Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/174

 and the able officials he employed—among whom was the Solon of Japan, the great judge Ooka Tadasuke—sought to bring about a renaissance of these fine qualities by inculcating frugality and exemplifying it in the practice of the Shōgun's Court, on the one hand, and by taking steps to revive the popularity of military exercises, on the other. At the same time, many improvements were effected in the civil and criminal laws; encouragement was given to industry, and, what is even more noteworthy, official vetoes being removed from the study of foreign languages and sciences, the influence of Occidental civilisation began to be felt.

All this was excellent in its way. The nation appreciated it, and history calls the Kyōhō era (1716–1736) an "age of reforms" as distinguished from the Genroku era (1688–1703), an "age of abuses," when the fifth Shōgun Tsunayoshi, abandoning the paths of learning which had originally held his feet, lapsed into a state of debauchery and vice.

The Kyōhō era may almost be considered the prototype of the Meiji epoch, in which modern Japan has been so ably led into the routes of progress. A further analogy between the two epochs is established by the fact that, just as the Emperor's administrative power was restored in Meiji days, so his prerogatives received unusual recognition in 1745, when Yoshimune, desiring to transfer the Shōgun's office to his son, Iyeshige,