For a century Australia and New Zealand have been English colonies. The population of Australia is smaller than the population of London: that of New Zealand is less than a million. Japan is nearer to Australia and New Zealand than they to England. The Japanese are a nation in arms; the English rely for their defence on professional armies. Whilst there is a German fleet at Kiel and a French fleet at Cherbourg, the bulk of our ships must remain in the vicinity of the Channel and the German Ocean. We are the allies of the Japanese, and the Japanese are threatening the Americans, who are rebuilding San Francisco with funds paid to them by the insurance offices of England. Now I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese have invented for themselves a high explosive, the shimose powder. I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese have just launched the _Satsuma_, possibly the most powerful of all men-of-war. I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese are turning school-masters and drill sergeants to four hundred millions of Chinamen, and the Chinese have been pronounced by General Gordon and Lord Wolseley to be excellent soldiers. Sir Robert Hart, the Englishman most likely to prove an accurate prophet, has warned us against the renaissance of China. The guns of Togo’s fleet have served Europe with notice to quit the further East, and what the Japanese have taught themselves, they may teach the Chinamen undisturbed. The pre-eminence of Japan in the Far East to-day is due to her admirable system of education. From _Japan by the Japanese_, a work edited by Mr. Alfred Stead, and published by Mr. Heinemann, I propose to select certain information which may startle even retrograde educationalists. _Japan by the Japanese_ is a collection of studies on Japan written by no globe-trotters, but by Japanese thinkers and statesmen of the highest eminence. In the list of contributors I notice the Marquis Ito, Field Marshals Yamagata and Oyama, Count Okuma and Baron Suyematsu. The essays on education are from the pens of Count Okuma, Baron Suyematsu, and other specialists. My humble opinion is that the authorities who direct the teaching of Modern History at Oxford would do well to substitute _Japan by the Japanese_ for Aristotle’s _Politics_, Hobbes’ _Leviathan_, and Maine’s _Ancient Law_, which are the only text-books in Political Science prescribed by the University Examination Statutes. I may be peculiar, but I prefer the views of Ito, Oyama and Okuma to those of Aristotle, Hobbes and Maine.