568 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1925 



certainly have vegetated into a second Korea — in other words, a 

 feeble imitation of China, without either the wnll or the force to 

 think and act for herself. It is pleasant to be able to state, from 

 personal observation, that the Japanese authorities are doin<j^ all 

 that they can to elevate and educate the remnant of the Ainu, and 

 assist them to a point where they can take their proper plac« as 

 civilized men and women in the Avorld of the twentieth century. 



CONCLUSION 



The physical and cultural traits which we regard as peculiarly 

 Japanese may, then, be traced to three separate and distinct geo- 

 graphical areas.*" Basically, both in race and in the fundamentals 

 of their culture, the Japanese are most closely akin to the ancient 

 inhabitants of the Asiatic coast lands during the Neolithic period. 

 Superimposed upon this foundation and affecting mainly the ruling 

 classes, was that higher type of civilization which began to reach 

 Japan about the beginning of our era, and which was accompanied 

 by a certain infusion of fresh blood, largely from Korea but also 

 to a not inconsiderable extent direct from China. Finally, to the 

 long contact with the ancient aborigines were due the addition of 

 a most valuable clement in the racial complex and the acquisition 

 of that fighting spirit, with its traditions of unflinching loyalty' 

 and self-sacrifice, that has been so largely responsible for the rise 

 ^f Japan as a modern power. 



*• H. J. Fleure (Geographical Factors, Helps for Students Serip«, No. 44, London, 

 1021) makes the interesting suggostion that it may be the inipcrfrct accord of widely 

 separated inheritances in tlie sarae individual that has given the .Tapanese the sensitive- 

 ness to climatic differences which has hitherto stood in the way of their succeeding as 

 colonists in Formosa or Salilialin. 



