The Literature, History, and Civilization of the Japanese [pp. 306-329]

1872.] OF THE JAPA?(E5E. 311
to be found in any of the large libraries of Europe; for I
must confess that our public collections are very meagre in
what relates to Japanese literature. Most travellers, even
those who could procure valuable works at Najasaki and the
other ports open to commerce, unfortunately have no idea of
buying anything but collections of images or caricatures, not
dreaming that there are books within their reach, translations of which would be of incalculable value to us. The unhappy polifical events of the last year in the seas of Oriental
Asia, and the premature revolution declared in Niphon itself,
have rendered communication with the interior of the country extremely difficult. llence I have been able to obtain
only a small number of the works which were promised me.
It were much to be desired that European governments,
friendly to letters, should interpose in order to obtain, through
the medium of their agents, the principal works which we so
ardently desire. llowever that may be, you will find among
the few volumes which I have received during the past year,
and which are at your service, useful assistance in ~ursuing
your studies successfully, and in developing our relative
knowledge of Japan. You will be, above all, surprised, as I
myself have been, at the intellectual activity and the conscientious anibition of the Niphonese writers. I have no fear
in affirming to-day, that a few years hence Japanese studies
will offer to Sinologists and Indianists an assistance which
will be absolutely indispensable some for criticism upon the
most celebrated historical monuments of the Celestial Empire,
others for their exegesis of the most beautiful, the grandest
of the religious doctrines of the Asiatic world, Buddhism.
II.
The teaching of th~ Oriental languages has long been the
butt of prejudices much to be regretted. At the present day
nobody doubts the interest connected with the study of the
Semitic and Indo-European languages. But there is not the
same confidence granted to the idioms of the extreme East.
It is, however, in contestable that, besides their high political
and commercial interest, they deserve our full attention. No