A representative body was created holding a relation to the Mikado similar to that of the Houses of Parliament to the King of England.

The rights of the people were safeguarded.

In other words, at a bound, an Oriental feudal and military despotism had become a modern democratic free state.

From this moment dates an ascent from obscurity to an advanced type of civilization, accomplished with a swiftness without a parallel in the history of nations.
Japanese youths, silent, intent, studious, were in European and American universities, colleges, technical schools, learning the arts of war and of peace.

When war was declared between China and Japan (1894), the world discovered that they had not studied in vain.
In order to understand the Chino-Japanese war, one must know something of Korea, that, little peninsula jutting out between these two countries, washed by the Yellow Sea on the west and by the Sea of Japan on the east.
In the Koreans we seem to behold the wraith of a something which existed long ago.