Recent Changes
- CannotBeMadeToAdvance . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:55 PM by phaedrus: Since the Meiji Restoration, talented men in government offices have devoted their considerable abilities to national problems. But because of certain unavoidable obstacles in their path, progress has been slower than expected. The chief obstacles have been the ignorance and illiteracy of the people. The government well understands what these obstacles are, and is accordingly promoting learning, clarifying the law, and instructing the people in ways to engage in business enterprises. It has both given advice to the people and taken the initiative itself in certain enterprises. Still, while it has been trying all possible means, the results have not been successful up to now. In fact, the government is as despotic as before, and the Japanese people continue to be stupid, spiritless and powerless. The slight progress made is out of all proportion to the energies and money spent for it. Why is this? In the last analysis, it is because the civilization of a nation cannot be made to advance solely through the power of the government. Some people are saying that it is only a temporary expediency to use governmental means to manage the stupid people until they have sufficiently developed their intellectual and moral levels to be able to enter the stage of modern civilization on their own. This theory is easy to enunciate but difficult to realize in practice. Since time immemorial, the people of the whole country have suffered under despotic rule which did not allow freedom of expression. They stole security by deception, and escaped punishment by telling lies. Fraud and subterfuge became necessary tools of life; injustice and insincerity became daily routine. No one felt ashamed and no one asked questions. Honor fell to the ground and disappeared with the wind of the times. How, then, did men have time to love their country? Trying to correct these evil tendencies, the government would brandish its false authority all the more to intimidate and reprove them. But forcing them to be sincere only had the contrary effect. The situation was like using fire to extinguish fire. In the end, the superior and inferior strata of society had grown further and further apart to form separate spiritual mind-sets.
- NationalIndependenceThroughPersonalIndependence . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:53 PM by phaedrus: In the Sengoku Period, when Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga led an army of several tens of thousands against Oda Nobunaga, he was ambushed by Nobunaga at Okehazama. Nobunaga then routed Yoshimoto’s headquarters and beheaded him. The army of Suruga scattered like frightened spiders. They fled without a clash of arms. The then prestigious government of Imagawa of Suruga collapsed in a day and disappeared forever. Two or three years ago, the French emperor Napoleon III was captured by Prussia at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. But the French not only did not abandon hope, they fought back with even greater spirits. They fought with their very blood and guts. After holding firm for several months, a treaty was finally signed, and France had survived. Her fate was entirely different from that of Imagawa. What is the reason for this difference? It is because the people of Suruga were entirely dependent upon Yoshimoto alone. Their status was that of guests who did not regard Suruga as their own native province. In France there were many patriotic citizens, each of whom took the responsibility of the nation’s crisis upon himself and fought for his own land without needing to be persuaded by others. This made the difference between ancient Suruga and modern France. Judging from this case, we can infer how, in a crisis calling for national defense, those who have the spirit of independence will exhibit deep concern for their country, in contrast to those who have not.
- TheInstrumentsOfLearning . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:14 PM by phaedrus: Athough it is essential to know letters to study, it would be a great misunderstanding of the nature of learning to think that it only consists in reading books, as people have thought from ancient times. Letters are the instruments of learning; they are like the hammers and saws used to build a house. Although hammers and saws are indispensable tools for building a house, a person who only knows their names but not how to build a house cannot be called a carpenter. For this reason, a person who only knows how to read letters but does not know how to discern the principles of things cannot be called a true scholar. Such a person is like a man who is said to have read the Confucian Analects but does not understand it. In like manner, a person who has learned to recite the Kojiki by heart but does not know the present price of rice must be called ignorant in practical studies. A person who has mastered the inner meaning of the Chinese Classics and Histories but does not understand the ways of buying and selling, and is quite incompetent in business dealings, must be said to be a failure in the art of book-keeping. And a person who, after years of hard study and huge outlays of money, becomes proficient in Western studies but is unable to make his own private living, is out of touch with learning pertinent to the current of the times. Such people may be called mere wholesalers of letters. In merit and capacity they are not different from food-consuming dictionaries. They are useless to the nation, and parasites on the economy. Therefore, household management, book-keeping, staying abreast of the trends of the times are also forms of learning. What is the reason for understanding learning exclusively in the sense of reading Japanese, Chinese, and Western books?
- AWesternProverb . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:13 PM by phaedrus: Today even employment in government service is open to men of character and talent among the formerly nonsamurai groups. Therefore they must be aware of their own personal dignity and place a high value on it, not acting in a base manner. But again, there are no individuals more pitiable and despicable than the ignorant and illiterate. The height of ignorance is to be shameless. When such people, through their own ignorance, have fallen into poverty and are hard pressed by hunger and cold, they recklessly hate the rich around them instead of blaming their own stupidity. In the extreme, they form cliques and mount rebellion and insurrection to press their demands. Such solutions can be said to be shameless as well as law-defying. If people who relied on the laws of the realm to preserve their own security and to conduct their own businesses were to follow only those laws which suited their purposes while breaking those which did not accord with their selfish ends, would not the former and latter practices be contradictory? In addition, there are cases of people secure in fortune and from respectable families who know how to amass wealth, but do not know how to educate properly their own children. Since their young have not been properly educated, it is no wonder that they are ignorant. They gradually sink into idleness and dissipation, and there are not a few who in short order ruin the family estate of their ancestors. The method of rational persuasion is useless to control such stupid people. The government is forced to use power to intimidate them. It is because of this that a Western proverb says that there must be a harsh government over stupid people. It is not that the government is harsh; the stupid people have invited this misfortune upon themselves. Conversely, it is reasonable that there should be good government over good people. Therefore in Japan, too, we will have this kind of government if the people are this way. If the morality of the people sinks below its present level and ignorance and illiteracy increase, then the laws of the government must correspondingly become harsher. Conversely, if the people pursue learning, understand the principles of things, and follow the way of modern civilization, then the laws of the government will also become more generous and compassionate. The severity or leniency of the law will naturally be in proportion to the virtue of the people. Who would cherish a harsh government, and dislike a good one? Who would not pray for the wealth and prestige of his own nation? Who would tolerate the contempt of foreign nations? These are ordinary feelings of human nature.
- DeferenceToAGovernmentOfficial . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:09 PM by phaedrus: As a case in point, while it is natural that we show deference to a government official, this is not because of the dignity of that person’s status. He is accorded that respect only because he performs that important role through his talent and virtues, and because he deals with weighty laws for the sake of the people. It is the laws which have dignity, not the man. Everyone knows about the notorious processions of the shogun’s tea vessels along the Tōkaidō during the period of the Tokugawa shogunate; not only the tea vessels, even the shogun’s hunting hawks had greater dignity than men. Travelers along the highway had to get off the road at the coming of the shogun’s horses. Everything to which the shogun’s use was attached, down to the stones and tiles, was invested with awe and dignity. While the people hated these things in their hearts since time immemorial, they naturally perpetuated these practices. Both high and low observed these terrible customs. In short, this was not because of the dignity of the laws or the intrinsic value of those things. It was because the government used craven methods to swell their prestige, and thereby to make men cower, and to prevent their freedom. They were false and vainglorious practices. Today such wretched institutions and customs have all been abolished throughout Japan. Therefore people should be relieved and if ever they harbor any feeling of injustice against the government, they will not have to swallow their resentment and hate the government in silence. They can seek out the office or authorities concerned, quietly lodge their complaints, and discuss them openly. If their case is in accord with natural principle and human feeling, they should not hesitate to fight for it even at the risk of their lives. These are now the “responsibility” of the citizens of the nation.
- PracticalLearning . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:05 PM by phaedrus: In essence, learning does not consist in such impractical pursuits as study of obscure Chinese characters, reading ancient texts which are difficult to make out, or enjoying and writing poetry. These kinds of learning may be useful diversions, but they should not be regarded as highly as the Confucian and Japanese Learning scholars have esteemed them since ancient times. Among the Confucian Learning scholars, those who have been skilled in practical matters have been few indeed. Rare also has been the chōnin who, if he was well versed in poetry, was also successful in business. Consequently we still observe that thoughtful townsfolk and peasants, when they see their own children concentrating on books, fear as good parents that they will eventually bring the family fortune to ruin. This is not without reason. And it proves that such forms of learning are ultimately without practical value and will not serve daily needs. Such impractical studies should be relegated to a secondary position. The object of one’s primary efforts should be a practical learning that is closer to ordinary human needs. For example, a person should learn the 47-letter kana syllabary, methods of letter writing and of accounting, the practice of the abacus, the way to handle weights and measures, and the like. And there is much additional knowledge to be acquired. Geography is the guide to the climates not only of Japan, but of the many countries of the world. Physics is the science which investigates the properties and functions of the myriad things of the universe. History books chronicle in detail the conditions of the countries of the past and present. Economics explains the financial management of self, family, and the state. Ethics expounds the natural principles of personal moral cultivation and of social intercourse. For the purpose of studying each of these areas, a person should investigate translations of Western books. In many cases he can use kana. But a lad who is young and talented in letters should be taught to read in the Western languages. By grasping the practical matters of each science, which vary in subject matter and content, he can search for the truth of things and make them serve his present purposes. The above-mentioned subjects are ones common to mankind, matters which everyone should have an interest in, irrespective of rank or position. After acquiring learning in these areas, individuals can go on to do their duties or manage their family businesses, with independence redounding to the individuals, families, and the nation alike.
- AnEncouragementOfLearning . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:02 PM by phaedrus: (:pagelist group=AnEncouragementOfLearning list=normal fmt=#title:) [[Category: Florilegium]]
- GroupHeader . . . February 25, 2022, at 09:01 PM by phaedrus: (:stylepage Site.StyleSheetApostaxe:)