LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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184 liUSSIONARY WORK IN JAPAN. elusion, transferred the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, and solemnly promised a deliberative assembly and repre3entative institutions. When Mr. N eesima landed at Yokohama, December 6, 187 4, the railway connecting Tokyo and Kyoto had been commenced and was in operation between Yokohama and the capital; a national line of steam­ships plied between the pl'incipal ports, and the important points of the coast were provided with light­houses; a general telegraphic system had been inau­gurated, and a postal service modeled on that of the United States had been extended over the entire em­pire, excepting only the island of Y ezo; the imperial mint had been opened at Osaka; the navy had been reorganized under English guidance, and the creation of an army on European models had been begun; the dockyards and machine shops of the naval station at Y okosuka had been established, and the arsenal founded at Tokyo ; European dress had been adopted by government officials, the .European calendar intro­duced; Japanese journalism was already a factor in the formation of public opinion, and the foundations of a comprehensive educational system had been laid. The rate at which these changes were effected is as­tonishing, but the fact of this wholesale adoption of western institutions is not in itself inconsistent with the Japanese character. Their experience with for­eigners had not, it is true, been a happy one. Early contact with the Jesuits, who brought the spirit of the Inquisition, with the Dutch and Portuguese traders, who introduced the slave-trade, new forms of disease, gunpowder, and tobacco, was the beginning of an ag­gressive policy dictated by commercial and selfish in­terests whose results were fatal to the peace of society.

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