Komei
departed from this time-honoured sequence of procedure and formally
instructed the Bakufu that the traditional policy of the empire in
foreign affairs must be strictly maintained. The early Tokugawa
shoguns would have strongly resented such interference, but times had
changed, and Ieyoshi bowed his head quietly to the new order.
Thenceforth the Bakufu submitted all questions of foreign policy to
the Imperial Court before final decision.

COMMODORE PERRY

In the year 1853, Commodore Perry of the United States Navy appeared
in Uraga Bay with a squadron of four warships and 560 men. The advent
of such a force created much perturbation in Yedo. Instead of dealing
with the affair on their own absolute authority, the Bakufu summoned
a council of the feudatories to discuss the necessary steps.
Mean