be fulfilled. Germany had through her accumulation of wealth entered upon a period of Sodom-and-Gomorrah licentiousness; the birth-debacle had begun in her cities and the country districts would soon have been unable to make up the deficit in population. A wealthy Orient will have the same experience and the same results.

15. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY THE GUARANTEE OF PEACE

But it is far yet from the stage in which that natural sequence begins to work, as it is far yet from that love of liberty which has been at the basis of all democratic developments. The leaven is working even in Japan whose natural unity makes discipline dominant. For not only is education favourable to it but the thousands of Japanese who have gone abroad and are coming into contact with occidental peoples and occidental institutions are drinking in the spirit of liberty at every pore. Even more do the Chinese abroad appreciate the advantages of Western freedom; it was from the migrants that there came the stimulus to revolution in China; and it was returned migrants who gave body and form to the republic. It is difficult for those who know the old East from contact with it to realise how strong the reflux of contact with the West outside the borders of the Orient is going to be. When its full effect manifests itself and the love of liberty becomes as deep in the East as it is in the West, we of the West in the Pacific will feel safe. For "we must be free or die, who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake. The faith and morals hold that Milton held."

THE STRENGTH OF JAPANESE OFFICIALDOM,

PARTICULARLY IN EDUCATION

By an American many years resident in Japan

Japan is one of the Allies and not the least among the number; she is doing more than simply fulfilling the obligations of her treaty with Britain. She is acting, and apparently with sincerity and heartiness, the part of a true ally. So far as appears, the government and the governing classes are taking the part of their allies with more than the conviction that it is the winning side; they also feel that it is the right side the side of righteousness and honor. The fact that Japan's acts and attitude are what they are makes us pause anew to investigate Japan's position as to government. She takes the side of the democratic governments as against Germany, the exponent of autocracy and a militaristic bureaucracy; to which party should we expect to see her lean, arguing from her form of government and her governmental tendency?

When one compares Japan and Germany, and Japan and her three principal allies in this war, one cannot fail to be impressed with the very many more points of resemblance between Japan and Germany. In the first place the government and the people are not the same which, of course, is tantamount to saying that Japan and Germany are neither of them true democracies. The common people have as yet little concern with the government. They are still too close to the more fundamental realities of obtaining a living in the face of many obstacles and much competition to take much interest in anything else. Their precedents, their education and attainments, their very religion, make no provision for anything but accepting the state of affairs as they find it. Of course some of the people, notably the new but rapidly growing class of factory operatives, which is so easily organized, are beginning to connect their own unsat

isfactory condition with the government in a vague sort of way. But in general what is said above holds good: the people and the government are absolutely different bodies, and there is little interest taken in the matters of government by the rank and file.

Secondly, the feeling of the people with regard to the imperial institution, while absolutely different in origin, and in the way in which it is fostered, is nevertheless in its effects very similar. In the one case it is of very recent growth and is fostered by the imperial institution itself; in the other the history runs into millennia, and though there is, as described afterwards, a definite propaganda for fostering it, yet it is concurred in, and even intellectually assented to, by the whole nation with remarkable unanimity. But while the history and method may be different, the results are very similar in the two countries. In both the emperor is the seat of authority and neither is a constitutional government in our sense of the term. Whereas in Germany in very recent times the imperial institution has usurped the function once held by the people, in Japan from time immemorial the ruler has been the sole source of power, and the granting of the Constitution by the emperor of Japan was a piece of quasidivine clemency-granted, the theory is, out of his love for his people entirely, and not because of any inherent right of theirs to have a constitution. So in neither country is there constitutionalism based on the divine rights of man as the Allies know constitutionalism.

On the other hand there is very little to be found in Japan of the definitely militaristic spirit-though it is difficult to see why it might not be legitimately expected from a country which the western nations refused to treat as an equal until they were compelled to do so by her military defeat of China. It certainly might be argued by the Japanese that the ways of war rather than the ways of peace have been the successful ones in their own experience, and that therefore the way to obtain their object was by force. In the face of this severe lesson by her western neighbors Japan's scarcity of real militarists is surprising. But if her militaristic spirit is far less developed than that of Germany, so

also is that offsetting factor, a socialistically inclined proletariat. This however is rapidly developing. Japan will not consent forever to cling to the leading-strings of her governing classes.

Lastly in this brief summary of a few of the outstanding similarities between Japan and Germany is the fact that there exists in the hands of officialdom in Japan today the selfsame weapon which has proved so powerful in the hands of Germany's bureaucracy-the system of education. The whole nation is not only educatable, but is already educated, according to the ideas of the ruling caste. The educational system in Japan is absolutely in the hands of the officials; given any line under the sun along which they wish to educate the people, there is no reason why it can not be done. Up to the present the chief use to which this power has been put is the fostering of the patriotic cult, the peculiar official Shinto with the Emperor and the imperial institution as the immediate object of reverence. There are in this, of course, grave possibilities of danger to good understanding with other peoples; but so far these elements do not seem to have come to the surface in any international relations. How very praiseworthy this is on the part of official Japan can be appreciated when one considers what its exact counterpart in Germany has done for the world.

There are undoubtedly many other points which might be mentioned in this connection, but I will confine myself to the above. I wish to say again that right through the list there is a difference in degree; it is, for instance, far easier to break into the official class in Japan than in Germany. But the fact seems to be that Japan, feeling instinctively the similarity between the two nations (whether temperamental or accidental we will not now discuss), when she was selecting models for herself along all lines after her reconstruction, deliberately chose Germany as her pattern in many things, especially in the matter of education. It is especially this item of education considered in the light of what has already been said as to Japan's officialism, of which I wish to speak a little more at length.

The educational system is official, first and last, from top

to bottom. From the Department of Education whose minister is head of the system, down through all the grades, 4 years university; 3 years college; 5 years secondary school; 6 years primary school; and 3 years kindergarten (where it exists) through it all it is official, almost inconceivably different from the spirit of education which we know in America. It is frequently remarked that the German system is calculated to reduce all students to one type. Certainly nothing could be more conducive to that end-highly desirable from the official point of view-than the educational system of Japan. It has been stated to be the ideal, albeit known to be unattainable, of the Department of Education officials to be able at any given hour of any day to say by looking at a schedule what any pupil in the empire in any given grade is doing. That is, of course, impossible; but they are able to inform you that if a certain pupil has reached a certain grade in any school he has therefore studied certain subjects as far as a given page in the textbook. The whole scheme is formulated by the Department and absolute adhesion to it is compulsory. No provision whatever is made for the "optionals" and "electives" which our colleges so elaborately furnish.

Private schools also have been very distinctly frowned upon; and although there are some indications that hereafter such absolute rigidity will not be exacted, yet it is still very difficult for the private schools to obtain "government recognition." This last term means (1) that so long as a student remains in the school he is exempt from military conscription; and (2) that a graduate is permitted to compete with graduates of regular government institutions in the examinations of higher government schools. This last makes it hardly necessary to remark that a graduate of a mission school without "government recognition," for instance, is not permitted to attend government colleges and universities; which is tremendously penalizing the private school students and handicapping the schools themselves.

Every prefecture has its department of education, whose head is one of the governor's staff and is, like the other members of the staff, designated by the central government.