A survey of Japanese musical history leads to the conclusion that while the people are fairly developed in certain aspects of the aesthetics of music, such as rhythm, they are certainly undeveloped in other directions—­in melody, for example, and in harmony.  Their instrumental music is primitive and meager.  They have no system of musical notation.  The love of music, such as it is, is well-nigh universal.  Their solo-vocal music, a semi-chanting in minors, has impressive elements; but these are due to the passionate outbursts and plaintive wails, rather than to the musically aesthetic character of the melodies.  The universal twanging samisen, a species of guitar, accompanied by the shrill, hard voices of the geisha (singing girls), marks at once the universality of the love of music and the undeveloped quality of the musical taste, both vocal and instrumental.  But in comparing the musical development of Japan with that of the West, we must not forget how recent is that of the former.

The conditions which have served to develop musical taste in the West have but recently come to Japan.  Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the nation to make much visible progress in the lines of Occidental music.  But it has already done something.  The popularity of brass bands, the wide introduction of organs, their manufacture in this land, their use in all public schools, the exclusive use of Occidental music in Christian churches, the ability of trained individuals in foreign vocal and instrumental music—­all these facts go to show that in time we may expect great musical evolution in Japan.  Those who doubt this on the ground of inherent race nature may be reminded of the evolution which has taken place among the Hawaiians during the past two generations.  From being a race manifesting marked deficiency in music they have developed astonishing musical taste and ability.  During a recent visit to these islands after an absence of twenty-seven years, I attended a Sunday-school exhibition, which was largely a musical contest; the voices were sweet and rich; and the difficulty of the part songs, easily carried through by children and adults, revealed a musical sense that surpasses any ordinary Sunday school of the United States or England with which I am acquainted.

The development of Japanese literature likewise conspicuously reflects the ruling ideas of the social order, and reveals the dependence of literary taste on the order.  As in other aspects in Japanese aesthetic development, so in this do we see marked lack of balance.  “It is wonderful what felicity of phrase, melody of versification, and true sentiment can be compressed within the narrow limits (of the Tanka).  In their way nothing can be more perfect than some of these little poems."[U] The deficiencies of Japanese poetry have been remarked by the foreigners most competent to judge.  The following general characterization from the volume just quoted merits attention.