George Cyril Allen (1900-1982) contributed to promoting cultural exchange between Japan and Britain for sixty years since the Taisho Era, and received the Order of the Rising Sun Third Class in 1961, and the Japan Foundation Award in 1980.
He graduated as a commerce major from the University of Birmingham, which was the first university to offer a degree in commerce in the British Isles, and was designed to produce promising businessmen, embodying a thought-out course of principles and practical knowledge.
By the recommendation of his respected teacher (Professor W. J. Ashley), Allen took his new post as an English lecturer at the Commercial High School in Nagoya, Japan, at the age of twenty-two. From September 1922 to March 1925, he taught Commercial Science, History of Commerce, and English. Thus he began his continuous sixty-year study of Japanese economic affairs, and Japan as a nation.
Upon his return, as well as throughout his life, he kept in close touch with his old Nagoya students and the alumni society, and visited Japan again in 1936, 1954, 1967, 1979 and 1980 for conducting research and enhancing friendship. Thanks to these exchanges, he actively wrote about the Japanese economy, including issues of price levels, international exchange, banking, and currency, as well as on the British economy.
Later in life, he completed the book entitled Appointment in Japan : Memories of Sixty Years (1983) recording his observations of, and deep attachment to, Japan. This book is basically about his life and impressions of Japan, but a major theme is the dramatic changes of the Japanese scene, along with industrial and commercial fields. It includes a lot of comments on the rapid development in earlier decades, and remarkable success in the last two or three decades. He took on a comparative perspective between Japan and Britain.
He has a strong interest in Japanese education. In this book he did not describe the educational process at the Nagoya Commercial High School and his role in it, but lively and concretely elaborated on a mode of life among students and teachers through the eyes of a foreign teacher.

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One of the teaching methods introduced in the Meiji era was the “Kaihatsu Kyoju Ho” methodology for developing the five senses. Hideo Takamine, as Head of Tokyo Teacher's School (Tokyo Shihan Gakko), contributed a lot to the introduction and promotion of the method. By examining the essay about class activity and the teacher's manual, this paper discusses how Hideo Takamine applied “Kaihatsu Kyoju Ho” to English teaching methodology.
The characteristics of “Kaihatsu Kyoju Ho” can be seen in the following three principles.
(1) Teaching inductively
(2) Teaching from the known to the unknown
(3) Using objects
Takamine stressed the importance of using objects in his class of English Teaching at Tokyo Teacher's School. The teacher's manual (kyoju saimoku) was compiled based on the three principles stated above. However, Takamine's methodology was not simply an application of “Kaihatsu Kyoju Ho.” It also consisted of procedures and content that was uniquely intended for Japanese learners. For example, lists of words and phrases which were difficult for Japanese learners to pronounce were included. He suggested that different skills such as reading and writing be taught with integration. Takamine's methodology was unique in the sense that he applied “Kaihatsu Kyoju Ho” to English Teaching and that it was intended for Japanese learners of English.

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Robert Burns is one of the most famous English poets since the Meiji era in Japan. The elementary school song “Light of Firefly” was written as a parody of Burns' “Auld Lung Syne”. Therefore, many Japanese have had an attachment to him. Since the Meiji era, many books have been written and published about this poet's works and his life.
I studied who introduced Robert Burns and his works for the first time into Japan, and who familiarized his “For a' That, and a' That” to the then Japanese in which his true humanity was portrayed. Toshio Nanba, the leading Robert Burns scholar in Japan, contributed eight bibliographies on Robert Burns since 1958 to The Bulletin of Japan Comparative Literature Association. And eventually, he published the Bibliography of Robert Burns in Japan as a corpus of bibliographical work on Burns in 1977. Furthermore, in 1982 he wrote the article titled Burns in the Meiji Era Influence. He described that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in Kanichi Hashizume's Saigoku Risshihen Retsuden Nanba also pointed out that one of the earliest introductions of “For a' That, and a' That” into Japan was in The New Magazine Devoted to the Study of Language and Literature issued in August, 1892.
In this article here, I would like to bring to your attention, that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in the Saigoku Risshihen translated by Masanao Nakamura in 1871. In this book, he introduced Robert Burns as the poet. Of course, Toshio Nanba had known this fact. Nevertheless, he claimed that the first introduction of Robert Burns was made in Kanichi Hashizume's Saigoku Risshihen Retsuden I also point out that another initial introduction of “For a' That, and a' That” was in the Transcription of Lecture on English Literature issued issued in April, 1892. Finally, I would like to point out a possibility. That is, some Japanese had heard “For a' That, and a' That” which was read at a party 'A NIGHT WI' BURNS' in Yokohama Settlement in 1864. It wasn't an event for the Japanese at that time, but a Japanese was presented as a juggler.

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Professor Minoru Umegaki and Mr. Sobei Arakawa were the two teachers of the greatest importance to the writer. The writer, though not taught by these teachers either in high school or in university, was greatly influenced by them when he was young.
At first the writer was very interested in the loan words of foreign origin. After reading books by Professor Umegaki and Mr.Arakawa, the two greatest authorities on the words of foreign origin, the writer knew that they had both been given the Okakura prize when they were in their early forties.
However, after consulting available dictionaries and glossaries, the writer was unable to find even a mention of the Okakura prize, or the past winners of the prize.
Based on careful research of the editor's columns, of the past issues of THE RISING GENERATION, the well-known magazine for English literature and English education, the writer explains how the Okakura prize was begun in memory of Yoshisaburo Okakura, a famous scholar and teacher of English. The writer also lists winners of the Okakura prize and Okakura prize for English education.
It is a pity that these two prizes were discontinued in 1946, a year after the end of World War II. After the war, the Okakura prize for English education was in a sense replaced by the Palmer prize, which has survived to the present day.
This report is based on the paper read by the writer at the 39th national meeting of our Society on October 6, 2002.

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