Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/256

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
252
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Tokyo Imperial University with doctorates obtained in engineering. In addition Dr. Yokobori studied two years at Freiberg; Dr. Saito, one year each at Freiberg, Aachen and Columbia; Viscount Inouye, three years at Freiberg, Berlin and other German schools, followed by two years in practise in the United States; and Dr. Watanabe, whose specialty is electro-metallurgy, three years at Aachen. Dr. Oda, who gives instruction in mining law, and Dr. Kambe, who lectures on industrial economy, are also graduates of the university at Tokyo, as is Mr. Tadasu Hiki, the instructor in geology, and Mr. Kenroku Ide, who has been sent abroad to study metallurgy. Mr. Tetsujiro Imanaga, and Mr. Shoji Takahashi, assistant professors, instructing respectively in mine surveying and metallurgy, are graduates of Kyoto Imperial University in engineering, who have not yet proceeded to the doctorate. Dr. Yamada Kunihiko, who instructs regarding ore-deposits, though listed as lecturer in mining, is a graduate of Tokyo with two years later experience at Freiberg. The director of the College of Science and Engineering, to which the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy belongs, is Dr. Mitsuru Kuhara, who obtained his degree at Johns Hopkins for work in organic chemistry.

Formerly, Tokyo University was largely manned by foreign professors. At present there are but 14 foreigners in the whole faculty. At Kyoto the entire faculty is Japanese except 1 French, 1 German, 2 American, 1 Chinese and 1 English lecturer. There has been some disposition to criticize the promptness with which the Japanese dispensed with the foreigners, but there can at least be no question that they have been replaced by well-trained men, and in view of the imperative necessity for economy, the move was not unnatural. As it is, nearly five per cent, of the faculty at Tokyo consists of foreigners (not counting emeritus professors) and the great majority of the instructors both at Tokyo and Kyoto have studied abroad, following courses at home roughly equivalent to that which leads to the Ph.D. degree in a first-class American university. At the time when in the United States our universities were copying most directly and actively after those of Germany, there were few professors imported from that country. We sent rather our own men to Germany to be instructed, and when they returned the movement of students abroad largely ceased. Japan has followed our example, except that she still continues to send her men abroad for final instruction if they are to be entrusted with the higher posts in the university.

A university without students is but a simulacrum, and doubtless the reader has begun to wonder about Japanese students. It is first to be noted that they are all men—for in Japan coeducation does not obtain above the elementary schools. Japanese children begin their schooling at six and for the next six years education is compulsory. It is confined to the elements of language, mathematics, nature study.