Vol. XVI, No. 3 WASHINGTON March, 1905 



THE 



'ATHOMM, 

 (DOISAIPIHIffiD 



0 



THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 

 JAPANESE PEOPLE* 



By Baron Kentaro Kaneko, of the House of Peers of Japan 



I CONSIDER it the greatest honor 

 ever conferred upon me to speak 

 before you here at the National 

 Capital of the greatest Republic. As 

 your President has announced, I have 

 been out of practice in speaking the 

 English language for nearly twenty-five 

 years, and when I was asked by the 

 Society to make an address I declined, 

 because to speak in a foreign tongue 

 after being out of practice so many years 

 is a difficult task, and besides I can 

 hardly convey my ideas and make you 

 understand what I have in my mind. 

 But the request was so sincere and so 

 earnest that I felt that if I still declined 

 I might offend the Society, so I accepted 

 at last with hesitation, but with the 

 greatest pleasure. 



The subject of Japan is being written 

 and talked about a great deal at this 

 moment; therefore the subject I have 

 selected for tonight is rather a different 

 one, and might be called " The Charac- 

 teristics of the Japanese People." 



You have no doubt heard and read 

 much about Japan, and my country is 

 already familiar to you, but we have so 



far been misrepresented in many ways, 

 even in the circle of scholars and learned 

 communities. We have been often called 

 a race of imitators or a race of copyists. 

 To be sure, we have copied many things 

 entirely foreign to our own institutions, 

 but in so doing we follow always a cer- 

 tain principle. This misrepresentation 

 arises from the fact that a foreign ob- 

 server fails to distinguish between the 

 outward appearance of human activity 

 and the inner workings of man's mind. 



Many travelers come to our country; 

 they pass through from one end of the 

 Empire to another; they go through the 

 streets and squares; they see the people 

 and buildings, and when they come 

 home they say ' 1 the Japanese are copy- 

 ists and they are a race of imitators," 

 because they only see the outward ap- 

 pearance of our activity, but, unfortu- 

 nately, never study the inner workings 

 of our minds ; therefore I have selected 

 tonight this subject to present before 

 you — the inner workings of the Japanese 

 mind. The subject is rather gigantic — 

 you might think too gigantic — but I 

 will try to explain as clearly as I can. 



An address to the National Geographic Society, January 6, 1905. 



