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Rh medicine, was the only European language known to the Japanese. About this time the nation was seized with a passion for more extensive European learning. In spite of many difficulties, numbers of young men of good family made their way to Europe or America for study, or were not ashamed to take service in the households of foreign residents in Japan in order to have an opportunity of learning English, even a slight knowledge of which was a sure passport to official positions and emoluments. The school of foreign languages in Tokio received substantial Government support, and flourished greatly. Presently a group of writers came forward who did their best by translations and original works to meet the general demand for information as to the learning, customs, laws, and institutions of Europe. Of these, Fukuzawa, with his Seiyō Jijō ("Condition of Western Countries"), was the most distinguished. Nakamura's translations of Smiles' Self-Help and Mill's Liberty also deserve mention. Kant and Herbert Spencer followed somewhat later. Their writings frequently supply texts for the Japanese able editor, instead of the works of the formerly venerated Confucius and Mencius.

Another sign of the renewed avidity for knowledge was the rise of a newspaper press and of a magazine literature. The first newspaper in Japan deserving of the name was published in Tokio by a Scotchman named Black about 1872. At the end of 1894 there were in existence, in spite of a rigorous censorship, no fewer than 814 different newspapers and magazines, with a total circulation of 367,755 copies.

With the exception of translations and works designed to make Europe known to the Japanese, the literature