THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
JAPANESE PEOPLE[1]
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 Characteristics 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 certain principle. This misrepresentation arises from the fact that a foreign observer 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 "the Japanese are copyists and they are a race of imitators," because they only see the outward appearance of our activity, but, unfortunately, 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.
