They simply inserted it upon the already existing growth.

There it remained, and throve, and blossomed, nourished by that indigenous Japanese sap, taste.

But like grafts generally, the foreign boughs were not much modified by their new life-blood, nor was the tree in its turn at all affected by them.

Connected with it only as separable parts of its structure, the cuttings might have been lopped off again without influencing perceptibly the condition of the foster-parent stem.
The grafts in time grew to be great branches, but the trunk remained through it all the trunk of a sapling.

In other words, the nation grew up to man's estate, keeping the mind of its childhood.
What is thus true of the Japanese is true likewise of the Koreans and of the Chinese.