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N the recent outburst of literature upon Japan and things Japanese, one can not help feeling as he surveys the field that the European has but a scanty idea of the opportunities which the young Japanese enjoys for securing a thorough grounding in the learning of western nations. The average American or European is apt to think, that, aside from military and naval matters, the Japanese education of to-day is largely, if not exclusively, an Asiatic one. It may, therefore, be of interest to refer to the organization of the higher education



in Japan as it is being carried out at the present day. In this connection, I think, I may safely say that few foreigners realize the anxious care with which during the past score of years the emperor and his advisers have established the higher education of Japan on a basis as broad as that of the European universities, and at the same time, have aimed to mold in it the best elements of learning of both the west and east. And if this is not understood, still fewer foreigners realize, I think, the extent and character of the less modern form of education in Japan. Indeed, on the other hand, according to some recent writer, one might even fancy that Japan had no true learning before the