that would put us
at least one step nearer to being present at the beginnings of human
conversation. As it is now, our linguistic learning is with most of us
limited to a knowledge of Aryan tongues, and in consequence we not only
fall into the mistake of thinking our way the only way, which is bad
enough, but, what is far worse, by not perceiving the other possible
paths we quite fail to appreciate the advantages or disadvantages of
following our own. We are the blind votaries of a species of ancestral
language-worship, which, with all its erudition, tends to narrow our
linguistic scope. A study of Japanese would free us from the fetters of
any such family infatuation. The inviolable rules and regulations of our
mother-tongue would be found to be of relative application only. For we
should discover that speech is a much less categorical matter than
we had been led to suppose. We should actually come to doubt
the fundamental necessity of some of our most sacred grammatical
constructions; and even our reverenced Latin grammars would lose that
air of awful absoluteness which so impressed us in boyhood.

An encouraging estimate of a certain missionary puts the amount of
study needed by the Western student for the learning of Japanese as
sufficient, if expended nearer home, to equip him with any three modern
European languages. It is certainly true that a completely strange
vocabulary, an utter inversion of grammar, and an elaborate system of
honorifics combine to render its acquisition anything but easy. In its
fundamental principles, however, it is alluringly simple.

In the first place, the Japanese language is pleasingly destitute of
personal pronouns. Not only is the obnoxious "I" conspicuous only by
its absence; the objectionable antagonistic "you" is also entirely
suppressed, while the intrusive "he" is evidently too much of a third
person to be wanted. Such invidious distinctions of identity apparently
never thrust their presence upon the simple early Tartar minds. I,
you, and he, not being differences due to nature, demanded, to their
thinking, no recognition of man.

There is about this vagueness of expression a freedom not without its
charm. It is certainly delightful to be able to speak of yourself as if
you were somebody else, choosing mentally for the occasion any one
you may happen to fancy, or, it you prefer, the possibility of soaring
boldly forth into the realms of the unconditioned.

To us, at first s