On Some Characteristics of the Natural Science Books Published by Dainihonbunmeikyokai

Abstract

Dainihonbunmeikyokai (The Great Japanese Culture Society) was the private society and was founded in 1908 with the aid of many prominant scholars and financiers. The president of the society was Shigenobu Okuma (1838-1922), who was the poHtician and founder of Waseda University. The activities of the society were the publication of introducing foreign culture including social science, human science and natural science, which originally published in Europe and USA, analysis of world situation and popular cultural lecture. In the present study, we analyzed the character of the part of natural science published by the society. The total number of the publication is 241 and that of natural science books is 35 including 11 science of science,18 biology, 2 chemistry and 4 engineering. There was no publication of mathematics and physics. This point was markedly different from the books treated by "Nature" and "Science". The originally publishing countries are 17 UK,10 USA, 3 France,1 Germany and 3 books are edited by the society. The selection of the books is probably due to the influence of commissioner of the society such as Chiyomatsu Ishikawa (1861-1935, Biologist) and Matajiro Yokoyama (1860-1942, Geologist) and the inclination of the popular science movement at late Meiji and Taisho period (1908-1924).