for mastering the written language, so
as to be able to grasp the thoughts already given to the world, leave
comparatively little time for the conducting of any continuous thought
on one's own account, and so we find in Japanese scholars--whether boys
or girls--quickness of apprehension, retentive memories, industry and
method in their study of their lessons, but not much originality of
thought. This result comes, I believe, from the nature of the written
language and the difficulties that attend the mastery of it; as a
consequence of which, an educated man or woman becomes simply a student
of other men's thoughts and sayings about things instead of being a
student of the things themselves.

[8] The Japanese written language is a strange combination of Chinese
and Japanese, to read which a knowledge of the Chinese characters is
necessary. Chinese literature written in the Chinese ideographs, which
of course give no clue to the sound, are read by Japanese with the
Japanese rendering of the words, and the Japanese order of words in the
sentence. When there have not been exact equivalent Japanese words, a
Chinese term has come into use, so that much corrupt Chinese is now well
engrafted into the Japanese language, both written and spoken. In the
forming of new words and technical terms Chinese words are used, as the
Greek and Latin are here. There is probably no similarity in the origin
of the two languages, but the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese about
the sixth century A. D. their cleverly planned but most complex method
of expressing thought in writing. The introduction of the Chinese
literature has done much for Japan, and to master this language is one
of the essentials in the education of every boy. At least seven or eight
thousand characters must be learned for daily use, and there are several
different styles of writing each of them. For a scholar, twice as many,
or even more, must be mastered in order to read the various works in
that rich literature.

The Japanese language contains a syllabary of forty-eight letters, and
in books and newspapers for the common people is printed, by the side of
the Chinese character, the rendering of it, in the letters of the
_kana_, or Japanese alphabet.[*40]

A Japanese woman is not expected to do much in the study of Chinese. She
will, of course, learn a few of the most common characters, such as are
used in letter-writing, and for the rest she will read by the help of
the