education is opposed to the development of any such relation. I am speaking of general facts in this connexion, not of merely personal experiences. No matter what the foreigner may do in the hope of finding his way into touch with the emotional life of his students, or in the hope of evoking that interest in certain studies which renders possible an intellectual tie, he must toil in vain. Perhaps in two or three cases out of a thousand he may obtain something precious,--a lasting and kindly esteem, based upon moral comprehension; but should he wish for more he must remain in the state of the Antarctic explorer, seeking, month after month, to no purpose, some inlet through endless cliffs of everlasting ice. Now the case of the Japanese professor proves the barrier natural, to a large extent. The Japanese professor can ask for extraordinary efforts and, [433] obtain them; he can afford to be easily familiar with his students outside of class; and he can get what no stranger can obtain,--their devotion. The difference has been attributed to race-feeling; but it cannot be so easily and vaguely explained. Something of race-sentiment there certainly is; it were impossible that there should not be. No inexperienced foreigner can converse for one half hour with any Japanese--at least with any Japanese who has not sojourned abroad---and avoid saying something that jars upon Japanese good taste or sentiment; and few--perhaps, none--among untravelled Japanese can maintain a brief conversation in any European tongue without making some startling impression upon the foreign listener. Sympathethic understanding, between minds so differently constructed, is next to impossible. But the foreign professor who looks for the impossible--who expects from Japanese students the same quality of intelligent comprehension that he might reasonably expect from Western students--is naturally disturbed. "Why must there always, remain the width of a world between us?" is a question often asked and rarely answered.