le of much extension and illustration.

The charge that the Japanese are a nation of imitators has been
repeated so often as to become trite, and the words are usually spoken
with disdain. Yet, if the truth were fully told, it would be found
that, from many points of view, this quality gives reason rather for
congratulation. Surely that nation which can best discriminate and
imitate has advantage over nations that are so fixed in their
self-sufficiency as to be able neither to see that which is
advantageous nor to imitate it. In referring to the imitative powers
of the Japanese, then, I do not speak in terms of reproach, but rather
in those of commendation. "Monkeyism" is not the sort of imitation
that has transformed primitive Japan into the Japan of the early or
later feudal ages, nor into the Japan of the twentieth century. Bare
imitation, without thought, has been relatively slight in Japan. If it
has been known at times, those times have been of short duration.

In his introduction to "The Classic Poetry of the Japanese" Professor
Chamberlain has so stated the case for the imitative quality of the
people that I quote the following:

"The current impression that the Japanese are a nation of imitators
is in the main correct. As they copy us to-day, so did they copy
the Chinese and Koreans a millennium and a half ago. Religion,
philosophy, laws, administration, written characters, all arts but
the very simplest, all science, or at least what then went by that
name, everything was imported from the neighboring continent; so
much so that of all that we are accustomed to term 'Old Japan'
scarce one trait in a hundred is really and properly Japanese. Not
only are their silk and lacquer not theirs by right of invention,
nor their painting (albeit so often praised by European critics for
its originality), nor their porcelain, nor their music, but even
the larger part of their language consists of mispronounced
Chinese; and from the Chinese they have drawn new names for already
existing places, and new titles for their ancient Gods."

While the above cannot be disputed in its direct statements, yet I can
but feel that it makes, on the whole, a false impression. Were these
same tests applied to any European people, what would be the result?
Of what European nation may it be said that its art, or method of
writing, or architecture, or science, or language