LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA
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306 LAST YEARS AND DEATH. ing this great enterprise. I wish therefore to explain what led me to undertake so great a work and what is the design of the proposed institution. "About twenty years ago, at a time when our country was greatly excited over the question of intercourse with foreign nations, having the desire of studying in western countries, I went to Hakodate; and from thence, in violation of the law which forbade Japanese to leave their country, I succeeded in getting passage on a merchant ship, and arrived in Boston after a year of hard life as a sailor. In Boston, happily for my purposes, I was welcomed and aided by a well known American gentleman, by whose kindness I was enabled to study in Amherst College and Andover Seminary. During the more than ten years of my student life in America, observing the conditions of western civilization and having opportunity to meet and. converse with many leading men, I became gradually convinced that the civilization of the United States has sprung by gradual and constant development from one great source, namely, education; and also I was led to reflect upon the intimate relation between education and national development. Hence it came to pass that I resolved to take education for my life-work and to devote myself to this undertaking. "In the 4th year of Meiji (1871), while I was studying at Andover, Mr. Tanaka, Minister of Education, came with the late Mr. Iwakura, Ambassador, to observe the condition of education in western countries, and I received an official invitation to accompany them for this purpose. After visiting the famous academies ~md universities of the United States and Canada, we traveled in Germany, France, England, Scotland,
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