branches of education and patronizes the publication of literary works,
which are distributed among the libraries, colleges, and functionaries.
The press is restricted only from publishing licentious and revolutionary
books.

The future literature of China in many branches will be greatly modified
by the introduction of foreign knowledge and influences.




JAPANESE LITERATURE

1. The Language.--2. The Religion.--3. The Literature. Influence of
Women.--4. History.--5. The Drama and Poetry.--6. Geography. Newspapers.
Novels. Medical Science.--7. Position of Woman.


1. THE LANGUAGE.--The Japanese is considered as belonging to the isolated
languages, as philologists have thus far failed to classify it. It is
agglutinative in its syntax, each word consisting of an unchangeable root
and one or several suffixes. Before the art of writing was known, poems,
odes to the gods, and other fragments which still exist had been composed
in this tongue, and it is probable that a much larger literature existed.
During the first centuries of writing in Japan, the spoken and written
language was identical, but with the study of the Chinese literature and
the composition of native works almost exclusively in that language, there
grew up differences between the colloquial and literary idiom, and the
infusion of Chinese words steadily increased. In writing, the Chinese
characters occupy the most important place. But all those words which