Prof.  Basil H. Chamberlain says, “Japan stood still so long that she has to move quickly and often now to make up for lost time.”  This states the case pretty well.  Had we known Japan only through her Tokugawa period, the idea of fickleness would not have occurred to us; on the contrary, the dominant impression would have been that of the permanence and fixity of her life and customs.  This quality or appearance of fickleness is, then, a modern trait, due to the extraordinary circumstances in which Japan finds herself.  The occurrence of wave after wave of fresh fashions and fads is neither strange nor indicative of an essentially fickle disposition.  Glancing below the surface for a moment, we shall see that there is an earnestness of purpose which is the reverse of fickle.

What nation, for example, ever voluntarily set itself to learn the ways and thoughts and languages of foreign nations as persistently as Japan?  That there has been fluctuation of intensity is not so surprising as that, through a period of thirty years, she has kept steadily at it.  Tens of thousands of her young men are now, able to read the English language with some facility; thousands are also able to read German and French.  Foreign languages are compulsory in all the advanced schools.  A regulation going into force in September, 1900, requires the study of two foreign languages.  This has been done at a cost of many hundred thousands of dollars.  There has been a fairly permanent desire and effort to learn all that the West has to teach.  The element of fickleness is to be found chiefly in connection with the methods rather than in connection with the ends to be secured.  From the moment when Japan discovered that the West had sources of power unknown to herself, and indispensable if she expected to hold her own with the nations of the world, the aim and end of all her efforts has been to master the secrets of that power.  She has seen that education is one important means.  That she should stumble in the adoption of educational methods is not strange.  The necessary experience is being secured.  But for a lesson of this sort, more than one generation of experience is required of a nation.  For some time to come Japan is sure to give signs of unsteadiness, of lack of perfect balance.

A pitiful sight in Japan is that of boys not more than five or six years of age pushing or pulling with all their might at heavily loaded hand-carts drawn by their parents.  Yet this is typical of one aspect of Japanese civilization.  The work is largely done by young people under thirty, and vast multitudes of the workers are under twenty years of age.  This is true not only of menial labor, but also in regard to labor involving more or less responsibility.  In the post offices, for instance, the great majority of the clerks are mere boys.  In the stores one rarely sees a man past middle age conducting the business or acting as clerk.  Why are the young so prominent?