The Foundations of Japan

峠The Foundations of Japan

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Title: The Foundations of Japan Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People
Author: J.W. Robertson Scott
Release Date: January 6, 2005 [EBook #14613]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: BATH IN AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL]
[Illustration: JUJITSU (AND RIFLES) AT THE SAME SCHOOL. p. 50]
YOUNG JAPAN
[Frontispiece

THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FAR EASTERN
THE PEOPLE OF CHINA JAPAN, GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WORLD. (Nippon Eikoku oyobi Sekai.) THE IGNOBLE WARRIOR. (Koredemo Bushika.) THE NEW EAST. (Tokyo.) Vols. I, II & III. (Edited.)
AGRICULTURAL
A FREE FARMER IN A FREE STATE. (Holland.) WAR TIME AND PEACE IN HOLLAND. (With an Introduction by the late LORD REAY.) THE LAND PROBLEM: AN IMPARTIAL SURVEY SUGAR BEET: SOME FACTS AND SOME CONCLUSIONS. A Study in Rural Therapeutics. THE TOWNSMAN'S FARM THE SMALL FARM POULTRY FARMING: SOME FACTS AND SOME ILLUSIONS THE CASE FOR THE GOAT. (With Introductions by the DUCHESS OF HAMILTON and SIR H. RIDER HAGGARD.) COUNTRY COTTAGES THE STORY OF THE DUNMOW FLITCH IN SEARCH OF AN ￡150 COTTAGE. (Edited.) THE JOURNAL OF A JOURNEYMAN FARMER. (Edited.)
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN
NOTES MADE DURING JOURNEYS OF 6,000 MILES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS AS A BASIS FOR A SOUNDER KNOWLEDGE OF THE JAPANESE PEOPLE
BY J.W. ROBERTSON SCOTT
("HOME COUNTIES")
WITH 85 ILLUSTRATIONS
"In good sooth, my masters, this is no door, yet it is a little window"
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1922

TO
SCOTT SAN NO OKUSAN
FOR WHOLESOME CRITICISM

A concern arose to spend some time with them that I might feel and understand their life and the spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they might be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of truth among them when the troubles of War were increasing and when travelling was more difficult than usual. I looked upon it as a more favourable opportunity to season my mind and to bring me into a nearer sympathy with them.--_Journal of John Woolman_, 1762.
I determined to commence my researches at some distance from the capital, being well aware of the erroneous ideas I must form should I judge from what I heard in a city so much subjected to foreign intercourse.--BORROW.

INTRODUCTION
The hope with which these pages are written is that their readers may be enabled to see a little deeper into that problem of the relation of the West with Asia which the historian of the future will unquestionably regard as the greatest of our time.
I lived for four and a half years in Japan. This book is a record of many of the things I saw and experienced and some of the things I was told chiefly during rural journeys--more than half the population is rural--extending to twice the distance across the United States or nearly eight times the distance between the English Channel and John o' Groats.
These pages deal with a field of investigation in Japan which no other volume has explored. Because they fall short of what was planned, and in happier conditions might have been accomplished, a word or two may be pardoned on the beginnings of the book--one of the many literary victims of the War.
The first book I ever bought was about the Far East. The first leading article of my journalistic apprenticeship in London was about Korea. When I left daily journalism, at the time of the siege of the Peking Legations, the first thing I published was a book pleading for a better understanding of the Chinese.
After that, as a cottager in Essex, I wrote--above a nom de guerre which is better known than I am--a dozen volumes on rural subjects. During a visit to the late David Lubin in Rome I noticed in the big library of his International Institute of Agriculture that there was no took in English dealing with the agriculture of Japan.[1] Just before the War the thoughts of forward-looking students of our home affairs ran strongly on the relation of intelligently managed small holdings to skilled capitalist farming.[2] During the early "business as usual" period of the War, when no tasks had been found for men over military age--Mr. Wells's protest will be remembered--it occurred to me that it might be serviceable if I could have ready, for the period of rural reconstruction and readjustment of our international ideas when the War was over, two