'By reading, hearing, and by observation in foreign lands, our people have acquired a general knowledge of constitutions, habits and manners as they exist in most foreign countries. . . . Japan cannot claim originality as yet, but it will aim to exercise practical wisdom by adopting the advantages, and avoiding the errors, taught her by the history of those enlightened nations whose experience is her teacher."

So spoke vice ambassador Hirobumi Ito in San Francisco, on Jan. 23, 1872, at the banquet the city gave the Iwakura Embassy, a mission of high-ranking government officials sent abroad by the new Meiji administration to observe and learn from the West. Headed by senior minister Tomomi Iwakura, the embassy had arrived at "the throat of the entire state of California" eight days earlier. Charles Lanman, American secretary of the Japanese Legation in Washington, who may have had a hand in the speech, reported that Ito delivered it "in a clear voice, so as to be distinctly understood by all present."

"With more than 300 guests in attendance, it was a splendid occasion," wrote Iwakura's private secretary Kunitake Kume, who later prepared the remarkable document "Beio Kairan Jikki," a five-volume account of the mission's travels. First published in 1878, it has now been translated into English in its entirety as "The Iwakura Embassy 1871-1873: A True Account of the Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary's Journey of Observation Through the United States of America and Europe" (The Japan Documents, 2002).