present American Minister of Agriculture. Early in 1915 I set out for
Japan to enter upon the first part of my task. Mr. Wallace died while
I was still in Japan, and the Middle West book remains to be
undertaken by someone else.

The Land of the Rising Sun has been fortunate in the quality of the
books which many foreigners have written.[3] But for every work at the
standard of what might be called the seven "M's"--Mitford, Murdoch,
Munro, Morse, Maclaren, "Murray" and McGovern--there are many volumes
of fervid "pro-Japanese" or determined "anti-Japanese" romanticism.
The pictures of Japan which such easily perused books present are
incredible to readers of ordinary insight or historical imagination,
but they have had their part in forming public opinion.

The basic fact about Japan is that it is an agricultural country.
Japanese æstheticism, the victorious Japanese army and navy, the
smoking chimneys of Osaka, the pushing mercantile marine, the
Parliamentary and administrative developments of Tokyo and a costly
worldwide diplomacy are all borne on the bent backs of _Ohyakusho no
Fufu_,[4] the Japanese peasant farmer and his wife. The depositories
of the authentic _Yamato damashii_ (Japanese spirit) are to be found
knee deep in the sludge of their paddy fields.

One book about Japan may well be written in the perspective of the
village and the hamlet. There it is possible to find the way beneath
that surface of things visible to the tourist. There it is possible to
discover the _foundations_ of the Japan which is intent on cutting
such a figure in the East and in the West. There it is possible to
learn not only what Japan is but what she may have it in her to
become.