LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA
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STATEMENT TO THE JAPANESE PUBLIC. 313 present prosperity, and in this way-with the help of others-we hope to enlarge it into a university. We think it not well to rely on a single university under government control, however high be its grade of culture ; and we conceive that the reason which led the government to establish the university was not that they wished to take higher education entirely into their own hands, but that they wished to give us a model to follow. How long, then, shall we be content with merely looking at and admiring the model without making any effort to imitate it? We, of course, see the advantages of the Imperial University, and recognize its superiority in endowment and equipment, but we also believe that it is our specid work to nourish the spirit of self-reliance in our students' bosoms and to train up self-governing people. " Education is one of the most important works of a country, and it gives us great sorrow to see the people commit it entirely to the hands of government in timid indolence, for such conduct clearly betrays a shameful spirit of dependence on the government. " The enlightenment of a nation is not a work which can be accomplished in a day. In New England Harvard University was founded within fifteen years after the Pilgrims landed on the stormy and desolate shore of the Atlantic ocean. Now it has 110 professors, over 200,000 books, and nearly fifteen million dollars of endowment. We have no doubt that the living power of such institutions is one great cause of the spirit of self-government which prevails so generally among Americans. In Germany, since the times of Ashikaga (three hundred and fifty years ago), one university has been established after another
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