For such a continual progress Japan was quite ready. Within half a century, our country had been transformed from an anarchical country of interminable wars to a peaceful land, a land which was non-militaristic to the utmost, though under one of the most elaborate military regimes. That it had been "shut up" against foreign intercourse was, in its main motive, not to ward off the infiltration of Western civilisation in general, but only to achieve a peaceful national progress undisturbed by any intervention of scheming foreign missionaries. The Shogun, who ought to have continued as a military dictator, had been turned into a potentate who cared the least for military matters, though here lurked the danger of losing his _raison d'etre_ against the Emperor at Kyoto. The "wisest fool" in Japan was Tsunayoshi, the fifth Shogun of the Tokugawa, who not only founded a college and a shrine for the spirit of Confucius at Yushima in Yedo, the site where now the Educational Museum stands, but was very fond of playing the savant, and himself delivered lectures commenting on Confucian texts before the assembled _daimyo_ in duty bound to listen to him. With a Shogun like him at the head of the government, it should by no means be wondered at that the cultivation of Chinese literature, which formed the greater part of the learning of the time, came into vogue among all of those belonging to the military regime, the _daimyo_ and the _samurai_ of various sorts and grades. Moreover, the _samurai_ of the age themselves, though they professed to be warriors as ever in their essential character, and their training in military exercises had never really significantly relaxed, had ceased to be fighting men by profession as of yore, on account of the long-continued tranquillity. Notwithstanding the fact that the reason they had been honoured and respected by the common people was mainly because they were serving the country through their master, the _daimyo_, at the possible hazard of their lives, they had been obliged gradually not to rely on their martial valour only, but to mould their character and improve their ability, so as to befit themselves to become capable officials, administrators, nay, even statesmen in their own territory and well-bred gentlemen in private life, so as to furnish models to the common people by their personal examples. As they had read Chinese works mainly for this purpose, the kinds of books read were naturally limited, the most preferred being those pertaining to morals and politics, that is to say, Confucian literature and the histories of various Chinese dynasties, all of which were pragmatic enough. Their literary culture, therefore, tended to become rigid, narrow, and utilitarian, though very serious in intention. At first sight it must seem a very paradoxical matter that the learning which had been essentially humanistic in the Ashikaga period should have taken so utilitarian a tendency in the age directly following it.