ere can be
no question. It has been urged, as against this, that the Japanese
possess the defect not uncommon among people of any race, viz., that
the capacity for rapidly assimilating knowledge is to some extent
counteracted or rendered abortive by an incapacity to practically
apply that knowledge. I may say for myself that though I have often
heard this objection urged I have not seen any indications of this
lack of ability to practically apply knowledge on the part of the
Japanese. I should have thought that the Russo-Japanese war would have
afforded ample demonstration of the ability of the Japanese to put to
good account the knowledge they had acquired and assimilated in their
seminaries.

I certainly think that the system of education, as it exists in Japan
to-day, is one not only admirably adapted for the people of that
country, but one from which some Western nations might learn a few
things. Japan has, in her education system, settled the religious
question simply by ignoring it. Her morality as inculcated in every
school in the country, is a purely secular morality. I know that there
are some persons who will deem secular morality a contradiction in
terms. Indeed there are many eminent Japanese who do not approve of
the present system. Count Okuma, for example, one of the ablest men in
the country, bewails the lack of a moral standard. The upper classes
have, he remarks, Chinese philosophy, the great mass of the people
have nothing. In the Western world, he points out, Christianity
supplies the moral standard, while in Japan some desire to return to
old forms, others prefer Christianity; some lean on Kant, others on
other philosophers. Christianity may supply the moral standard in the
Western world, as Count Okuma asserts, but if he has studied recent
politics in a particular part of the Western world, he must have seen
that Christianity in that part is by no means in accord as to the
teaching of religion in its schools, or what moral code, if any,
should be substituted for dogmatic instruction. Perhaps, after all,
Japan has not decided amiss in for the present at any rate deciding
that secular morality shall be the only ethical instruction given
in her schools. That code which she teaches, so far as I have had an
opportunity of studying it, is one which contains nothing that could
be in the slightest degree objected to by the votaries of any
religious system either in the East or in the West.

[Illustrat