20
CONSTRUCTIVE ART IN JAPAN.
BY
R. H. BRUNTON, Esq.
Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan on the
13th January, 1875.
———o———
In the paper which I read before the Society on this subject last year I said, that if agreeable to the Society I would continue the subject on another occasion.
I, in that paper, gave a description of the evidences of constructive ability displayed by the Japanese before they had availed themselves of the assistance of Foreign experts. The continuation of the subject I then thought might suitably consist of a description of the improvements which these have succeeded in effecting. In setting myself to this task, however, I find it is one which is involved in considerable difficulty. In the first place the results which have been attained are so few and of so limited a nature that there is but little to he said concerning them, and in the second place the efficiency or practical advantages of such results are subjects of so debateable a character that, to treat of them from that point of view would form a paper hardly suited to a society of this kind. If therefore, in attempting to fulfil a promise which I
