decades. But as what changes she has undergone have taken place in less than a man’s life-time, they could hardly be thorough. Indeed, she has been charged with adopting European civilisation in appearance only while retaining an Oriental heart and Oriental instincts, But such an accusation is based upon a false conception of the nature of her civilisation, which has always been eclectic. The same discrimination that she showed twelve centuries ago when she imbibed Chinese literature and civilisation has stood her in good stead when she is brought face to face with European thought and European arts and sciences. She takes pride now, as she took then, in the preservation of her national individuality through all her transitions; and she does not regard as a reproach the charge that she only yields to necessity and a sense of self-preservation in adapting herself to the new conditions imposed by contact with Europe, because no nation with the least stamina would with alacrity take up another civilisation unless, like Japan, it recognises that its own is worn out and exhausted and it can only regain vitality by an infusion of a better and more efficient substitute. Paradoxical as it may seem, the Japanese, in spite of his eagerness for the new civilisation with which his country is undergoing rejuvenescence, is at heart a stubborn conservative; and though the nation has, it is true, committed blunders and sometimes been carried from one extreme to another, the general trend of its progress has on the whole been in the right direction, owing to the counterbalancing agencies of liberalism and conservatism. It is necessary to bear always in mind this peculiar trait of Japanese progress in passing judgment upon the phases of Japanese life and the state of Japanese society. Everywhere is this conservative spirit to be seen; and no profession or calling, however humble, is free from the predominant influence of its past. In the following sketches, which treat of vocations characteristically Japanese, this fact will be found to be especially conspicuous.
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INTRODUCTION.
