1 88 NATURAL SCIENCE. March. 



ordinary human beings. . . . They will not and cannot take life au 

 grand scrieux." The exaggeration of these statements betrays the 

 practised journalist. Did we not detect here the lurking desire for 

 effect that vitiates professedly ephemeral writing, we should have to 

 suppose that the ascription of a nature so superficial could be based 

 only on superficial observation. Heaven forbid that light-heartedness 

 and abundance of laughter should ever disqualify a people from paying 

 a serious attention to the tasks of life, or make them any the less 

 human beings ! But in truth, if the Japanese do not take life so 

 seriously as Sir Edwin Arnold thinks right, they at least take them- 

 selves seriously, perhaps a little too seriously, so that we older nations 

 looking on at their solemn performances are sometimes reminded of 

 children that play at being grown up. To compare the Japanese to 

 children is, however, an injustice, and evinces a want of sympathetic 

 insight. They have entered the lists with other nations, and they, if 

 not the others, have the sense to see that the struggle is no child's 

 play. The sincerity of their endeavours was shown only the other 

 day by an instance not wholly foreign to our present purpose. At 

 the Columbian Exhibition almost all the prizes for agricultural im- 

 provements were carried off by Canada, largely owing to the admirable 

 system of instruction obtaining in that colony. No sooner did Japan 

 hear of this than she appointed a commission to study on the spot the 

 secret of the Canadian success. The precocity of this child should 

 shame its critics. 



No ! Grant to the Japanese, by all means, the childlike quali- 

 ties of sincerity, enthusiasm and imitative power ; but recognise that 

 these qualities are at all times admirable, and that in the present 

 instance their value is not impaired by either levity or superficiality. 

 On the contrary, as the description of only one small department of 

 the interests of modern Japan should have shown, the open-eyed 

 observer will note in this people an almost German thoroughness. So far 

 as science is concerned, this may possibly have been, to some extent, 

 derived from their German teachers ; but it can hardly be denied that 

 the quality is innate, and there can certainly be no doubt but that, 

 left to themselves, the Japanese better the instruction. 



Many, it is probable, will find in the Japanese somewhat too 

 great an appreciation of practical ends, and will remind us gravely 

 that man does not live by bread alone. In the present state of the 

 nation's development the reproach is undoubtedly merited ; but 

 what nation that calls itself civilised does not merit it to an equal 

 extent ? To those, however, who have the smallest knowledge of 

 Japanese history, to those acquainted (as who is not ?) with the 

 artistic skill, the traditional mysteries, the literary enthusiasm and 

 the exquisite taste of old Japan, it will seem absurd to brand these 

 children of the rising sun as devotees of a cold utilitarian creed. 

 The truth is merely the trite one, that if the body be unsatisfied it 

 avails not to satisfy the soul. Japan is struggling for her place 



