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eous syntax should by any means be allowed. When the Mombusho according to its present programme proceeds to appoint native schools for an English education throughout the country, particular pains should be taken that the teachers appointed are qualified to give instruction and enforce correctness in these two particulars.
The consequence of this will be that the principles of European grammar will become familiarized to the juvenile mind of the country. The syllabary will also be greatly enlarged. There is in the English language a very great variety of syllables. By their adoption the Japanese syllabary would be more than doubled in capacity. Their acquisition of the letter l, of th, of f, would be a great gain. They would have a vast number of compound initials such as str, pl, kl, tl, pr, kr, tr. The lost syllables ti, di, tu, du and others would be restored. Finals such as m, rm, rd, ld, lt, ks, ps, nd and many others would be added. By such means a very poor syllabary would become rich. The enunciation of the native of Japan would become as full of energy, variety and expressiveness as our own. He would become master of two languages the one spoken by him from a child, marked by perverse laws for which no good reason can be given, and a syllabary soft and melodious, indeed, but wanting in force, range, and adaptability; the other cultivated, scientific and unrivalled for compass, flexibility and variety.
Let us suppose that in all the 40,000 or 50,000 schools intended to be established by the Mombusho really good English were learned by the boys, could not something decidedly valuable be then done for improving the native language? An immense number of words will soon be added to the vocabulary. The most assiduous care should be taken that they be correctly pronounced. In the departments of religion, science, navigation, politics, and all the arts of the west the importation of new words should be encouraged. For example the word God is so far superior to the Japanese term kami[1] that it would be well
- ↑ The word kami at first meant the souls of ancestors, and afterwards the gods of the Shinto religion, which are in fact the souls of ancestors
