In
visiting the Japanese museum on the Rapenburg, Leyden, one of the
oldest, best and most intelligently arranged in Europe, I have been
interested with the great work done by the Dutchmen, during two
centuries, in leavening the old lump for that transformation which in
our day as New Japan, surprises the world. It requires the shock of
battle to awaken the western nations to that appreciation of the racial
and other differences between the Japanese and Chinese, which the
student has already learned.
The first praises, however, are to be awarded to the English scholars,
Messrs. Satow, Aston, Chamberlain, and others, whose profound researches
in Japanese history, language and literature have cleared the path for
others to tread in. I have tried to acknowledge my debt to them in both
text and appendix.
To several American missionaries, who despite their trying labors have
had the time and the taste to study critically the religions of Japan, I
owe thanks and appreciation. With rare acuteness and learning, Rev. Dr.
George Wm. Knox has opened on its philosophical, and Rev. Dr. J.H.
DeForest on its practical side, the subject of Japanese Confucianism. By
his lexicographical work, Dr. J.C. Hepburn has made debtors to him both
the native and the alien.
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