Among the studies on the history of English Language Teaching (ELT hereafter) at primary schools, very few refer to actual classroom teaching. Although some reports are made of ELT at private schools, those of public primary schools are difficult to obtain. This is due to the scarcity of records of teaching procedures or teaching plans preserved at those schools.
This paper attempts to shed light upon this field referring to a report made in 1902 by an English teacher at Akashi Higher Primary School, Hyogo Prefecture. The author of the report mentions the aims and principles of ELT at the school and gives an example of teaching procedure adopted.
What has been made clear from the above report is as follows : Spoken English received more emphasis than written English; the Natural Method based on the acquisition process of one's mother tongue was adopted; the teaching procedure started with listening and speaking activities, followed by writing activities, and then by reading activities; and this cycle was spirally repeated so that it would enhance the students' learning of the language.

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The Catalogue (1997) is a compiled list of the books which have been housed in the library of Aichi Prefectural Asahi-gaoka High School since its foundation at early Meiji Era. It consists of two divisions : Japanese and Chinese classics and Western books. The division of Western books lists 943 books, of which 21 books are German and all others are English.
Based on thorough investigation of the Catalogue, some noteworthy facts in the history of English learning have been recognized. Firstly, from the inscription of ownership stamp (s) on each book, we can tell when it was added to the school library. It has been confirmed that 33 books were transfered from or disposed by some institutions like Imperial College of Technology, Daigaku-nankou or Kaisei-gakkou in Tokyo.
Secondly, the ownership stamps are also helpful to find out the textbooks used and the details of teaching at school back in the Meiji Era. Shoyo Tsubouchi and Setsurei Miyake, for example, wrote in their memoirs that they used a textbook with many sentences extracted from Shakespeare's works. We can safely infer that the textbook was probably one of Willson's Readers', namely M. Willson's The Third or The Fifth Reader of the School and Family Series (1860), both of which bear the stamps of their alma mater, Aichi English School, which is the name of the school when they studied there.
Thirdly, some additional information of the 'imported' books tells us that many of them were imported by Haltry in Osaka and Yokohama foreign residents. Others were imported or published by Z. P. Maruya & Co., Tokyo.
Lastly, 'Teachers' Library' published by A. S. Barnes & Co. in America is included. The Ministry of Education at early Meiji Era had a positive policy of importing this library and translating it into Japanese. In the Catalogue, we can identify seven books from 'Teachers' Library'.

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M. C. Perry's black ships appeared in the Uraga Channel in 1853. This insertion not only disturbed the Bakufu, but also effected the Môri clan and the Kikkawa clan.
The leaders of both clans positively adapted to the world's diversification. They realized that the traditional studies of Confucianism did not enable ships to sail the outer seas. The black ships were an example of high-tech that the population in the West had integrated since the Industrial Revolution. They had manpower, capital, and the knowledge of current technology in order to build powerful ships.
By introducing Western Civilization, both leaders of the head clan and the branch clan had to hasten the modernization of their clans in order to increase their military strength. They invited foreign teachers to educate the clan members in the subjects of science and mathematics. This also gave the youths of the clan the opportunity to learn foreign languages.
Tsunetake Kikkawa (1855-1940), the 29th head of Kikkawa clan, founded Iwakuni English Language School in 1872. He invited H. A. Stevens, a venturous young man from Jersey Island in the English Channel, as an instructor at the school.
Stevens was a herald of Westernized Civilization. Although his teaching at IELS lasted only two years, he imprinted the minds and hearts of the 17 youths. These youths grew up to be pillars in society and contributed greatly to the progress of modernization in Japan. Thus Tsunetake Kikkawa's goal was achieved.
This paper traces the foundation of Iwakuni English Language School and H. A. Stevens, the English teacher.

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This pager intends to examine the correspondence between Kaneko Kentarô and Herbert Spencer during Kaneko's stay in London in August 1892. Duncan's “Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer” includes three letters of Spencer to Kaneko dated 21st, 23rd and 26th of August, 1892, and London University Library holds a letter of Kaneko to Spencer dated 24th of August, 1892.
In these letters, Spencer gave Kaneko very conservative advices, for example, house holder's suffrage, restriction of the National Assembly's function to the non-coercive advice to the government and to prohibition of the foreigner's rights to hold land, to work mines and to engage the coasting trade. He even declared that Japanese government gave “too large an instalment of freedom.”
Though it seems curious that Spencer whose books inspired the people's rights movement gave to the Japanese Statesman such a “conservative advice”, it seems to be possible to imagine that Spencer was influenced by the opinion of Mori Arinori, who was intimate with him as a Japanese minister. Mori's draft of Japanese constitution written in 1884 includes some conservative views which Spencer advised to Kaneko eight years later. This paper aims to prove this estimation by examining Mori's views on constitution. Spencer was not a unconditional liberalist, but a gradualist who believed that a political institutions ought to fit to the each stage of social evolution. It seems possible to believe that when he was told by Mori on the low stage of Japanese social evolution, his conservative advices to Japanese government. naturally followed.
This paper also includes an examination of the political thought of Baba Tatsui who as an ardent Spencerian, tried to utilize Spencer's theory of social evolution to support the people's rights movement, and a reference to the comments on Spencer's letters by Lafcadio Hearn, who heartly agreed with Spencer's advices to Kaneko.

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[in Japanese]

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This paper is an attempt to examine a 'dictionary war' between two English-Japanese dictionaries from a bibliographical point of view. They were compiled heavily dependent on Webster's dictionary and first published in the same year of 1888. One was compiled by Yutaka Shimada and published by Okura, while the other was compiled by F. Warrington Eastlake and Ichiro Tanahashi and published by Sanseido. They had many lexicographical characteristics in common. They were revised and enlarged several times in order to gain a decisive victory in the war which raged about twenty years in the Meiji period.
The examination of their editions and contents reveals that they were not competing in terms of precise description of lexical items but in terms of size, total number of entry words, and repeated additions of supplements or appendixes to their main body, which cannot be regarded as substantial from a lexicographical viewpoint but very important from a historical viewpoint for a deeper understanding of the development of English-Japanese lexicography.

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This paper makes clear a process and an outline of the lectures on Japan by Yoshisaburo Okakura, which were held on the requisition of the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1910. Five years ago, Okakura gave the lectures entitled “The Japanese Spirit” in the University of London. So it was the second course of lectures about “Japan” for him. He published The Life and Thought of Japan in 1913, following the successive lectures.
The Lowell Institute was an organization founded upon the bequest of John Lowell, Jr., for maintenance and support of public lectures toward Bostonians. A lot of eminent scholars, not only in America but also in other countries, have been invited by the Institute since 1839. Under the third trustee Abbott Lawrence Lowell, whose brother was Percival Lowell, a Japanologist, Okakura was nominated for the first Japanese lecturer.
It was 1909 that Okakura heard and granted overseas request. Langdon Warner of Boston Museum of Fine Arts asked Okakura's elder brother Tenshin to persuade him to undertake the lectures. The Lowell Institute had a concern in the Museum, and Warner had studied Oriental fine arts under Tenshin. Okakura was Formally ordered to be the lecturer by the Japanese Government.
Okakura's lectures were one of the free “General Public Lectures” as main attraction of the Lowell Institute. The title of his eight successive lectures was “Japan, Past and Present”. The Huntington Hall where he delivered the lectures was crowded with Boston audience, because they were interested in Japan after the Russo-Japanese War. A local newspaper said, “Professor Okakura declared that his people have no desire for trouble, with their fellow nations”. However, “The idea that is thrust forward by some writers that Japan is looking longingly to the time when she shall be master of the East he apparently did not take seriously”, said the paper.

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In the summer of 1988 I happened to discover the existence of an address-book entitled “Japanese in Boston : 1871-1876” -kept in the rare book section of the Boston Public Library. Apparently the notebook was kept by Charles Knapp Dillaway, one time Principal of Boston Latin School. Seventy-eight Japanese names are listed, of which four are duplicates due to confusion of family and given names. Of the 74 names, 65 have been so far identified. Actually we find such “big” names as : Dan Takuma, Izawa Shuji, Kaneko Kentaro, Komura Jutaro, Megata Tanetaro, Okabe Nagamoto, Tomita Tetsunosuke, and Yamakawa Kenjiro. Others are less wellknown, but still identifiable. Usually the name is accompanied by his address, together with other information such as his dates of arrival and departure, present whereabouts, and names of his friends. Thus the notebook, herewith textualized for the first time by courtesy of the Trustees or the Boston Public Library, may offer useful information for historians who are interested in the early Japanese who went to Boston and other American cities for study or inspection-in search of new knowledge and technology for new Japan.

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Yaeko Nogami refers to one scene from La Faustin by Edmond de Goncour and translates its part in an essay called 'Iroiro-na-koto' (1916). As she could not read French, it is almost certain that she read the little known novel in an English version. In the Meiji era many Japanese students and literary men read French novels in an English translation published in a series of the Lotus Library. The Lotus Library consisted of translations of the greatest French, German, Russian, Italian, and Turkish novels. The title La Faustin is found in the list of the Lotus Library. Therefore, it is probable that she read the novel in the Library.
Soseki Natsume praised the novel in the talk entitled 'The Attitude of the Writer' (1908) and there is a copy of La Faustin published in the Lotus Library in his library. I compared Yaeko's translation in her essay with the original and found that she makes a faithful translation of part of the novel. Her husband, Toyoichiro Nogami, was one of Soseki's best disciples and read books Soseki praised and recommended. According to Yaeko, Toyoichiro recommended one book after another to her. La Faustin was probably included in these books.

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The Russian government sent Nikolai P. Rezanov as the sencond special envoy to Japan in 1804, but, to his great disappointment his offers were refused and the negotiations broke down.
His disappointment turned into resentment, until he made up his mind to seek revenge on Japan and ordered his men, Khvostov and Davidov, to make assaults on Japanese bases in Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, in retaliation for Japan's refusal of Russia's requirement for trade.
Khvostov assaulted Etorofu Island, plundering the island and setting fire to the guardhouse and the warehouse, and when he left the island, he left a note behind to the Japanese official. By having Doeff, superintendent of Dutch factory, read the note, it was found that the note was a declaration written in Russian and French, showing their motive for their assaults on Japanese bases.
After that, another incident happened at Kunashiri Island in 1811. The Diana, a Russian surveying ship, appeared off Kunashiri Island and when the captain V. M. Golovnin and his men were getting to land, Japanese officials played tricks on the Russians and succeeded in capturing them.
Golovnin and seven other Russians were transferred to Matsumae and imprisoned there for about two years.
During their imprisonment, Golovnin instructed Sadasuke Murakami, Sajaroh Baba, Sanai Adachi and others in Russian. As each student had by nature an aptitude for languages the instruction in Russian by Golovnin was quite successful and it was to take the initiative in studying foreign languages except Dutch in Japan.

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[in Japanese]

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