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CONSTITUTIONAL IMPERIALISM
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leader of his subjects in broader and better paths. And although the Empress had no share in the administration and wisely kept "out of politics," her popularity enhanced the interest felt in the reign recently closed.[1]

It is, moreover, fortunate for Japan that the new Emperor, Yoshihito, is also a man of most liberal ideas and progressive tendencies. He has had a broad education, by both public and private instruction, and a careful training for the career that lies before him; and he will undoubtedly be found ready to extend popular privileges just so far as conditions warrant. Seated on the ancestral throne, he is the first Japanese Emperor who has received any education in public; for it was in the Gakushūin—or Nobles' School, as it is called in English—that he completed the elementary course.[2] After that, on account of poor health, he was compelled to pursue his studies under private tutors.

And that the Imperial line will, in all human probability, remain "unbroken" for many years, is rendered likely by the fact that the Emperor and the Empress Sada have been blessed with three healthy sons, Princes Michi, Atsu, and Teru, who are being brought up by professional "tutors," Count and Countess Kawamura, away from court life, with such care as the needs of said Imperial line demand.

  1. ↑ See Scidmore's "Jinrikisha Days in Japan," chaps. xi., xii.
  2. ↑ See "The Yankees of the East," chap. iii.
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