The old world and its ways

While a deep interest in the political problems tempts me to deal at once with the policy to be pursued by our government with respect to the Filipinos, I am constrained to proc...

"What is truth?" asked Pilate, and when he had asked the question he went out without waiting for an answer. The question has been asked many times and answered in many differen...

If every American could visit China, the question of Chinese immigration would soon be settled upon a permanent basis, for no one can become acquainted with the Chinese coolie w...

The eyes of the world are on Japan. No other nation has ever made such progress in the same length of time, and at no time in her history has Japan enjoyed greater prestige than...

There is at least one man in Russia who has reason to feel that his political judgment has been vindicated and his predictions verified by the assembling of the duma. It is Coun...

As for the islands themselves, they are largely of volcanic origin, and a number of smoking peaks still give evidence of the mighty convulsions which piled up these masses of ma...

In the articles written on the different European nations visited I confined myself to certain subjects, but there are a number of things worthy of comment which were not german...

Having in previous articles discussed the conditions as I found them in the Philippines, let us consider what the United States should do in regard to the Filipinos and their is...

Every nation has its customs, its way of doing things, and a nation's customs and ways are likely to be peculiar in proportion as the nation is isolated. In Japan, therefore, on...

Norway was so full of attractions at the time of our visit that I am at a loss to know in what order to treat of them. As those things which are permanent will interest a larger...

There is rest in an ocean voyage. The receding shores shut out the hum of the busy world; the expanse of water soothes the eye by its very vastness; the breaking of the waves is...

Back of Japan's astonishing progress along material lines lies her amazing educational development. Fifty years ago but few of her people could read or write; now considerably l...

Burma is another country which was added to our list after leaving home, but as its people are quite distinct from the inhabitants of India and as it is one of the strongholds o...

In former letters I have mentioned the missionary work being done by Americans in the Orient, and I deem the subject important enough for an article, in view of the conflicting...

Count Leo Tolstoy, the intellectual giant of Russia, the moral Titan of Europe and the world's most conspicuous exponent of the doctrine of love, is living a life of quiet retir...

The term Moro is used to describe the Mohammedan Filipino and includes a number of tribes occupying the large island of Mindanao, the smaller islands adjacent to it and those of...

I was unable to crowd into the last article all of our experiences in the land of the Turk, so I devoted it to Constantinople, leaving to this paper the discussion of the sultan...

We have been moving among the oldest monuments reared by man, and they make the rest of the world seem young. In Japan a Buddhist temple, built twelve hundred years ago, impress...

In a tour around the world one travels by steamer about six thousand miles through the tropics. Entering the torrid zone soon after leaving Hong Kong, almost touching the equato...

Mr. Griffiths in his very comprehensive book bearing that title, calls Korea the "Hermit Nation," and the appellation was a fitting one until within a generation. Since that tim...

Great Britain has recently experienced one of the greatest political revolutions she has ever known. The conservative party, with Mr. Balfour, one of the ablest of modern schola...

Before writing of the Holy Land, I shall devote an article to the week which we spent among the Lebanons. While the trip from Beyrout to Baalbek and Damascus is included in the...

The first article on Egypt might have been begun with an account of our stay in quarantine, but as this precaution against the spread of Asiatic disease is of modern origin, I t...

My call upon President Loubet was the most interesting incident of my visit to France. It was arranged by General Horace Porter, American ambassador to France, who conducted us...

Southeastern Europe is out of the line of travel and little known to us, if I can measure the knowledge of others by my own. In order to learn something of this section we came...

Each locality has its questions of interest; each state has subjects which arouse discussion; each nation has its issues of paramount importance, and the world has its problems....

One who travels in foreign lands is likely to learn but little of the governments of the lands through which he passes, unless he makes a special effort to inform himself, for t...

The basis of Japanese industry is agricultural, although each year shows a decreasing proportion engaged in the tilling of the soil. Rice is the principal product, but owing to...

We had not thought of visiting Java, but we heard so much of it from returning tourists as we journeyed through Japan, China and the Philippines, that we turned aside from Singa...

He who sees only the cities and villages of Great Britain misses one of the most interesting features of English life. Land tenure is so different here from tenure in the United...

We have at least reached India--and what extremes are here! Southern India penetrates the Indian Ocean and is so near the Equator that the inhabitants swelter under the heat of...

The discussion of the duma occupied so much space that I was compelled to omit from that article all mention of Russia in general, and to St. Petersburg in particular; I shall t...

It is impossible to convey to the reader any adequate idea of the beauties of the Bosphorus at the point where Constantine located the capital of the Byzantine empire. The best...

Before beginning the trip through the interior, a paragraph must be given to Indian travel. There are no Pullman sleepers in this country, and the tourist must carry his bedding...

As the Dutch have administered in what they call Netherlands India, a colonial system quite different in its methods from the systems adopted by other nations, I have thought it...

In what I have said of the Chinese government, system of education, religion and superstitions, I have referred to the nation as it has been for some twenty centuries--chained t...

The government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the emperor not only claims to rule by divine right but by right of divine birth. He is described as Heaven born, a...

There is so much of interest in India that I find it difficult to condense all that I desire to say into the space which it seems proper to devote to this country. In speaking o...

In speaking of the Philippine independence I have presented some of the reasons given by Filipinos for desiring it, but there are arguments which ought to appeal especially to A...

The boat schedules--and they can not be ignored on the Palestine coast--compelled us to reserve Galilee for the conclusion of our tour, and it was an inappropriate ending, for w...

We were agreeably surprised in Jerusalem and Judea, but disappointed to learn how few Protestant Christians visited this city which may without impropriety be styled the Christi...

Chinese education has been very much overestimated. The literati have boasted of the antiquity of the government and educational system, the invention of the compass, the printi...

Reference has already been made to the attitude of Hungary, in the article on Hungary and Her Neighbors, toward Austria, and what is true of Hungary is to a less extent true of...

The peninsula which Spain and Portugal divide between them is the part of western Europe least visited by Americans, although it stretches out like a friendly hand toward the we...

Strictly speaking, the term, Mohammedan India, could only be applied to those frontier districts in which the Mohammedans have a preponderating influence, but the Mohammedan emp...

Nothing so impresses the visitor to Greece--not the waters of the Ægean sea, with their myriad hues; not the Acropolis, eloquent with ruins; not even the lovely site of Athens i...

The contrast between the China of antiquity--hoary with age--and the new China--just awakening into life--is so great as to suggest the treatment of the two periods in different...

In the first article on China, reference was made to some of the characteristics of the Chinese, but the subject was not exhausted--in fact, it would require several articles to...

The dominant feature of Rome is the religious feature, and it is fitting that it should be so, for here the soil was stained with the blood of those who first hearkened to the v...

At Berlin I found, as I had at London and Paris, a considerable number of Americans and, as in the other cities, they have organized a society, the object of which is to bring t...

The articles of this series, taken in connection with the articles written during a former visit to Europe, cover all of the countries which I have visited, and nothing is left...

Carved in the mantel of the library which adjoins the reception room of the lord provost of Glasgow is the motto, "Truth will prevail," and the triumph of truth is illustrated i...

An American feels at home in England just now, for he constantly reads in the newspapers and hears on the streets the tariff arguments so familiar in the United States. I can al...

The map of Russia makes the other nations of Europe look insignificant by comparison. Moscow is called "The Heart of Russia," and yet the trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to V...

No wonder Switzerland is free. The beauty of the country inspires a love of native land and the mountains form a natural fortress behind which the Swiss people could withstand a...

November 29th was spent in Dublin, the 30th at Belfast and en route to that city from Dublin. Dublin is a very substantial looking city and much more ancient in appearance than...

Between Waterloo, one of the world's most renowned battlefields, and The Hague, which is to be the home of the Temple of Peace--what a contrast; and yet Belgium and The Netherla...

Belgium is a busy hive. Its people are crowded together and are very industrious. The farmers and truck gardeners have reduced agriculture to a fine art and the lace workers are...

I passed through the edge of Sweden on my way from Berlin to Copenhagen and was at Malmo a short time; but, as it was Christmas day and early in the morning, few stores were ope...