The Educational Conquest of the Far East Author:Robert Ellsworth Lewis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIGHER EDUCATION AND MORAL PROBLEMS IT is argued, in some Western lands, that government education should not be connected in any way with religious teaching;... more » that the propagation of Christian truth is the work of the Church, whose agents and agencies are not controlled by the State. The leaders of the student Christian organizations have studied the government colleges in Christian lands, and have carried out plans whereby Christianity and education shall not be divorced in the lives of students, though they may be in class rooms. In a non-Christian land, however, State education raises greater moral and religious problems. What is the effect of secular education in Japan on morals, where Buddhism and Confucianism are losing their hold, and where Christianity has not yet gripped the nation ? Japanese authorities on this question should be sought in order that there may be no misconception of the real situation. Mr. Inago Nitobe, in a book published by Johns Hopkins' University, says of the religious affiliations of Japanese who go abroad for advanced studies, "As to religion in any form or with any formula, it has for years been at a dis- 52 God or Gods? count in Japan. No Japanese, therefore, takes with him to the States any 'strange gods.' Few indeed, except those who become Christians at home come with any definite religious conviction. In America, however, few can long be blind to the existence of a mighty social force in religion."1 Although Marquis Ito acknowledges that " Japan's chief source of danger," over which he has " long felt great uneasiness," " is in her rising manhood," yet he boldly asserts that he does "not regard Japan's almost universal atheism as a peril to the community," for "science is far above superstition, and what is Buddhism or Christi...« less