Historical English Studies in Japan
Online ISSN : 1883-9282
Print ISSN : 0386-9490
ISSN-L : 0386-9490
Volume 2001, Issue 33
Displaying 1-13 of 13 articles from this issue
  • Tatsunori Takenaka
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 1-11
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Due to the Promulgation of Middle School Order in 1886, which provided that no more than one ordinary middle school should be established per prefecture, all the public middle schools founded prior to the order in Kagawa, which was then a part of Ehime Prefecture, were closed. In order to fill in the educational vacuum of that school level, several private schools, mainly either of English studies or of Chinese classics, were established. Among them was Suzurigaoka Eigakko founded and run by Yoshiro Manabe in Tadotsu, though the school was short-lived.
    This paper aims at shedding light on how and why Manabe established the school, and closed it after about one year and a half. Manabe had studied natural history before he opened the school in 1893. However, as the school was founded to teach merchants' children such subjects as Japanese and Chinese classics, English, Mathematics, and Bookkeeping, there was no room for him to teach natural history. This may be one of the reasons he accepted an invitation to Kwansei Gakuin Middle School and closed his language school in 1895.
    Although the school was so short-lived, it provided a rather high level of education. It was an exceptional case among private schools in Kagawa in those days that there was an American teacher among Japanese colleagues working for the school. It thus supplemented the shortage of middle-school level education in the prefecture during the mid-Meiji Era.
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  • A Study Based on the Original Articles in the New York Journal of Commerce
    Chisato Ishihara
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 13-27
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Based on the extracts of 4 letters in the Spirit of Missions quoted from the New York Journal of Commerce, the author has already reported on the teaching of English by Henry Wood, and pointed out his great contribution to the history of both Christianity and English studies in Japan.
    The present paper deals mainly with the study of 3 out of the 4 letters in the New York Journal of Commerce, for which Henry Wood acted as a correspondent during his service on the U. S. Ship Powhatan. He also sent many letters on other subjects. The 3 letters concerned here contained important information unquoted in the Spirit of Missions. Some examples are as follows. Each of the 3 letters was headed “MY SCHOOL AND (MY) SCHOLARS IN JAPAN.” With no knowledge of Dutch or Japanese, Wood utilized some English-Dutch dictionaries and one or two Dutch-Japanese dictionaries, and also used the primitive language-the language of signs-to define particular words. He was confident that the Japanese were hopeful for Christianity, and that the method of conducting them to Christianity, under its prohibition, would be by teaching them English.
    Henry Wood was born on April 10, 1796, in Louden, NH. He received a Master of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1822, and was a tutor at Dartmouth College in 1822-23. After studying divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary for about one year in 1823-24, he was a senior tutor of Latin and Greek at Hampden-Sydney College in 1824-25. He was ordained in the Congregational Church in 1826 and in the Presbyterian Church before 1856. He was U. S. Consul at Beirut, Syria from 1853-56. He was commissioned Chaplain of U. S. Navy on September 11, 1856. He was on the U. S. Ship Powhatan in the Chinese and Japanese seas in 1858-60. In 1858 he sent two letters to the authority of the Reformed Dutch Church of the United States, appealing to establish its mission at Nagasaki. He taught English to the Japanese at Nagasaki in 1858 and on the Powhatan in 1860. He was stationed at the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia in 1863. He died in Philadelphia on October 9, 1873.
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  • Satoko Kodama
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 29-39
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Anna H. Kidder, one of the first two single women missionaries sent to Japan by the Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, landed in Yokohama on November 1, 1875. While Clara A. Sands was stationed in Yokohama to help Nathan Brown and devoted herself chiefly to evangelistic work in the city and the surrounding country districts, Anna Kidder went up to Tokyo to work with James Hope Arthur, who had just started a girls' school on the premises of Arinori Mori at No. 22 Surugadai Suzuki-cho. She took over this school, and as the principal made it a good Christian school, but it was closed in 1921, eight years after her death.
    Most mission schools were founded in the foreign settlement then located by the treaty port or in the open city, but Anna Kidder, as well as James Arthur, preferred to live outside the Tsukiji Settlement, so that she might have more contact with Japanese. As a result, she had to run the school technically (according to the papers submitted to the local office) under seven different Japanese employers until the revision of the treaty in 1899.
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  • Yumiko Kawamoto
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 41-55
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
  • Shigekazu Yamashita
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 57-71
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The first Japanese translation of “On Liberty” by Keiu Nakamura was published in Shizuoka in 1872, and the first Chinese translation of the same book by Yen Fu was published in Shanghai in 1903. This paper intends to examine reception of Mill's ideas in modern Japan and China by comparing the two translations of chapter III of “On Liberty” on individuality.
    Nakamura and Yen Fu had studied in Englan-the former from 1866 to 1868 and the latter from 1877 to 1879-, and both of them endeavoured to introduce Western ideas to their countries. They learnt from the Mill's book the great importance of liberty of thought and action, especially individuality of thought and mode of life. In chapter III of “On Liberty”, Mill emphasized individuality of character, and variety of situations as the conditions of individual happiness and social progress and he preferred active and energetic character to passive and indolent one. Their translations of “On Liberty” clearly reflected their deep sympathy with Mill's ideas On Liberty.
    While Mill contemplated the liberty of thought, discussion and mode of life in mid-Victorian England, he was anxious about the approaching mass society which would oppress individuality and variety by enforcing conformity of thought and action. Though Nakamura and Yen Fu were living in quite a different atmosphere, they sincerely accepted Mill's principle of liberty.Nakamura who was an eminent thinker of enlightenment in early Meiji Japan and Yen Fu who was a passionate patriot in semi-colonized China, respectively accepted Mill's idea of individuality as a springboard to enlighten their own nations' energy and morality. Their translations of “On Liberty” were the grand monuments of the reception of Western ideas in Japan and China.
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  • Tsutomu UMAMOTO
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 73-86
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Course of Study for Lower Secondary School Foreign Languages, which was revised in 1958, designated that 520 English words be included in the textbooks for junior high schools. This “compulsory vocabulary” has been criticized because the selection criterion was not clearly stated in the Course of Study.
    The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the origin of the “compulsory vocabulary” through historical and statistical analyses.
    Vocabulary items for teaching purposes were traditionally selected in the following four manners :
    1) Objective selection based on frequency counts of words
    (e.g. Thorndike's Teacher's Word Book)
    2) Subjective selection based on philosophical analyses
    (e.g. Ogden's Basic English)
    3) Empirical selection based on the intuition of experienced teachers
    (e.g. Palmer's The first 600 English Words)
    4) Eclectic selection based on textbook-range counts
    (e.g. Inamura and Torii's Indispensable Words)
    From the comparison of the “compulsory vocabulary” with the previously published lists, it has been concluded that the compulsory list consists of widerange words used in many varying English textbooks published in Japan, as well as fundamental classroom vocabulary.
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  • Takehito SAKURAI
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 87-104
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
  • Sataye Shinoda
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 105-119
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: January 25, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Only a few ariticles and essays on Isen Kanno have been found since his death. They are Eitaro Ishigaki, “Forty-year Vagabond Life in America” (1952), Dengo Matsubara, “Baron Kanno” (1954), Shinsui Kawai, “Isen and Gertrude Kanno” (1955), Tamotsu Mirayama, “An Issei Poet Who Composed English” (1961), Ippei Nomoto, “A Vanished Star” (1973) and Ayako Ishigaki, “A Love Artist Who Crossed the Ocean” (1988). Almost all of them have no reference to Kanno's life, from his birth to death and his literary achievements.
    In my first essay on Isen Kanno, published in 1994, his life from birth to the days he lived in Joaquin Miller's heights were made clear. In this second essay, the latter half of his life will be revealed.
    In 1915 Kanno went to New York and stayed in Edwin Markham's residence. He tried to translate Markham's works into Japanese and write biography of Jack London. Reading a lot of books every day in N. Y. Public Library, he then began translating Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat into Japanese using a style of Japanese popular folk song sung in Edo Era. But to his disappointment he could not publish them. He also wrote many articles for Japanese newspaper joining the Japanese immigrants' literary group.
    In 1929 he and his wife, who left him and went to New York with her lover 14 years ago, finally came back to him. Kanno was very glad to be with his wife again. He went back to San Francisco with her and lived in Nichiren Church in Japan Town.
    Then Mr. and Mrs. Kanno went to Japan. He expected to get his works published there. His wife, sculptress, had exhibitions at some department stores in Tokyo. At that time militarism seized Japan and displaying nude statues was prohibited. Kanno made efforts to publish his works in vain. After two years they returned to the U. S.
    As soon as they arrived in San Francisco, his wife passed away of a sudden fever on August 14th, 1937. His beloved wife's death threw him into despair. Four months later he died of pneumonia.
    His manuscripts of poetry, translation and essays were kept in Nichiren Church. On December 7th, 1941, war broke out between Japan and the U. S. and Japanese Americans were forced to evacuate and sent to concentration camps. All his manuscripts were lost during this period of confusion.
    Isen Kanno was a determined man who made up his mind to live in the U. S. all his life, marrying to a caucasian artist and wrote in English. He was different from the most Japanese immigrants whose purpose were making money and returning to Japan as rich persons. But war prevented him from being what he expected to be.
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  • Shoji KATOH
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 121-136
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Many foreign teachers played important roles in modernizing Meiji Japan. Only a little has been clarified, however, about their lives and careers. This paper deals with Frederick Sandeman, an unfamiliar figure to Japanese people in general, and tries to investigate his life and work in the early Meiji period, making the most of the historical materials at hand.
    Sandeman worked for both national and semi-official schools : at Daigaku Nanko (the forerunner of Tokyo University) and at Miyazaki School of Foreign Languages in the Watarai Prefecture (the present Mie Prefecture).
    At Daigaku Nanko, he taught elementary English for six months, starting on 1st January 1871. During these months, he accidentally injured a child and an old man while passing along on his carriage. This may be the possible reason why he couldn't renew his contract unlike his colleagues.
    At Miyazaki School, he taught English for one year from 1st November 1874. He had six classes a day and was well paid under the 'Contract'. Some of the school budget including his salary came from the surplus of the revenues obtained from ferry service across the Miyagawa River. Quackenbos's First Lessons in Composition, The Illustrated London News and others were used as textbooks or supplementary readers, which indicates that English studies were taught rather than the English language itself. The rewarding system was adopted at this school, where Western books or bundles of machine-made paper were awarded to excellent students. While working at Miyazaki School, he enjoyed trips to various places and went as far as China.
    When he couldn't find any employment, he resided in the Yokohama Foreign Settlement and probably opened a private school to teach English. His interesting advertisements appeared in the local newspaper for about a month from 25th July 1871.
    According to the passenger lists in the newspapers, he reached Yokohama on the English ship “Lochnager” on 16th June 1870, and left Yokohama for Hongkong on the French steamship “Tanais” on 7th January 1877.
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  • Yuji HIRATA
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 137-153
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: January 25, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    At the beginning of the 1900s, the University of London laid down a scheme of Courses on Sociology under the Martin White Benefaction. One of the Courses was about Japanese Civilization, and Lafcadio Hearn, who had lived the rest of his life in Tokyo, was the hope as its lecturer. This paper makes investigation into correspondence for negotiation relating to the Course, which were possessed in Barrett Collection at Alderman Library in the University of Virginia.
    The Academic Registrar of London University, whose name was Philip Joseph Hartog, sent a letter of request for the University Course of ten lectures to Lafcadio Hearn. It was March in 1904, at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. When Hearn read this letter, he did not necessarily welcome it and avoided giving his ready consent. For he was anxious about no experience of University conditions abroad and allergy of English audience to his lectures in particular. He was persuaded by the Academic Registrar, but he suddenly died in September in 1904. In spite of their ardent desire, Hearn's lectures in the University never came true.
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  • The Nobility of Failure
    Kaoru Hashimoto
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 155-168
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Nobility of Failure : Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan by Ivan Morris. This book traces a single theme throughout 16 centuries of Japanese civilization and the lives of nine of its heroes.
    Morris writes the motivation for writing this thesis was as follows.
    Mishima Yukio once suggested to me that my admiration for the beauty of Japanese Court culture and the tranquil world of Genji might have obscured the harsher, more tragic side of Japan. By concentrating my studies on men of action, whose brief lives were marked by struggle and turmoil, I have perhaps redressed the balance. He dedicated this book to Mishima.
    The nine tragic heroes dealt with by Morris are Prince Yamato Takeru, Yorozu, Prince Arima, Sugawara Michizane, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Kusunoki Masashige, Amakusa Shiro, Ooshio Heihachiro, Saigo Takamori. What is the definition of “hero” ? The concept of quality of “makoto” which Japanese heroes have. Hoganbiiki (which literally meant “sympathy with the Lieutenant”). As well I will discuss western viewpoints on “hero”.
    I have doubts about Ooshio Heihachiro. Could he really have been a Japanese hero? If not, then why did Morris put Ooshio Heihachiro into this book? Here in this thesis, I want to consider the relation between Morris and Mishima from that point.
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  • Tomo-o Endo
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 169-182
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: January 25, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
  • [in Japanese]
    2000 Volume 2001 Issue 33 Pages 183-188
    Published: 2000
    Released on J-STAGE: September 16, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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