art of a civilization and institutions a thousand years and more of
age. The shogun, the military chief, was the actual ruler of Japan, as
he had been for many centuries before, the mikado, the titular ruler,
being still buried in that isolation into which he had long since
withdrawn. It was only a dim tradition with the people that the mikado
had ever been emperor in fact, and they looked on him as a religious
potentate to be worshipped, not as a ruler to be obeyed. The feudal
system, established in the past centuries, was still intact, the
provincial lords and princes being held in strict vassalage by the
shogun, or tai-kun (great king), as he then first termed himself. In
truth, Japan was still in its mediaeval state, from which it showed
scarcely a sign of emerging.

The coming of the foreigners made a sudden and decided change in the
situation. Within less than twenty years the whole condition of affairs
had been overturned; the shogun had been deposed from his high estate,
the mikado had come to his own again, the feudal system had been
abolished, and the people beheld with surprise and delight their
spiritual emperor at the head of the state, absolute lord of their
secular world, while the military tyranny under which they so long had
groaned was irremediably annulled.

Such was the first great step in the political revolution of Japan. It
was followed by another and still greater one, an act without a parallel
in the history of autocratic governments. This was the voluntary
relinquishment of absolutism by the emperor, the calling together of a
parliament, and the adoption of a representative government on the types
of those of the West. In all history we can recall no similar event. All
preceding parliaments came into existence through revolution or gradual
growth, in no other instance through the voluntary abdication of
autocratic power and the adoption of parliamentary rule by an emperor
moved alone by a desire for the good of his people and the reform of the
system of government.

Japan had learned the lesson of civilization swiftly and well, her
ablest sons devoting themselves to the task of bringing their country to
the level of the foremost nations of the earth. Young men in numbers
were sent abroad to observe the ways of the civilized world, to become
familiar with its industries, and to study in its universities, and
these on their return were placed at the head of affairs, industrial,
educational, an