JAPANESE.

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1923, Page 4

JAPANESE.

AS A MuDFJ’X LANGE AG F. (By Prcie.-sor Sadler, Chair of Oriental Studies, Sydney Univor.sily). ! There are in all probability a iinmI her of people who doubt lln* utility oi i uitmal value of Japanese a.s a hm- | auage lo be taught in the Stale ! '''bool- ( li.' reiver- it v. and Hn ! Is Co; ar all -1 r"icj'-eiilg the psiu- .-! io oi informatani about Japan that is available in Australia. Nort Japan has, ooiisitlering colei facts only, perhaps the nai'l lemaikable record ol any country the world has yet seen, for v ide i. laiiiuig all her am-ient characteristics, or. rather, developing them and making her own very high I civili-a! ion tin- Inundation in build up • the modern na’.ion, she lias in roily years U,ai iii'd ihe position of holding equal rank with Powers like Great Britain and America in Morld polities. She has made immense strides in commerce a.' well a< in scientific and industrial development, and has at Hie wine time built up a navy little inferior to that of Britain, and an army perhaps quite as efficient as that of Fram-e. What her position on the 'Pacific may come to he within the next decide or so may be left to the imagination, but ,ni present the Japanese language c- spoken by seventy millions e:i pe-ople at a conservative eslimatc. The language lias devdopoo to suit the needs of the times since the end of the feudal age in IS7D. and is now as expressive and copious as any <0 hei modern tongue. Resides being a modern language. Japanese may be regareled in some sort as an ancient one, siiue from a literary point of view its most luilliatit age was the period 900 to l-Tit' A.D. And this eld Japanese literature is not forgotten. It i> taught and read in all the many schools and colleges in the Empire for its artistic as. well as its normal qualities, that no .Tap.ane.so should lie ignorant of tlia great, warriors and brilliant statesmen and esthetes who have' made illustrious the past history of bis rare, and who are the ancestors of the country and perhaps his own. For it i< on this kind of sentiment that the' present achievements of Japan have been built. The determination not to

disgrace or be at all inferior to the-o great men of the past. Most people arc ware, perhaps, that loin gun-, anil!,tele in Japan, but not sn ninny perhaps, that- llic-re are in her templebronze statues of the ninth and tenth centuries that no other artists, not even those of the host- periods of Greece, have ever equalled. Rather little, too, is known of the long line of great state-men whom Japan- seems 10 have been able to produce.' at every age when they were needed : calm, comprehensive, and far-seeing minds of the type of the late Prince flu and Prince Ynniagata, who only died last year, or Prince Sfnionji and the Marquis Matsukata, who is still alive. These men would have been as unknown beyond their own land, as their predecessors of former days, il their country had not come into contact with Europe in their time, but before them there wore'others quite a- able and even more into re-ting. JAPAN'S PAST. One cannot know much of the present possibilities of a country without some research into its past, and there is no doubt that in the countries bor dering the Pacific there will be a net-', of those able to study Japan and lieactivities both in the present and the past. This has to some extent beer provided for in America by the an poiiitinerit in their universities o* Japanese lecturers, and also in London in the Oriental College. Tt is tr he remarked that in the study of Ja pail, its literature and art, British In vestigators have so far been supreme Practically all the authorities, -such a Chamberlain, Aston, Brinkley, Dies ens, Dening, Mitford, Lloyd, Cornier Mnnro and Murdoch, "to mention onb. the most prominent, are available in English, for Continental scholars havenot been as busy here as they have in

the Near East. Here in New South Wales, owing to the foresight of those who established the study of Japanese in the High schools, there is an opportunity provided for any boy who will take it to make himself proficient in a language which in commerce on the Pacific is bound to be of the great cst value, and which has also a literature worthy to be ranked beside that of most countries, and in which is a huge store of untouched material foi original research. Of course conservatives will object that Chinese and Japanese had had | nothing to do with our culture in the past, and that French or Italian may lie much more desirable ; and if we lived ill Europe this might be so But for better or worse Australia is a. Pacilic country, and it is with the other countries on that ocean that her affairs are likely to become more and more connected. And when one considers the inaccurate scaremonger type of hook that mostly seems to deal with these Pacific problems the more apparent is the need for competent investigators. The conservative point of view is not confined to any country for even in Japan, where Hie value of modern languages is recognised on every side, one often meets the oldlnshioned scholar, learned in the Chinese classics, who looks on English as a language of merely commercial value and convenience for travellers, to he regarded bv the cultured much in the manner of the English squire who thought that travelling spoiled his hunting scat. And this attitude is perhaps the more justified in l lint .Ja-

pan is not looking to the West lor culture, hut only for science and mail rials. Trade is often no ideal thing, hut all know that the grace of Florence was built on its commerce, and that the Meliii were no feudal noble:-;. A DECOR ATI YE YAIJ'E.

Finally, l might add that .Japanese and Chinese scripts are, with the exception perhaps of Aiabic in a lesser degree, the only writing of the ''resent day that has a high decorative value. The humility of any European street, with its commonplace printed signs, strikes one very forcibly after having been accustomed to the vigoir>Us and rhythmic beauty of the Chitjese script .splashed all over a shop front in the Far East. Since, moreover, these Chinese characters have the same meaning when used by the Chinese as by the Japanese, though the pronunciation and order are different, the two peoples are always Ohio to commimicale with each other by writing, and this gives them a great advantage in trade matters. Soil' anyone is aide to acquire the i opacity to read and wiite those ideographs in most (imiinou use he can use them in both languages, and lias the he-t possible preliminary for specialisation in Chinese if ho should 1.0 inclined. And since New South Wales is the onlv place ill the world where such advantages are to he had in i In' ordinary schools they certainly should not bo neglected, as il is of the greatest importance to begin a study of ibis kind as young as possible. and boys so trained ought to have a groat advantage over sindents who can seldom begin until their rapacity for acquiring a totally si ranee language and writing are much unpaired.