I Believe and other essays

The facts are accurate, and if I could turn them into an easily-understood diagram and post it up on every hoarding in the kingdom, I believe that I should be doing a public service.

In 1885 – the year when we failed to rescue Gordon – Mr. W. S. Gilbert produced his “Mikado.”

Which nation or government were, in 1885, the more fitting themes for satire – the English or the Japanese? The scandals of the Crimean and Boer Wars; the uniform successes by sea and land of the Japanese in their struggles with China and Russia, supply us with no uncertain answer. The Itos, Togos, Oyamas and Kurokis, whom our librettist represented to us as Ko-Ko, and so on, have taught us – and even the disciples of Moltke – that the supreme artists of war are at Tokyo and Osaka, not in London, Washington, Berlin, Moscow or Vienna. The thirty millions of Japanese who, in the sixties of the last century, were at the mercy of the white powers, are to-day engaged – politely enough – in ushering out of China the trades of Europe and North America.

During the last half century a yellow race, a non-Christian people, has caught up the white races and, so far as the ultima ratio regum populorumque is concerned – in the bloody tournament of war – has even surpassed them. Like every one else, I have been alarmed at the sudden transformation scene. The Mikado who stage-managed the Chino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, is very unlike that Mikado who danced for us on the boards of the Savoy Theatre.

“My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time:
To make the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime.”…

sang Mr. Gilbert’s Mikado.

The punishments which Mutsuhito, the real Mikado, has fitted to the Czar’s crimes of seizing Port Arthur and Manchuria have been —

(1) The sinking or capture of every Russian man-of-war east of Suez.

(2) The siege and capture of Port Arthur.

(3) The defeats of The Yalu, Nan-shan, Telissu, Laio-Yang, The Sha-ho and Mukden.

(4) The expulsion of the Russians from Manchuria and Korea.

(5) The cession of half of the island of Sakhalin and indirectly

(6) Civil War and bankruptcy in Russia.

One little point of comparison between ourselves and the Japanese will make my meaning clear.

We all remember the shameful tale (told, not by Mr. Burdett-Coutts alone, but by eminent doctors, including Sir Frederick Treves, whose words were published in Blue-books) of the utter disorganization and incompetence of the medical and surgical departments attached to the British army in South Africa.

Sir Frederick Treves has inspected the Japanese hospitals for the wounded, and pronounced them to be perfect.

The Japanese, your wiseacre retorts, are a race of clever imitators. We invent; they borrow. They can copy but they cannot produce masterpieces in the arts and sciences. It is good rhetoric but bad reasoning. The Japanese have borrowed from us neither their art, nor their ethics. Never conquered in the past, they have developed a civilization peculiarly their own. The first Mikado was reigning six centuries before Julius Cæsar landed his legions at a point not five miles from the spot where I am writing. The Japanese are an ancient race with points of view diametrically opposed to our own; and like the Jews they have lived long and learned wisdom.

“If I say anything about Shakespeare,” writes Baron Suyematsu, “I fear I should at once be considered to be overstepping propriety; but I must say that even Shakespeare’s plays, some of which I have read or seen performed, have never given me such impressions as do the plays of Japan. Whenever we go to the Western stages we appreciate the decorations, we admire the splendid movements and good figures of the actors and actresses, and, so far as we can understand it, the striking elegance and powerful delivery of their dialogue, and we enjoy ourselves as much as could be hoped; but on coming home we find nothing left on our minds which might serve as an incentive in our future career. No inspiration, no emulation! Such, then, seems to be the difference between our dramatic works and those of Western nations.”

Observe that the argument of “art for art’s sake,” is treated by the talented Japanese diplomatist with the very sanest scorn.

“In Japan,” says the Baron, “the idea of the ‘encouragement of what is good, and the chastisement of what is bad,’ has always been kept in view in writing works of fiction, or in preparing dramatic books and plays. I know very well that there is some opposition to this idea. They say that the writing of fiction should be viewed as an art. Hence, so long as the real nature and character are depicted, there is an end of the function of these works. I do not pretend in any way to challenge this argument, but I simply state that it was not so regarded in Japan. Consequently, with us, some kind of reward or chastisement is generally meted out to the fictitious characters introduced in the scene, and these representations, either in books or on the stage, are carried out to such a pitch as to leave some sort of profound impression on the minds of the readers or of the audience. Whatever the other remaining parts may be, these features always remain uppermost in the minds of the reader or of the theatre-goer. The prominent point thus produced is generally a transcendent loyalty, such as a loyal servant would feel for his master; the great fortitude and perseverance which one exhibits in the cause of justice and righteousness; severe suffering for the sake of a dear friend; the devotion of parents and their self-sacrifice, great suffering, or even self-sacrifice of a wife for her husband, or of a mother for her son, to enable the fulfilment of duty to the lord and master. I can myself remember many times shedding tears when reading works of fiction, or when listening to the singing of dramatic songs, or while witnessing dramatic performances. This peculiarity seems to be wanting on the Western stage. I remember once in London, years ago, my eyes becoming moist when I saw a character on the stage, who was being taken away as a prisoner, shaking hands with the man who had been his dear friend, but who ought to have been suspected as the cause of his being taken prisoner, and told him, as he went, that he would never suspect or ever forsake him, giving the audience a strong impression of chivalric moral strength. But that was only a solitary experience.”

As these lines come before my eyes, as I remember the siege of Port Arthur, I wonder at the subtle irony lurking beneath Baron Suyematsu’s remark – “Japan is now in alliance with Great Britain; she may not perhaps be worthy of that alliance, but one may be assured she is doing, and will always do, her best to deserve it.” The italics are mine.

The heroism displayed by the Japanese in the late war was almost unparalleled. I believe only one spy in Japan was discovered. He was kicked to death. No pro-Russian party existed in Japan.

The Japanese are accused of being dishonest traders. But Japanese contractors disdained to rob their fellow-countrymen who were risking life and limb before Port Arthur. Read and re-read The Garter Mission to Japan. Lord Redesdale could detect no signs of arrogance on the faces of the men who drove back Kuropatkin’s regiments into Siberia or sank the Baltic fleet.

Some superficial thinkers say that the Japanese are merely mediæval knights fighting with quick-firing guns instead of lances. This is the veriest nonsense. They are practising what was vainly preached by troubadours and romancers to the Brian de Bois Guilberts of the Middle Ages…

When engaged in the composition of my novel The Serf, I studied in detail the lives of the paladins to whom were chanted the Chanson de Roland, and the stories of The Round Table. My conclusions can be studied in that novel which is now in a sixpenny edition. I found very few “Ivanhoes” and plenty of “Front-de-Boeufs” at the Court of Richard “Yea-and-Nay,” who, loyal and filial soul that he was, joined with the King of France in making war on Henry II., his own father.

There is great force in Professor Inazo Nitobe’s implied criticism of European chivalry.

“Did a monarch behave badly, Bushido did not lay before the suffering people the panacea of a good government by regicide. In all the forty-five centuries during which Japan has passed through many vicissitudes of national existence, no blot of the death of a Charles I., or a Louis XVI. ever stained the pages of her history.”

Whether that be true I do not pretend to say. But what I do know is that the throne of England, from the conquest of the country by the first William in 1066, to the accession of the third William in 1688, has been held on a very precarious tenure.

The Conqueror himself warred with his son Robert. The latter, and his brothers, gave examples of a fraternum odium worthy of the pen of Tacitus; Stephen was virtually deposed; Henry II. was attacked by his own children; a party of the barons supported John against Richard I., and French invaders against John; Henry III.’s reign was a long record of civil war; Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI. and Edward V. were deposed and murdered; Richard III. was dethroned and slain in battle; Charles I. was executed by his own subjects; James II. betrayed by the founder of the Churchill family. Of a truth the virtue of loyalty has not been the predominant feature of the Anglo-Saxon races. Our greatest novelist, Thackeray, mocks at it. Ever since the Renaissance most of the political philosophers of the West have preached the doctrine “Render not unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.”

“The love that we bear to our Emperor,” continues Professor Inazo Nitobe, “naturally brings with it a love for the country over which he reigns. Hence our sentiment of patriotism – I will not call it a duty, for, as Dr. Samuel Johnson rightly suggests, patriotism is a sentiment and is more than a duty – I say our patriotism is fed by two streams of sentiment, namely, that of personal love to the monarch, and of our common love for the soil which gave us birth and provides us with hearth and home. Nay, there is another source from which our patriotism is fed: it is that the land guards in its bosom the bones of our fathers; and here I may dwell awhile upon our Filial Piety.

“Parental love man possesses in common with the beasts, but filial love is little found among animals after they are weaned. Was it the last of the virtues to develop in the order of ethical evolution? Whatever its origin, Mr. Herbert Spencer evidently thinks it is a waning trait in an evolving humanity; and I am aware that everywhere there are signs of its giving way to individualism and egotism; especially does this seem to be the case in Christendom.

“Christianity, by which I do not mean what Jesus of Nazareth taught, but a mongrel moral system, a concoction of a little of obsolete Judaism, of Egyptian asceticism, of Greek sublimity, of Roman arrogance, of Teutonic superstition, and, in fact, of anything and everything that tends to make sublunary existence easy by sanctioning the wholesale slaughter of weaker races, or now and then the lopping of crowned heads, – Christianity, I say, teaches that the nucleus of a well-ordered society lay in conjugal relations between the first parents, and further that therefore a man must leave father and mother and cleave to his wife. A teaching this, in itself not easy of comprehension, as Paul himself admits, and very dubious in application, meaning, as it so often does, that a silly youth, when he is infatuated with a giddy girl, may spurn his parents!

“Christ certainly never meant it, nor did the decalogue command, ‘Thou shalt love thy wife more than thou shouldst honour thy father and mother.’”

The dark, unfathomable eyes of our inscrutable Oriental friends are surveying us. Is it likely that they fail to perceive such patent facts as the dwindling of the birth-rate, the ever increasing thirst for material pleasures which is the characteristic of our urban population, the growth of Socialism, which is its complement, the ignorance of the rulers, and the obsolete education of the ruled?

We boast of our genius for colonization. Boasts are not facts.

For a century Australia and New Zealand have been English colonies. The population of Australia is smaller than the population of London: that of New Zealand is less than a million. Japan is nearer to Australia and New Zealand than they to England. The Japanese are a nation in arms; the English rely for their defence on professional armies. Whilst there is a German fleet at Kiel and a French fleet at Cherbourg, the bulk of our ships must remain in the vicinity of the Channel and the German Ocean. We are the allies of the Japanese, and the Japanese are threatening the Americans, who are rebuilding San Francisco with funds paid to them by the insurance offices of England.

Now I am no alarmist, but the Japanese have invented for themselves a high explosive, the shimose powder. I am no alarmist, but the Japanese have just launched the Satsuma, possibly the most powerful of all men-of-war. I am no alarmist, but the Japanese are turning school-masters and drill sergeants to four hundred millions of Chinamen, and the Chinese have been pronounced by General Gordon and Lord Wolseley to be excellent soldiers. Sir Robert Hart, the Englishman most likely to prove an accurate prophet, has warned us against the renaissance of China. The guns of Togo’s fleet have served Europe with notice to quit the further East, and what the Japanese have taught themselves, they may teach the Chinamen undisturbed.

The pre-eminence of Japan in the Far East to-day is due to her admirable system of education.

From Japan by the Japanese, a work edited by Mr. Alfred Stead, and published by Mr. Heinemann, I propose to select certain information which may startle even retrograde educationalists. Japan by the Japanese is a collection of studies on Japan written by no globe-trotters, but by Japanese thinkers and statesmen of the highest eminence. In the list of contributors I notice the Marquis Ito, Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama, Count Okuma and Baron Suyematsu. The essays on education are from the pens of Count Okuma, Baron Suyematsu, and other specialists. My humble opinion is that the authorities who direct the teaching of Modern History at Oxford would do well to substitute Japan by the Japanese for Aristotle’s Politics, Hobbes’ Leviathan, and Maine’s Ancient Law, which are the only text-books in Political Science prescribed by the University Examination Statutes. I may be peculiar, but I prefer the views of Ito, Oyama and Okuma to those of Aristotle, Hobbes and Maine.

As my last essay dealt with the education supplied at Oxford University, it will be well to begin by considering the Universities of Tokyo and Kyoto. Six colleges comprise the former and five the latter. But, unlike the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge these colleges are schools for the highly specialized study of some art or science. At Tokyo the colleges are those of Law, Medicine, Engineering, Literature, Science, and Agriculture; at Kyoto of Law, Medicine, Literature, Science, and Engineering. At both Universities there is also a University Hall established for the purpose of facilitating original investigation in Arts and Science.

One thing is very noticeable in comparing the University of Tokyo with the University of Oxford. Amongst the least popular of the Honour Schools at the institution on the banks of the Isis is the Law School. At Tokyo the College of Law, in which the student has the option of specializing on Law or Politics, is by far the favourite. After Law comes the College of Engineering, and the College of Literature is a bad third.

It is to the College of Literature (the equivalent of which at Oxford are the Honour Schools of Languages, dead or living, and the School of Modern History) that I would call the reader’s special attention. The Modern History School is the most popular of the Honour Schools at Oxford; but at Tokyo between 1890 and 1900 there were only 106 students who devoted their time to General History, and 87 to Japanese History. On the other hand, no less than 651 were engaged in preparing themselves in Law, and 390 in Politics.

In September 1901, 567 undergraduates were attending a Law course, 409 lectures on Politics; but only 28 were listening to teachers of Japanese History, while 48 were enrolled in the classes for General History.

The advocates of Greek insist that the Greek language is the finest of all instruments for training the human mind. The Japanese do not agree with our retrogrades. Greek, apparently, is not taught at any School or University, though Latin is amongst the subjects which a Japanese medical student is expected to have mastered.

Another great distinction between the Japanese and the English system is, that only picked men are permitted to avail themselves of a University education. Further, before proceeding to the University the undergraduate must have passed through a school specially preparing him for one of the University Colleges.

“This type of school,” observes Professor Sawayanagi, “is exclusively peculiar to the educational system of Japan, as there is no equivalent either in Europe or America.”

In the section of a higher school which instructs candidates for the Law and Literature Colleges of the University, the subjects taught are Morals, Japanese and Chinese languages, Foreign languages, History of Logic and Psychology, the elements of Law, the elements of Political Economy and Gymnastics. The foreign languages are English, German, and French, of which two have to be selected.

“Surely,” remark the gentlemen who prepared the article on University Education in Japan, “a professional man who aims at a high position could never be satisfied with one language. Certainly it would be impossible for any one to keep up with the rapid progress of the world which takes place in all the higher branches of education with only one European language at his command.”