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as to form structures of precisely the necessary strength and of the most certain durability.
The graving docks and various other works at Yokoska also present to the Japanese another phase of constructive art from which they may learn the properties and use of another species of material. While the Lighthouses, though humble specimens of construction, and labouring under the disadvantage of being placed in such situations that few people see them, afford, I hope, their quota of information.
That the Japanese have not benefited so fully as they might by the lessons given them in the carrying out of such works, I think, can be safely affirmed. This has been occasioned more by a restlessness of mind and want of application than by want of ability. Their natural presumption of knowledge is proverbial, but in addition to this there has not been established to my knowledge any definite system of education among workmen. The methods of manufacture in all countries by means of which the cheapest, the best finished and only reliable articles are produced are well known to consist of keeping each workman confined to one very narrow branch of labour. In this way he becomes expert in that particular line and is able to produce work with a rapidity and of an excellence otherwise unattainable. In building, a stone-mason, a bricklayer or a carpenter is obliged to serve a weary apprenticeship of 5 or 6 years, and after that has been completed a long probation of many years on a merely nominal pay before being considered or trusted as an efficient workman. In Japan, on the contrary, bricklayers or masons are procured ready made; a Japanese carpenter is a mason one day and a bricklayer the next. And the introduction of the system of apprenticeship—by which the intelligence and energy of youths are brought to bear on one particular branch of labour—has not, so far as I am aware, been thought of. This defect may be due in a great measure, to the exigencies of the country which has only lately commenced to adopt these improvements, but I fear it is also occasioned by the restlessness of dis-
