Mentally they are bright and intelligent, receiving and apprehending instruction readily. The students are equally as diligent and earnest as are those in the academies and colleges of America, though physically they are not so able to endure prolonged study. They have great thirst for knowledge, and study for the sake of learning itself; hence the various devices for evading study so common in the schools at home are almost unknown. The intensity of this thirst for knowledge on the part of the young is remarkable. Hundreds of young men over all Japan are struggling for an education against very great odds. Many are now educated abroad, and these take their stand in our best colleges and universities along with the brightest of our own students. When their course is completed they are able to carry on all kinds of learned scientific investigations independently of their teachers. Witness what they have done in seismology, botany, and medicine. These facts indicate that the Japanese are an intellectual race. In order rightly to appreciate the national character we must remember that the idea of personality is developed here only partially. {55} This is strikingly evident in the structure of the language, which consists of nouns and verbs almost exclusively. Distinctions of person and number are generally ignored, and true pronouns are entirely wanting. From ancient times men have been considered, not as individuals, but _en masse_. The family has been exalted above the individual, who is hardly considered to have an existence apart from it. Thus, in ancient times, as among Occidental races also, if one member of a family came under the censure of the government, all were censured. When one member was put to death, all were executed. As the family, and not the individual, was the unit with which the laws dealt, the family became the subject of prime consideration. To perpetuate the family line came to be considered a very essential thing, and in order thereto the system of concubinage was introduced. It is proper to state that in regard to this exaltation of the family over the individual Japan is now in a transition period, and that the individual is becoming more and more important in the eyes of the law.