1906-7.] A Sketch of Japanese National Development. 333 
Japanese people that we are eager to find out what other people have got to 
teach us ; we are apt pupils, and when we think that the adoption of new 
methods, material or intellectual, is conducive to the progress of our 
country, we do not hesitate ter adopt them, wherever we find them. I know 
that we have been reproached for this : we have been told that we are 
nothing but a nation of plagiarists, only capable of imitating what other 
people have done and not of originating anything. For the present, we are 
quite content to bear this reproach ; we have been so busy with introducing 
Western civilisation that we have not perhaps done much original. And 
yet I think, in some respects, we have succeeded, if not in doing anything 
original, at least in adapting what we have adopted from others to our needs, 
and in improving upon them so far as our own circumstances are concerned. 
I would even point out on behalf of my countrymen, if I may be allowed, 
that we have already made some original investigations in science, the 
results of which are very important, and some, I have been told, even epoch- 
making ; but it is not now my purpose to enlarge upon this point. 
The present is not the only time that we have deliberately introduced an 
alien and, as we considered, a superior civilisation. In the sixth century we 
were brought into contact with the Chinese civilisation ; at first through 
Corea, and afterwards directly, it was introduced into Japan. Our ancestors 
saw, as we see in more recent times, the superiority of the new civilisation, 
and, perceiving that its adoption would tend to the betterment of their 
political, social, and moral conditions, deliberately set about to adopt it. We 
learned many new arts and crafts ; we had no letters, so we borrowed their 
ideographs, we even adopted their literature bodily ; astronomy, mathematics, 
medicine, and other branches of knowledge were imported and taught to 
our young nobles in the University. And, because our old and somewhat 
primitive system of government was not fitted to the new and more complex 
state of society induced by the introduction of the new civilisation, and also 
because many abuses had crept in, laws and administrative system were 
reformed after the Chinese model ; “ the Reformation of Taikwa era ” (middle 
of the seventh century) and the promulgation of “the Taiho code” (701), 
covering the whole range of government administration, including what 
would not now come under such, can only be compared to the reforms 
and changes of the present era of Meiji. We have thus twice within the 
historic age made almost complete changes in our system of government, 
in our laws, and in our institutions, entirely after foreign models. 
Yet, amidst all these changes, we have kept the essential characteristics 
of our nationality. That we should have been most deeply affected in our 
thoughts and ideas by the Chinese literature is only natural, and quite true. 
