ON THE VERGE OF HISTORY
out so prominently in Japan's ancient history, was evidently called after the Chinese Empress Wu, whose name and style corresponded with "Jingo." Of course, it is not implied that every event recorded in Japan's first written annals is to be counted of foreign suggestion. Domestic traditions, more or less trustworthy, are doubtless embodied in their pages, as well as reflections of Chinese prehistorical myths. But it does seem a reasonable conclusion that, among many borrowings made by Japan from China, the idea of her "Age of Gods" has to be included.
The sequence of events has been somewhat anticipated here for the sake of explaining the introduction of ideographic script into Japan, an event belonging to the second half of the sixth century. During the interval of nearly two hundred years which separated that consummation from the great wave of Chinese and Korean immigration that reached Japan in the beginning of the fourth century, marked progress had been made in many of the essentials of civilisation. The science of canal cutting, the art of fine embroidery, improved methods of sericulture and of silk-weaving were introduced by the immigrants, and the intelligent interest taken by the Government in encouraging progress may be inferred from the fact that it caused the new-comers to distribute themselves throughout the country so as to extend the range of their instruc-
83
