I might give many other examples of the native genius and acuteness of this people, did my space allow. As to their manners and customs, I can hardly claim to have considered them at all, and the subject, fully detailed, would fill volumes.
One of the most interesting and important subjects connected with this distant empire is its reestablishment of foreign intercourse, after its ports have been so long hermetically sealed against all the world. The success of Japan in maintaining her long seclusion is difficult to understand, especially when we take into consideration the never-ceasing eastern encroachments of European nations and their unscrupulous exercise of power in their efforts to extend their commerce to every part of the globe. The discovery of the country was the result of the confluence of two streams of commercial enterprise flowing around the world from opposite directions, headed by the Spanish and Portuguese. In like manner, the re-opening of the country has been the inevitable result of currents of commercial progress in modern times, setting in from different points of the compass, and their final union here, after having reached the shores of India and China on the one hand, and California on the other. The Japanese themselves were conscious of this closing in upon them of the powers of the West, and when Commodore Perry appeared in their waters, though an unwelcome, he was not entirely an unexpected visitor.
Like every other country, Japan has its conservative and its liberal party. The conservatives are the Micado, his court, the priesthood, and some of the older princes. They still adhere to their borrowed Chinese literature and customs, look with suspicion on all innovations upon their long-cherished system of seclusion, and refuse, like other celestial teachers, to recognize civilization beyond their own borders, considering all the world outside "barbarians." The liberal party consists of some of the smaller princes, and the middle grades of the privileged class, who are readers of Dutch books, or their translations, and prize them far above their old Chinese writers.
The Japanese are eminently a progressive people, and but for the conservative tendencies of their feudal system, would now have been much farther advanced. The Government of the Taicoon may be said to represent at the present moment the progressive branch of the ruling aristocracy. It is not liberal, however, in the popular sense, and shows its despotic and feudal character by its dread of the effects of enlightenment on the people. It makes use of its absolute power to prevent any but those whom it may authorize from receiving the advantages of the higher grades of education made accessible by the opening of the country.
Before Commodore Perry's visit, the Chinese and Dutch were the only foreign languages studied by the Japanese. No sooner, however, did they observe the overwhelming preponderance of American and English commercial enterprise, than, with a practical eye to their future intercourse with the dominant nations in Christendom, they ceased to pursue the Dutch language, and bent all their energies to the study of English. In many other respects they have kept their eyes on England and America as their guides in the onward march to civilization and enlightenment. The demand for dictionaries and school-books of the English language quickly exceeded the supply. "Webster's Unabridged" had many purchasers, and the pocket size was sought for by hundreds. Resorting to the font of type presented to them by the United States, they commenced the publication of school-books themselves, so that in a short time they were able to supply the demand at a price less than that at which they could be brought from America.
