ce
in all a certain similarity in those characteristics and habits
of thought that pertain to the material things of life. We are
all imitative, and therefore we tend to imitate each other; but
the inferior is more apt to imitate the superior than vice versa.
Particularly are we prone to imitate those actions and qualities
by which others have attained material success. So it is to be
expected, it is already a fact, that the methods whereby a few
great nations attained success are already being imitated by other
nations. Japan has imitated so well that in some ways she has already
surpassed her models.

With such an example before her, should we be surprised that China
has also become inoculated with the virus of commercial and political
ambitions? It cannot be many years before she will be in the running
with the rest of us, with 400,000,000 of people to do the work;
people of intelligence, patience, endurance, and docility; people
with everything to gain and nothing to lose; with the secret of
how to succeed already taught by other nations, which she can learn
from an open book.

If Japan has learned our secret and mastered it in fifty years,
will China not be able to do it in less than fifty years?

Before we answer this question, let us realize clearly that China
is much nearer to us in civilization than Japan was fifty years
ago; that China has Japan's example to guide her, and also that
any degree of civilization which was acquired by us in say one
hundred years will not require half that time for another nation
merely to learn. The same is true of all branches of knowledge; the
knowledge of the laws of nature which it took Newton many years to
acquire may now be mastered by any college student in two months.
And let us not forget, besides, that almost the only difficult
element of civilization which other people need to acquire, in order
to enter into that world-wide competition which is characteristic of
the time we live in, is "engineering" broadly considered. Doubtless
there are other things to learn besides; but it is not apparent
that any other things have contributed largely to the so-called
new civilization of Japan. Perhaps Japan has advanced enough in
Christianity to account for her advance in material power, but
if so she keeps very quiet about it. It may be, also, that the
relations of the government to the governed people of Japan are
on a higher plane than they used to be, but on a plane not yet