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A BOOK-STUDY.

HIS is a volume of great value to thoughtful men and women of western civilization. It is a large work, containing over five hundred closely-printed pages, but its perusal is richly worth the while, and happily for the reader and the subject-matter, the author possesses a pleasing style at once direct and lucid. He has mastered his subject and his heart is in the work.

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Considered merely as an up-to-date history of Japanese civilization by one who has intimately studied the nation by extended personal intercourse with the Japanese, the work is entitled to rank among the best books of the character that have appeared. But in preparing this work Mr. Stead has had a very definite and practical purpose in mind that gives to it a special interest and value. Beyond all else Great Japan is "a study in national efficiency' -a treatise which aims to aid western nations, where governmental efficiency, largely because of the sordid egoism which marks the supremacy of modern materialistic commercialism, is greatly needed. His study is therefore directed to ascertain the source and wellsprings of efficiency, and in the course of his investigations he sets before the reader one of the most comprehensive and faithful pictures of Japanese life, ideals and in a word, her civilization, that has been written. Of the twenty chapters that constitute the body of the volume those that will hold particular interest for the general reader in western lands are the ones entitled, "A Nation and Its Head," "Bushido, the Japanese Ethical Code," "True Religious Freedom," "The Simple Life," "Education: The Foundation of the Nation," "Building Up Industries in an Agricultural Country," "Preserving Agriculture," "Humane War," "The Position of Women," "The Moral Question," and "Socialism and the Condition of the People."

The volume opens with a thoughtful discussion of the nation and its head. The reverence with which the Japanese regard the Mikado is in part the inheritance of centuries of fealty to the ruling head of a people who for twenty-five hundred years have uninterrupt* Great Japan. A Study in National Efficiency. By

Alfred Stead, with Foreword by the Earl of Rosebery. Cloth. Pp. 505. Price, $2.50 net. New York and London: The John Lane Company.

edly pursued their national life, without ever having suffered defeat or enslavement. But more than this, we think, at the present time, their love and reverence are due to the fact that the present Mikado, in a degree more marked than that exhibited by any other ruler of modern times, has been the radical leader of his nation, the foremost promoter of progressive and enlightened policy as relating to government, education, religion, and the demands of industry, trade, commerce and civilization in general.

Most peoples have had to wrest constitutional rights from the ruling powers by force. The present Mikado freely granted his people a constitution long before there was any general or insistent clamor for one. "In no other country," says Mr. Stead, "has so great a change, affecting the very foundations of the State, been brought about without bloodshed, and for that very reason it is an example worth following."

On ascending the throne the Emperor took a solemn oath, since known as "The Five Articles of the Imperial Oath." In this covenant the Emperor solemnly swore:

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"Thus convinced, it becomes my responsible duty as a sovereign to lead our people wisely in a way to attain for them beneficial results, and their duty to assist diligently and unitedly in all efforts to attain these ends. How, otherwise, can Japan advance and sustain herself upon an independent footing among the nations of the world?

"If we would profit by the useful arts and sciences and conditions of society prevailing among more enlightened nations, we must either study those at home as best we can, or send abroad an expedition of practical observers to foreign lands, competent to acquire for us those things our people lack which are best calculated to benefit this nation.

"Travel in foreign countries, properly indulged in, will increase your store of useful knowledge, and although some of you may be advanced in age, unfitted for the vigorous study of new ways, all may bring back to our people much valuable information. Great national defects require immediate remedies. "We lack superior institutions for high female culture. Our women should not be ignorant of those great principles on which the happiness of daily life frequently depends. How important the education of mothers, on whom future generations almost wholly rely for the early cultivation of those intellectual for the early cultivation of those intellectual tastes which an enlightened system of training is designed to develop!

"Liberty is therefore granted wives and sisters to accompany their relatives on foreign tours, that they may acquaint themselves with better forms of female education, and on their

return introduce beneficial improvement in the training of our children.

"With diligent and united efforts, manifested by all classes and conditions of people throughout the empire, we may successfully attain the highest degrees of civilization within our reach, and shall experience no serious difficulty in maintaining power, independence, and respect among the nations."

Nowhere have the wisdom and true statesmanship of the Mikado been more strongly evidenced than in his insistence on a broad, comprehensive and universal system of education; and what is of special interest and value, the education of Japan is not partial or warped, as with us, where intellectual training is made the end and all of practical instruction; where moral training is treated perfunctorily and industrial training receives quite secondary attention. Japan gives quite as much emphasis to moral instruction as to mental training, and her system of industrial schooling is far more thorough and practical than with

us.

Another peculiarity of Japanese education is its complete divorce from religious training. Japan gives, according to our author, the most perfect example of true religious freedom. She encourages and treats with deference and respect all creeds and faiths that seek to ennoble man, believing, apparently, with the oldtime Mogul, Akbar, that,

"There is light in all, And light, with more or less of shade, in all Man-modes of worship."

But while granting this freedom and encouragement to all religions, she refuses to in her schools. On the other hand, she is allow any special creed or dogma to be taught

more insistent on the inculcation of ethics or civilized nation. For this purpose the ethical the great fundamental verities than any other code of the Samurai has been modified, amplified and adapted to the ethical development of the nation. The key-note of this moral instruction is found in the Mikado's famous address on education, "which is read regularly in all the schools of Japan." The principal paragraph of this address is as follows:

"Do you, our subjects, be filial to your parents, kind to your brothers, harmonious in your relations as husbands and wives, and faithful to your friends; let your conduct be courteous and frugal, and love others as yourselves,

attend to your studies, and practise your respective callings; cultivate your intellectual faculties and train your moral feelings; foster the public weal and promote the interests of society, ever render strict obedience to the constitution and to the laws of your empire; display your public spirit and your courage on behalf of our country whenever required, and thereby give us your support in promoting and maintaining the honor and prosperity of our empire."

The girls are taught, among other things, to sew. In agricultural regions the boys are carefully trained in the tilling of the soil, the planting of trees and in all things relating to obtaining the best results from mother earth. In the cities and manufacturing towns the youths are instructed technically. The Emperor and the Empress alike have been persevering in promoting the education of girls, both morally and mentally, and Mr. Stead shows quite conclusively, we think, that seldom has a people been more misrepresented

The essential principles of the Bushido code, by certain writers who, blinded by prejudice according to our author, are as follows:

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"Rectitude or justice," which is taught to be "the power of deciding upon a certain course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering; to die when it is right to die, to strike when to strike is right. Rectitude is the bone that gives firmness to stature.' Courage, which, however, it is always taught is useless unless employed in a righteous cause. With the Japanese great valor means moral courage. The essence of the teaching of this people in regard to courage is found in the following utterance of a Samurai prince:

"To rush into the thick of battle and be slain in it is easy enough, and the merest churl is equal to the task; but it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die when it is right to die."

"Following courage comes benevolence and the feeling of piety. Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and mercy were always recognized by the Samurai as supreme virtues, the highest of all the attributes of the human soul."

Bushido also emphasizes the importance of truth or veracity. The Japanese teachers never tire of quoting the following aphorism from an old poet: "To thyself be faithful; if in thy heart thou strayest not from truth, without prayer of thine, the gods will keep thee whole."

Stoicism, politeness and consideration for the feelings of others are also among the virtues that are regularly instilled into the young from the time when at six years of age they enter the primary school.

In addition to a comprehensive intellectual curriculum, which after the first four years includes the teaching of either the English, French or German language usually English --the children are all instructed industrially.

or thoroughly licentious themselves, have striven to represent Japanese women as loose of morals. On this point he cites the testimony of some of the ablest missionaries to confute the slanders of certain writers. The

chapters on "The Postition of Women" and "The Moral Question" are of absorbing interest and merit the careful reading of all intelligent persons who would know the truth on these great questions. In passing it is, perhaps, well to observe that no nation could have reached the degree of efficiency, civilization or enlightenment that Japan has reached, with a degraded or corrupted womanhood.

One of the most pleasing chapters in the volume deals with the simple life of the nation. Here our author shows that one of the great wellsprings of Japanese power lies in the simplicity and naturalness of the people. By living so close to nature they have become genand true. They are uncursed by the artificiuine and nobly idealistic. Their life is simple ality or the sordid materialism of western civilization.

"In no country in the world," observes Mr. Stead, "at the present stage of civilization, does a whole people live so close to nature and spend so much time in communing with it. The Japanese people love nature, and they have a love and sense of beauty about all things impregnated by this understanding of it. This appreciation has been, perhaps, the greatest of national characteristics, and given to the nation that fine touch of artistic culture and refinement which is lacking in more materialistic peoples. It would be idle to argue that centuries of intelligent study and admiration of the beauties of nature could fail to affect the development of a people.

"In no nation,' says one writer, ‘is there such a profound poetic sympathy with the

Spirit of Nature as in Japan; and nowhere have an entire people, for so many centuries, shown such practical respect for and joy in their marvelously beautiful and infinite applications of energy and feeling to labor and skill. Nowhere has labor, for itself and for its joyous and beneficent uplifting of feeling and intelligence to the laborer, been so appreciated and applied.'

"Two outward signs are given to the world of the profound effect of nature upon the Japanese in their love for children, those human beings nearest nature and divinity, and their love for flowers and growing things. Japan is a paradise for children, and all such are sure of kindly treatment from all. Simple in their innocence, the children resemble to the Japanese mind rather products of nature, human blossoms, than material dwellers of earth. For flowers the Japanese have a passionate love, and Japan is a bower of flowers and foliall the year long." age

régime, and in arriving at this conclusion, which will naturally impress those who possess but a superficial knowledge of the nation as strange, he does not ignore the fact that the government has employed drastic measures against the labor unions when their strikes threatened to arrest the commercial development of the nation, and against Socialist editors and leaders when their language and recommendations have been regarded as intemperate, abusive and overstepping the rightful limits of free discussion, or when their demands have been regarded as tending to incite the people to hasty exhibitions of the lawless or mob-spirit. The repressive action Mr. Stead holds to be due to the fact that the government, while positive and bold in action along the lines desired by the majority of the people and prompt to inaugurate innovations when they promised to increase the prosperity, development and happiness of the nation, will not act on the initiative of a small minority, especially when the innovations have not been well considered and the lines of action clearly

In concluding his discussion on the simple marked out. However, from the consistent life our author observes:

"The Japanese people are the happiest people in the world, and they derive their happiness from their innate simplicity of nature, which they have obtained from their long association with, and loving study of, the beauty of the universe, of the sky, and of the world. Gradually the eyes of the people, accustomed to look at and to enjoy beautiful things, instinctively seek out the beautiful, and the best points in the new things which come into their lives, and thus attain tranquility, if not happiness.'

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Another chapter of special interest is entitled "Humane War." It should be read by every Christian the world over. There can be no question but what Japan has done an important work in the interests of humanity through the wonderful exhibition of kindness, wisdom, skill, system and efficiency displayed by the Japanese in the conduct of their war with Russia.

Perhaps the chapter that will be of greatest interest to our readers is entitled "Socialism and the Condition of the People." Mr. Stead holds that a modified form of Socialism, in all probability, will be erelong introduced by the national government. Indeed, he inclines to Indeed, he inclines to believe that Japan will be the first of the nations to practically enter upon a Socialistic

course of the government in promptly meeting the wishes of the majority of the people, and often in going far in advance of them in radical innovations along democratic lines, and from the further fact that different forms of Socialism have been in successful practice in parts of Japan for centuries, and finally because the attitude of the government has been strongly favorable to communal and Socialistic experiments, as has been amply shown, he believes that the hour approaches when the government will decide upon a modified form of Socialism, and that at such a time Mr. Katayama, the foremost Socialist leader, will be called to the cabinet and entrusted with the working out of a scheme along general Socialistic lines; but Mr. Stead is confident that, owing to the deep-rooted love, veneration and reverence on the part of the nation for the Mikado, no form of Socialism will be entertained by the people that should seek to eliminate the head of the nation from the position he holds.

Mr. Stead holds, however, that "the idea of modern Socialism is not objected to; in fact, the idea recommends itself to many of the thinking Japanese. But just as everything else has been altered and adapted before obtaining full acceptance by the people, so Socialism in Japan is likely to develop along lines vastly different to those followed in other lands. Japanese Socialism will have less of the de

structive, and more of the improving, idea as its base."

He insists that the government has no "decided objections to Socialistic ideas in themselves." "Japan presents the paradox of being at one and the same time the most communistic of nations and a modified absolute empire. It has solved the problem of preserving the rights of the people and of the sovereign. There are even at the present moment in existence several Socialistic communities within the empire. These are recognized and not interfered with. So interesting are these communities that a somewhat detailed account of the conditions there is of value to give guidance and instruction to those anxious for the age of practical Socialism."

In this connection Mr. Stead gives detailed descriptions of three Socialistic village communities, as published by the Home Office of the Government for the purpose of leading other communities to imitate the model villages. Very interesting are the descriptions of

some of the Socialistic communities that have flourished for centuries in this land of paradoxes.

To notice this work as we could wish, and as its interest and importance merit, would require far more space than is at our command. Enough, we trust, has been said, however, to lead many of our readers to secure the work for their own edification and for the enrichment of their libraries, as it is a standard work worthy of a place in the libraries of all thoughtful people. We close this notice with the final paragraph of Mr. Stead's volume:

"The Japanese feel, in the words of one of their writers, that 'we have been raised by Providence to do a work in the world, and that work we must do humbly and faithfully as opportunity comes to us. Our work, we take it, is this: to battle for the right and uphold the good, and to help to make the world fair and clean, so that none may ever have cause to regret that Japan has at last taken her rightful place among the nations of the world.""

LIFE AND ART.

J. F. HANLY: INDIANA'S ANTI-GRAFT CHIEF MAGISTRATE.

I. The Governor's Exposé of Corrupt Practices by The Railways and

a Prominent State Official.

also in the personal interests of corrupt state officials. Thus, according to the governor, the state auditor wrote the managers of the

MONG the leading statesmen who dur- railway corporation before the assembling of

war on civic immorality, the Governor of Indiana deserves more than passing notice; for though, like Mayor Weaver, he was somewhat slow in taking his stand for honesty and public morality, when the crucial moment arrived he did not flinch, in spite of the fact that the railways and other powerful corruptors of government, as well as the enormously influential gambling class, strove valiantly to retain in office the grafting, defaulting and gambling state auditor, David E. Sherrick.

The facts of this scandal, which came to light last autumn, were described at length by Governor Hanly in an address delivered at the soldiers' reunion on September nineteenth. In the course of his address the governor showed how railway passes could be used, and were used, for the double purpose of bribing legislators in the interests of the railways, and

cial signature to send all passes intended to be distributed to the legislators to him to be handed out, stating in substance that he expected to have some measures of personal interest before the legislature, and if they would send the transportation to him he would see that their interests and his were cared for at the same time. "For three weeks," said Governor Hanly, "the office of the auditor of the state was made a broker's office for the distribution of passes to such members of the General Assembly as would receive them."

Here we have an impressive illustration of how the railroads bribe the people's representatives to betray their constituents by the gift of passes. Whenever corruption crops up in government, be it in the municipality, the state or the nation, we almost invariably find, if we look far enough, the public-service

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