Japan ceased her former trade and communications with the Philippine Islands, Annam, Siam, the Spice Islands and India,[2] and begun to restrict trade and communication with Korea and China.  The Koreans, who were considered as vassals, or semi-vassals, came to Japan to present their congratulations on the accession of each new Sh[=o]gun; and some small trade was done at Fusan under the superintendence of the daimi[=o] of Tsushima.  Even this relation with Korea was rather one of watchfulness.  It sprang from the pride of a victor rather than from any desire to maintain relations with the rest of the world.  As for China, the communication with her was astonishingly little, only a few junks crossing yearly between Nankin and Nagasaki; so that, with the exception of one slit in their tower of observation, the Japanese became well isolated from the human family.

This system of exclusion was accompanied by an equally vigorous policy of inclusiveness.  It was deliberately determined to keep the people from going abroad, either in their bodies or minds.  All seaworthy ships were destroyed.  Under pain of imprisonment and death, all natives were forbidden to go to a foreign country, except in the rare cases of urgent government service.  By settled precedents it was soon made to be understood that those who were blown out to sea or carried away in stress of weather, need not come back; if they did, they must return only on Chinese and Korean vessels, and even then would be grudgingly allowed to land.  It was given out, both at home and to the world, that no shipwrecked sailors or waifs would be welcomed when brought on foreign vessels.

This inclusive policy directed against physical exportation, was still more stringently carried out when applied to imports affecting the minds of the Japanese.  The “government deliberately attempted to establish a society impervious to foreign ideas from without, and fostered within by all sorts of artificial legislation.  This isolation affected every department of private and public life.  Methods of education were cast in a definite mould; even matters of dress and household architecture were strictly regulated by the State, and industries were restricted or forced into specified channels, thus retarding economic developments."[3]

Starving of the Mind.

In the science of keeping life within stunted limits and artificial boundaries, the Japanese genius excels.  It has been well said that “the Japanese mind is great in little things and little in great things.”  To cut the tap-root of a pine-shoot, and, by regulating the allowance of earth and water, to raise a pine-tree which when fifty years old shall be no higher than a silver dollar, has been the proud ambition of many an artist in botany.  In like manner, the Tokugawa Sh[=o]guns (1604-1868) determined to so limit the supply of mental food, that the mind of Japan should be of those correctly dwarfed proportions of puniness,