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should be provided by a commission under the superintendence of foreign educators and of the Mombusho. For them a new idiom should be furnished on some such system as that recommended in this paper for a judicious amalgamation of the English and Japanese idioms. The rules of this amalgamation should not be left to chance and caprice. They should be adopted with forethought and with due attention to the principles of philology.
There is no more ill-founded prejudice than that which takes for granted the equality of languages in excellence and in suitability for literary development. A good literature never can grow out of a poor language, and consequently all languages are found to be poor which have not a good literature. The best languages in modern Europe are the English, the French, and the German, just as the literatures of England, France, and Germany are also the best in Europe. So the Japanese language and literature are both poor, the literature being the reflection of the language.
Of course it would be better for the Japanese to improve their own language than for the foreign educators to undertake the task. But they will probably not do it without foreign help. It is also a problem beyond their competence in the present state of things. It would be an achievement worthy of the foreign educator, in the most practical and scientific age the world has ever known, to take in hand the Japanese language and mould it into a shape which should adapt it for the production of a fine literature, and for all the noble uses to which a well-constructed language can be devoted.
There never was a nation more willing than the Japanese to make changes if they only knew how, and except in regard to our religion they have shewn a truly liberal desire for knowledge of all kinds. Through a false impression they are for the time opposed, very unwisely, to the teaching of our religion. This limitation to their liberality they will probably soon abandon. When they have done so they will prove themselves to be deserving of our fullest sympathy and aid.
