LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA
131/372

TO MEET JAPANESE EMBASSY. 115 TO MR. FLINT. BosTON, February 16, 1872. I am requested by the Japanese minister to come to 'V ashington to inform the Japanese Embassy about the system of American education. So I have been studying it since last week. It gives me plenty to do. I will go to \V ashington as soon as the apanese Em­bassy arrive there. I expect to stand up for Ghrist before the heathen embassy ; I think it is a good op­portunity for me to speak Christ. I wish you would make special prayer for me, and also for the embassy. In 1872 the most important embassy that had ever left the shores of Japan visited America and Europe. Men of inferior rank had at various times been sent by the shogunate on missions of inquiry to other countries, but this was the first great embassy repre­Seilting the imperial government of the Mikado. It was composed of four cabinet ministers, of commis­sioners in the several administrative departments, and was under the conduct of one of the most distin­guished of Japanese nobles and statesmen, I wakura Tomomi. Accredited to the fifteen nations then in treaty relation with Japan, its objects were thus stated in the letter of credence presented at Washington: "The period for revising the treaties now existing be­tween ourselves and the United States is less than one year distant. We expect and intend to reform and improve the same so as to stand upon a similar foot­ing with the most enlightened nations. . . . It is our purpose to select from the various institutions prevail­ing among enlightened nations such as are best suited to our present condition, and adopt them, in gradual

元のページ 

10秒後に元のページに移動します

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer10.2以上が必要です