THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1908. EDUCATION IN JAPAN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9191, 14 September 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1908. EDUCATION IN JAPAN.

Count Vay de Vaya, in tne "Revue des Deux Mondes," has an article on the Evolution of Education in Japan, and especially its socialist and reactionary tendencies. Towards tho middle of the nineteenth century, he writes, education in Japan still corresponded to that of Europe in the Middle Ages. While the methods of instruction were often primitive, discipline was exemplary, and it served to form excellent characters. Courage and heroism ware the most popular virtues, and the spirit of sacrifice and self-denial the most desirable quality, while obedience was considered the first of the domestic virtue. o . After his first visit to Japan, the count published his impressions t)f China and Japan at the threshold of the twentieth century.

At that time the moral condition of t the country . seemed to hirpt mor.e serious than any menaces from a j foreign enemy. If a day cornea when t a nation abandons its ancient belief | without familiarisiiij; itself with a , more elevated religion, a sad decline j must inevitably be the result. The , difficulty of transforming the country j into a modern State and the work of , creating so many new institutions were gigantic, but the mistake lay in making the change exclusively material. In the course of half a century much had been constructed anJ much demolished. Without any ; discernment, everything which came from the foreigner had been accepted. Japan, according to the count, ha* always been a veritable Eldorado for children. In no other country are babies so well fed and cared for. It is as if the only care of the parents was to leave to their children an agreeable impression of their childhood, and from this mutual affection of parents and children have come the aft'eelion and the gratitu le which play so important a part in al! the phases of life in Japan. Now, alas! family life is the first to be attacked by the most recent innovations. ,The unwritten laws have lost their force, and the ties of affection are broken in the incessant struggle for material welfare. The Socialists seem to be definitely organised. Discontent is everywhere, and is becoming more intense. While the Japanese are incomparable imitators and assimilate the ideas of others with surprising rapidity, they are at the same time of an inflammable temperament, and this explains recent disturbances. Agitators speak unceasingly of the people's rights and do not mpntion duties. When the count paid his second visit to Japan he noted that moral education and the formation of character were absorbing the attention of politicians and statesmen, and teachers and writers. Moral education was in fact ■ the question of tho day, but he hopei that cleanliness and hygiene will net be overlooked. The interior of the Japanese house, usually a model ol cleanliness and neatness, when furnished in European style is, he says, ugly and sordid, and the same remark may be applied to the Japanese dress. Yet on the whole the count has rou- , fidence in the vast work of intellectual regeneration in which Japan is engaged, for he concludes his . tions by saying that in its a?piri ations towards a more elevated ideal 5 of social life, in its efforts tj establish public instruction on principles • of morality and justice, and in its ambition to instil in the minds 6f the " young a nobler ideq of their duties, Japan offers an example worthy of , being followed by many other • nations.