Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 193, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1918 — WORKING IN UNITY [ARTICLE]

WORKING IN UNITY

Japan and the United States Exchange Ideas. Island Empire Owes Its System* of Technical Education to an American. and In Return Haa Taught Us Much. t The arrival here sometime ago of a mission of eight officers of rank and distinguished record from Japan is proof of at least two things. It witnesses to the steadfastness of the national character, in seeking progressiveness as well as progress; and to Japan’s purpose to keep in the foreground of invention and achievement, remarks New s*ork Sun. No other nation realizes more keenly that In the rivalry of civilization the old must perpetually be renewed. There can be no standing still. From the of history Japan has excelled in fine and dainty work. Her museums Illustrate the fact that her craftsmen invented and adapted. A little more than a real, not a poetical, “cycle of Cathay,” that is, sixty years ago, according to oriental reckoning, the hermit nation suddenly found herself in the market place of the world. Though at first dazed, resources of mind and material were not lacking. Age-old taste, skill, experience and reserve armies of trained craftsmen were at hand. Foreign teachers conferred no gift of brains or secrets of eunning. They simply pointed out the new paths and taught the modern methods of meeting the nation’s needs. As early as 1861-63, after three years’ labor, our own Raphael Pumpelly, still among us in vigor, revolutionized mining methods in Japan. When, in 1868, the intense inward political struggles between the old and the new were over, and Japan had a truly national government, the alertness of her people to the new situation supplied a striking feature in the history of modern education.

At a date whep in Europe manual and technical training was still new, and among us the Rensselaer Polytechnic school at TroyAvas a lonely veteran, Yale and Harvard were at beginnings in this form of education, and even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a baby, Japan had started in the race. Even before the department of education had been created, the necessity of Japan’s training her own engineers, chemists and masters of applied science was pointed out to the Important government. The newly elaborated scheme dividing the empire Into eight great educational districts was, with the curricula, submitted to an American for criticism. He noted the serious defect of no provision for technical education. A long letter outlining courses of technical education and addressed to the Dai Jo Kuan, the supreme council, fell as spark upon powder. The department of education was created and a technological school started simultaneously in Tokyo. The system has ever since that time had a healthful development. - In addition to the eight universities and , 37,810 lower schools of all sorts, there are now in operation under the government eighteen technical schools of the higher order, requiring a four years’ course after graduation from the middle schools, while those under local or private auspices number many m»>re. It was settled at court, by the United States minister in Yeddo, in the case of Raphael Pumpelly, that an engineer, civil, mining, or mechanical, was a gentleman and*eligible to audience of both the president of the United States and the emperor of Japan. Ever since, the official and social status of a man trained to use his hands and brain in unity has been secure in the mikado’s empire. At least two score of Americans have received imperial decorations for promoting technical science in Japan. Nothing but good can come of mutual exchange of ideas. What the Japanese have borrowed from us is in the lilnelight, and we boast of it; what hundreds of American inventors and seekers for knowledge have found in Japan and taken as loan is cryptic and untrumpeted. Yet our debt is none the less real. It is well for the two civilizations to enrich each other. If, in admiring legend, King Solomon set the mechanic on the throne to signify the basis of his realm’s wealth, none the less should both republic and empire honor the technician who unites power of brain and the discipline of educatton to dexterity of manipulation. Honor to the technical workers of Japan and America!