at they have but to look around to
find some man who will support them while they study.

Not only individuals, but the people as a whole, have great ambitions.
Three hundred years ago the Taiko, Hideyoshi, the Napoleon of Japan,
and the virtual ruler of the Empire, planned, after subjugating Korea,
to conquer China and make himself the Emperor of the East. He thought
he could accomplish this in two years. During the recent war, it was
the desire of many to march on to Pekin. Frequent expression was given
to the idea that it is the duty of Japan to rouse China from her long
sleep, as America roused Japan in 1854. It is frequently argued, in
editorial articles and public speeches, that the Japanese are
peculiarly fitted to lead China along the path of progress, not only
indirectly by example, as they have been doing, but directly by
teaching, as foreigners have led Japan. "The Mission of Japan to the
Orient" is a frequent theme of public discourse. But national
ambitions do not rest here. It is not seldom asserted that in Japan a
mingling of the Occidental and Oriental civilizations is taking place
under such favorable conditions that, for the first time in history,
the better elements of both are being selected; and that before long
the world will sit to learn at her feet. The lofty ambition of a group
of radical Christians is to discover or create a new religion which
shall unite the best features of Oriental and Occidental religious
thought and experience. The religion of the future will be, not
Christianity, nor Buddhism, but something better than either, more
consistent, more profound, more universal; and this religion, first
developed in Japan, will spread to other lands and become the final
religion of the world.

A single curious illustration of the high-flying thoughts of the
people may well find mention here. When the Kumamoto Boys' School
divided over the arbitrary, tyrannical methods of their newly secured,
brilliant principal, already referred to in a previous chapter, the
majority of the trustees withdrew and at once established a new school
for boys. For some time they struggled for a name which should set
forth the principles for which the school stood, and finally they
fixed on that of "To-A Gakko." Translated into unpretentious English,
this means "Eastern Asia School"; the idea was that the school stood
for no narrow methods of education, and that its influence was to
extend beyond the confines of Ja