Miscellaneous. American, (the) Year Book, 1915. N. Y.: Appleton. 862 pp. $3.00, net. Bland, J. Otway, and Backhouse, Edm. China under the Empress Dowager. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. 322 pp. $1.75, net. Farjenel, Fernand. Through the Chinese Revolution. N. Y.: Stokes. 352 pp. $2.50, net. Jackson, Thos. Graham. Gothic Architecture in France, England and Italy. In 2 vols. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago. 291, 339 pp. $14.50, net. Mace, Wm. H. Method in history for teachers and students. Chic. and N. Y.: Rand, McNally. 311 pp. $1.00. Stephens, Kate. The mastering of Mexico. N. Y.: Macmillan. 335 pp. $1.50, net. Biography. Adams, Charles Francis. Charles Francis Adams, 18351915; an autobiography. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. 224 pp. $3.00, net. Adams, Thomas B. Berlin and the Prussian court in 1798; journal of Thomas B. Adams. secretary to the U. S. Legation at Berlin. N. Y.: N. Y. Pub. Lib. 43 pp. Mayo, Lawrence S. [Gen.] Jeffrey Amherst; a biography. N. Y.: Longmans. 344 pp. $2.00, net. 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The following courses in History will be offered : The Hellenistic World, The Roman Empire, English History from 1600 to 1800, American History since 1877, The Teaching of History, The Historians of Ancient Rome, French History 1200 to 1500 and American History, The Colonial Period. The last three courses may be taken for Graduate credit. Published monthly, except July and August, by McKinley Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. Volume VII. Number 6. PHILADELPHIA, JUNE, 1916. $2.00 a year. 20 cents a copy. The History of the Far East, A Neglected Field BY PROFESSOR K. S. LATOURETTE, REED COLLEGE, PORTLAND, OREGON. Not long ago the name Burmah came up in a conversation. "Burmah," said a gentleman, "the people there speak Chinese, do they not? Where is Burmah anyway?" Then followed other questions which showed the same profound ignorance of the Far East. This gentleman is a graduate of one of our oldest state universities and of one of our best medical schools. He has had several post graduate courses, among them one in Europe. He is the leading practitioner in one of our smaller cities of the Pacific Coast, and has no hesitation in expressing an opinion on all public questions, including our relations with Japan and China. And he is but typical of the majority of our educated Americans. For the average American of intelligence the chief sources of information on the Far East are the headlines of his morning paper. At best he may occasionally have read articles in our weeklies or monthlies, articles which are usually the expressions of passing travellers. His knowledge of the geography of those regions is of the most vague and general description. On the history, civilization, ideals, and problems of those great peoples his ideas, if he has any, are vague and grotesque in the extreme. His attitude toward Orientals is one of contemptuous, unreasoning prejudice. He judges the Chinese people by a few laundrymen or gardeners whom he has seen, as one-sided an esti; mate as though foreigners were to base their opinions of Americans on a scant acquaintance with a few Cape Cod fishermen. His knowledge of the Japanese is apt to be based largely on the garbled accounts of a yellow press. This ignorance might have been excusable seventyfive years ago, when our relations with the Far East were confined to a relatively small commerce with one Chinese port. To-day it is no longer pardonable, nor even amusing. It is stupid. To-morrow it may be disastrous. Our relations with the nations on the other side of the Pacific have become intimate in the past few decades, and they must inevitably become more so as the years pass. The possession of the Philippines alone ties us up for better or for worse with the East of Asia. Hawaii at the cross roads of the Pacific is another link in the chain. From the first, one of the motives that led Americans westward to the Pacific was the desire for a share in the commerce of the East. To-day that desire is beginning to have its fruition. In 1914 six dollars out of every hundred of our foreign trade were with China and Japan, and the proportion seems destined to increase with each decade. Immigration from China and Japan has already become a real problem, and with the increasing population of these countries and with their growing national consciousness it seems destined to be even more pressing. We have already exported capital to the Far East in the form of loans to the government and to industrial enterprises, and we probably are to export far more in the next generation. Our already important missionary and philanthropic interests are growing, especially in China. In that country over two thousand American missionaries are at work. The number has doubled since 1900 and may be doubled again within a decade. Nearly one thousand Chinese students are studying in our colleges and universities. At the outbreak of the war this was more than in all Europe. One result of the war has been largely to increase their relative number. Their influence in the future culture of China will be immeasurable. Our diplomatic relations and responsibilities in China and Japan are increasing. We took part in the suppression of the Boxer uprising and have stood sponsor for the doctrine of the open door. The Treaty of Portsmouth is a monument to decisive mediation. At our very doors, then, is the Far East. We cannot avoid relations with it if we would. Its presence means grave danger and great opportunity. If we are to escape the one and seize the other, we must as Americans have more interest and more intelligent interest in the situation. One complaint of those Americans who are so ably and so nobly grappling with the problems of the Philippines is that we have not a fair idea of the situation in the Islands nor of the relations with the rest of Asia in which they have involved us. How can we hope to gain a fair share of the commerce of China and Japan if we do not know the needs of the market, the likes and dislikes of the people, or if we cannot speak their language and approach them on their own ground? The South American market is teaching us that our merchants must know something of the history, the institutions, the culture and the language of a people with whom we hope to do business. The success of the German and the Japanese methods of commercial education is written unmistakably in their trade statistics. We cannot hope to have anything but trouble over the question of immigration until we have become more intelligent. If we knew more of the historical, cultural and economic background of the Japanese and Chinese, we would be more ap |