hich, knowing absolutely nothing of our civilization
forty years ago, has so digested and assimilated its methods and
essential principles that it is beating us at our own game.

From its earliest period this country was under a feudal system of
government, with the Mikado as its supreme and sacred head. The Divine
nature of this being separated him from the temporal affairs of the
nation, which were in the hands of the Shogun, who represented the
strong arm of the state. Next below the Shogun were the Daimios, the
feudal or military chiefs; these in turn being the rulers of bands of
military retainers which constituted the aristocratic class, and were
called the Samurai.

Shintoism, a form of ancestral worship and sacrifice to dead heroes,
which was the primitive cult of Japan, was in 600 A. D. superseded, or
rather absorbed, by Buddhism, which for a thousand years has prevailed.
And although Shintoism to some extent still lingers, and although
Confucianism with its philosophical and abstract principles has always
had its followers, still Japanese civilization is the child of Gautama.

The dual sovereignty of the Mikado and the Shogun, like that existing
in the Holy Roman Empire, made a great deal of history in Japan. The
things representing the real power in a state were in the hands of the
Shogun. The Mikado was venerated, but this first servant in the land
was feared, the one dwelling in a seclusion so sacred that to look upon
him was almost a sacrilege, the other with armies and castles and
wealth and the pomp and circumstance which attend the real sovereign.
History again repeats itself as we see this Maire du Palais obscuring
more and more the titular sovereign, the Mikado, until like Pepin he
openly claimed absolute sovereignty, assuming the title of Tycoon.

The people rose against this usurpation. It was while in the throes of
this revolution that the United States Government dispatched a few
ships under Commodore Perry, in protection of some American citizens in
Japan. After this events moved swiftly. In 1854 a treaty with the
United States--their first with foreign nations--was signed at
Yokohama. Treaties with other nations speedily followed. In 1860 a
Japanese embassy arrived at Washington, and similar ones were
established in European capitals.

In 1869 the revolution was over. The party of the usurping Tycoon was
defeated and the Shogunate abolished. The anti-foreign spirit which
was alli