Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/108

 tion. Some idea of the part played by these immigrants is suggested by the fact that, in the second half of the fifth century, when it was deemed advisable to re-assemble the foreign experts and organise them into separate departments, the families enrolled in the sericultural section alone aggregated nearly nineteen thousand members. By this time (450 ) the policy of specially importing skilled aid direct from China had been inaugurated, and large bodies of female weavers and embroiderers were invited to settle in Japan. They taught the use of the loom so successfully that fine brocades for the palace were among the products of the time. At the same epoch the first two-storeyed house was constructed. It is strange that the Japanese, who through their embassies to the Han, the Tsin, and the Song Courts, must have acquired some knowledge of the splendours of the Chinese capitals as Loyang, Hsian, and Nanking, should have been content to live until the middle of the fifth century in log huts tied together with wild-vine ligatures. Such is the fact, however, and no explanation has been suggested. A little later, but still in the fifth century, the art of tanning skins was imparted by Korean immigrants and greatly developed by Chinese instruction.

In the domain of morals, the fourth century, as has been shown, brought to Japan a knowledge of the Chinese classics, and her historians claim that she then learnt the golden rule, as well as