The Institute of Music was established in 1879, for the introduction of Western-style music into the educational system of Japan. Shuji Isawa was appointed Commissioner for the new work of the Institute. After more than four years, the report on the result of the work done by the Institute was complete in 1884. It was partly translated into English, for a show in the International Exhibitions. Its long title was Extracts from the Report of S.Isawa, Director of the Institute of Music, on the Result of the Investigations concerning Music, undertaken by order of the Department of Education, Tokio, Japan.
The purpose of this paper is to consider the English translation of the Report, while comparing with the original and describing the historical context. This forms a partial study on the history of the overseas introduction of Japanese education. English extracts from the Report was meant to appeal to Western nations that Japan was a civilized country, while the Japanese original was one of enlightenment for Western-style music to many people, who were indifferent and even hostile toward it.

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Kichijuro Narinori Nishi (1835-1891) was a 12th generation Nishi. In 1839 he was employed as pupil interpreter at the age of 4, the youngest of all the interpreters in Japanese history. Kichijuro was one of the compilers of Egeresugo Jisho Wage, the second English-Japanese dictionary compiled in Japan (1850-1854). He was one of the interpreters to Admiral E.V. Putyatin's Russian squadron that visited Nagasaki in 1853. In 1858 he was assigned, together with Eizaemon Narabayashi, as head of Nagasaki Eigo Denshujo, an institution for the study of English. Shortly after this assignment, he was summoned to Edo to serve as an interpreter for the visits of English and Russian representatives to Edo. Subsequently, he was taken into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Tokugawa government. He acted as interpreter at the most important conferences between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and foreign representatives in the days when Japan was opened to foreign commerce for the first time. In close cooperation with Takichiro Moriyama, he was involved in translating the related correspondences and other documents including treaties. He went to Europe as the principal interpreter of the Japanese embassy in 1864.
With the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, when the Tokugawa family surrendered Edo Castle and was forced to return to Suruga (Shizuoka), their homeland, Kichijuro decided to accept the appointment to accompany the family to be in chage of the teachers of foreign languages at a school to be established there. But, in fact, it turned out that he served not as a teacher but as an administrative official.
In 1871, he was taken into the Ministry of Justice of the Meiji government, where he spent the rest of his career, being promoted to President of the Supreme Court.
This paper reports with special emphasis on Kichijuro's earlier half of his career, of which, to-date, little has been known. A family tree of the Nishi, from Kichibe Nishi at the beginning of the first generation in 1616 to Shigendo Nishi, the 16th contemporary generation, is presented.

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Soseki Natsume had sixteen books from the Cassell's National Library series. According to the old edition (1967) of the complete works of Soseki, he made twelve margin notes in Poems : 1700-1714, by Alexander Pope. However, the new edition (1997) omits half of the notes. The omission is due to one of the editorial policies of the new edition that fragmental notes like signs and references to other passages and other books should be omitted.
In this paper, I have managed to find out what the six margin notes the editor omitted mean or refer to. For example, “C. Ex.” is short for “conventional expression”. Moreover, I have made it clear that Soseki was recalling “balmy slumbers” in Othello and “balmy rest” in Odyssey, translated by A. Pope when he wrote the abbreviation on the margin of the sentence “Her guardian Sylph prolonged the balmy rest.” As for the references, Soseki wrote “Vide Cowper's Task” on the margin of the description of a magnificent coffee break at Hampton Court. Probably Soseki was remembering the contrasting description of a tea time in a rustic dwelling. In the essay, “English Poets' Ideas of Nature”, Soseki states that Pope's description of nature lacks artlessness which is one of the characteristics of Cowper's poetry. There is a possibility that Soseki got such a view about the two poets when he wrote “Vide Cowper's Task” on the margin of “The Rape of the Lock.”
My investigation shows that the margin notes looking like signs or referring to other passages and other books can be very important clues as to how Soseki read books and made use of them in his own works. The omission of the margin notes is, therefore, a serious mistake. I earnestly hope that the next editor will include the omitted notes in the new complete works of Soseki.

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The first printed Dictionary of English and Japanese Languages was compiled by Hori Tatsnoskay and published in 1862, and it was revised by Horikosi Kamenoskay in 1866. The dictionary was a historical landmark in the Japanese English academia.
It has been generally considered that all vocabulary entries of the dictionary had been obtained from “A new pocket dictionary of the English and Dutch languages by H. Picard, 1857 (Picard-1857)”, and the Dutch words of Picard-1857 had been translated into Japanese using several preceding dictionaries of Dutch and Japanese languages. But precise investigation of names of birds makes it clear that some English dictionaries had been used to translate names of birds into Japanese, because there are eleven groups of words in Picard-1857 whose English words that have an identical bird name in Dutch are translated in different Japanese.
Moreover, Hori Tatsnoskay got three Japanese words of birds from corresponding Dutch words which have been found not in the Picard-1857, but in the Picard's dictionary of the first edition published in 1843 (Picard-1843).
The dictionary revised by Horikoshi Kamenoskay has two English words of birds which are not found in either Picard-1843 or Picard-1857. Since more than half names of birds have been updated by Horikoshi Kamenoskay, the dictionary is good enough for general users.

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“No Japanese can leave and return from abroad” was the law enforced during the time of the national isolation. This strict law had many tragic results for Japanese seamen who unavoidably drifted out to sea because of heavy storms.
If luckily picked up by foreign ships passing, they were brought back to Japan by these kind foreigners, however, they were treated as violators of the law. They were forced not to move out, not to get aboard the ship again, or not to tell anything about their experiences abroad.
This paper discusses the issue of whether or not these shipwrecked seamen ever told about what they saw or experienced in foreign countries. There are 3 private account telling about foreign life besides official records, kept secretly by local families.
Yuunosuke, a shipwrecked Japanese seaman who stayed in San Francisco for a year under the care of Americans, and brought back to Shimoda, a newly opened port, in 1854, right after the Perry's Black Ship left Japan.
Despite the prohibition he could not help but tell others about the other world he saw, and people were eager to hear his story. This fact may imply that the Government control prevented people's interest from growing. The government official in Shimoda tried to utilize his English communication ability by employing him as an official interpreter.
The writer also discusses about his prompt learning of English during a short stay.

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In 1903, Hirata was sent to go to England for three years as a student of the Department of Education in order to study “English and a Method of Teaching English”.
On the 21st of Fubruary, he left Yokohama for England, taking with him words of encouragement and farewell gifts presented by his teachers and his students. He arrived in London at the end of April. While staying in Japanese Cosulate, he saw the sights of London and sometimes visited the museums. He also frequented the theaters with his friends to see the plays such as “Much Ado About Nothing, ” “Dante, ” “Sapho, ” “Tristram and Iseult”.
He met Mr. Osman Edwards again whom he had maintained a close friendship with in Japan five years before. When he was in Japan to study Japanese plays and actors, he was accompanied by Hirata to the plays (Noh and Kabuki) and sometimes translated his essays of “On Japanese Plays” into Japanese so that Edwards could contribute to Japanese magazines.
This time, Edwards welcomed Hirata warmly, showing him around London to see the art museums and theaters. He often took Hirata to the Playgoer's Club.
Hirata also visited Hogetu Shimamura. Shimamura had been staying in England for a year as a student from Waseda University and began a friendship with him in London. Before long Hirata decided to go and study at Oxford University and moved there. Hirata's association with Hogetu in Oxford continued until he left for Germany at the end of July in 1904. The state of their association can be seen in “Diary from March 8, 1902” written by Hogetu himself. Hirata associated with Japanese students in Oxford with an introduction from Hogetu. In October he began to present himself at the lectures of Dr. H. Sweet, Prof. Walter Raleigh, Prof. A.S. Napier, Lecturer E.de Selincourt at Merton, Magdalen, Balliol College and so forth.

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For much of the Edo period, Dutch had been the only western language studied in Japan, but with the sudden arrival of Commodore M. C. Perry's four 'black ships' at Uraga Bay in 1853, learning English became indispensable. Under these circumstances, the Tokugawa government ordered Hori Tatsunoske, a Dutch interpreter, to develop an English-Japanese dictionary at the government-run school of European languages. Hori was the first Japanese to have spoken English to a foreign officer at the time of Perry's first official visit to Japan.
In 1863 when the Dictionary was first published, only two hundred copies were printed and distributed by the government. However, the need for this dictionary was so great that it was revised and published again in 1866, 1867 and 1869.
Research on the owners of this dictionary has been carried out by the author from 1998 to 2006. According to this research, there are currently a total of two hundred and eight known copies of this dictionary in existence. The fact that this many of the dictionaries can still be found over a century after their publication shows us how important this first English-Japanese dictionary has been over the years.

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