Note 64. The idea which appeared to pervade the minds of the so-called progressive Filipinos was that with a code of laws á la Europea, the adoption of some or other new fangled idea imported from France, Germany or anywhere but the Peninsular, the Filipino would immediately attain the advancement and culture enjoyed among the Japanese. To anyone not acquainted with either the Filipino or the Japanese, such an idea might be acceptable; but no student of Oriental races, nor even the mere casual observer of these two peoples, would venture to predict than even with all the advantages of modernism the Filipino now enjoys, will he, as a people, attain to such a state of culture as that enjoyed by the sons of the Empire of the Rising Sun even in a hundred years. Among the European peoples the progress of civilization and regeneration was slow but it was none the less decisive. Among Orientals it is, as a rule, quick but not lasting. Among almost all Oriental peoples the rising generation is bright and gives signs of great possibilities; but these youths after having passed with honors through college and university, too often end their lives as they began them--as children. What the Oriental lacks is stability. Nothing is more common in the Philippines than to find that your cook or coachman has completed four-fifths of his studies as lawyer, doctor or something else. The Filipino who has reached the age of thirty and has not, in these days, been bata [48] in a convent or with a private family, been cochero, cook, collector of accounts for some business house, letter-carrier, postman, policeman, musician in a church choir, fireman, and connected with a few other employments of more or less importance, is by no means a rara avis, to say nothing of the many who have also been majors and generals in the insurgent "army", and without stopping to consider a pair of very prominent natives who from batas in the University of Sto. Tomás have, after a series of political intrigues, risen to positions of law-tinkers over a people, the vast majority of whom hate and despise them. As a matter of fact the very best of the filipino politicians and other local men of fame, bright, learned and progressive though they be, would count but little side by side with the foremost sons of the Flowery Kingdom. To find in Yokohama, or even in Nagasaki or Kobe, or any other city of Japan, a hundred Rizals, a hundred Pilars (Marcelos, Pios or Gregorios), a hundred Apacibles, or Mabinis, or Aguinaldos, or Buencaminos or Taveras would be an easy task. But to find in the Philippines a Marquis Ito, a Mutsu, a Yamata or a Matsugata,--that is the question.