Abstract
IN his address at Southport last September, the president of the British Association, taking as his subject “The Influence of Brain-power on History?” traced convincingly and conclusively the intimate “relation that exists between the provision made by a nation for the higher education of its people and the position taken by that nation in the ceaseless competition between the great countries of the world. After a searching comparison between the facilities for university education in this country on one hand and in the United States and in Germany on the other, Sir Norman Lockyer said:—“But even more wonderful than these examples is the intellectual oeffort made by Japan, not after a war, but to prepare for one. The question is, Shall we wait for a disaster and then imitate Prussia and France; or shall we follow Japan and thoroughly prepare by intellectual oeffort for the industrial struggle which lies before us?”, It would indeed be difficult to find a more striking example of the profound and comparatively immediate effect on national prospects which an earnest and thorough attempt to establish a complete system of education can effect. The events of the past few weeks serve to bring into high relief what was before clear enough to students of educational progress, that Japan has succeeded in a little more than thirty years in bringing about a revolution without bloodshed, in changing an eastern people-among whom originality was considered a form of disloyalty-into a powerful nation equipped with western education and possessed of all the resources of modern civilisation.
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SIMMONS, A. Education and Progress in Japan . Nature 69, 416–418 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/069416a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069416a0