and
put roofs on them--admirable edifices, no doubt, to keep out the rain,
but signifying nothing from an artistic or idealistic point of view.
And so it is in regard to Japan. Architecture there, considered as an
art, is dead. It may be imitated or reproduced, but the reproduction
will impose on no person of artistic sensibilities or knowledge, any
more than a Sheraton reproduction hailing from the Tottenham Court
Road would impose on a connoisseur as the genuine work of that great
artist in furniture.

The art of Japan has, especially since the opening up of the country,
been closely studied and investigated, and many learned tomes have
been written concerning it. I do not, however, think that the art of
the country as expressed in its architecture has received anything
like the attention it deserves. This may possibly arise from the fact,
to which I have already referred, that many people have what I may
term a restricted definition or conception of art. Others there are,
again, who consider wooden architecture to be almost a contradiction
in terms. Words or definitions in a matter of this kind seem to me to
be childish. The lover of the beautiful, the admirer of the historic,
the investigator of the ebb and flow of religious systems and of the
sentiments and spirit that have influenced and moulded them at
different periods of their existence, can in the ancient wooden
temples of Japan find abundant material for enjoyment, instruction,
reflection. I have no hesitation in including these buildings in that
surely expansive and comprehensive term, Art.

CHAPTER XIV

POSTAL AND OTHER MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

The advancement of a nation, may, I think, be accurately gauged by the
facilities it possesses or has developed for the communication of its
inhabitants, either by personal intercourse or those other means which
science has of late years discovered or evolved for the transmission
of thought, whether on business or otherwise--the letter post, the
telegraph, and the telephone. I accordingly purpose briefly describing
the extent to which, in these respects, Japan has assimilated and
utilised Western ideas.

I have already touched on the matter of railway communication, so I
will not again refer to it in any detail. I may, however, remark that
although railways in Japan have done much to open up the country and
provide for more frequent and rapid intercourse between man and man,
they still lack much in the