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The United States and Cultural Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)
 Asian History

The aim of the series is to offer a forum for writers of monographs and occasionally
anthologies on Asian history. The Asian History series focuses on cultural and
historical studies of politics and intellectual ideas and crosscuts the disciplines
of history, political science, sociology and cultural studies.

Series Editor
Hans Hägerdal, Linnaeus University, Sweden

Editorial Board Members

Roger Greatrex, Lund University
David Henley, Leiden University
Angela Schottenhammer, University of Salzburg
Deborah Sutton, Lancaster University
The United States and Cultural
Heritage Protection in Japan
(1945-1952)

Nassrine Azimi

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: George Leslie Stout, Langdon Warner and Japanese officials at Nishi
Honganji temple in Kyoto, Japan, May 29, 1946 / unidentified photographer
Source: George Leslie Stout Papers, 1855, 1897-1978; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
Institution

Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden

Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout

isbn 978 94 6372 132 5

e-isbn 978 90 4855 010 4 (pdf)
doi 10.5117/9789463721325
nur 680

© Nassrine Azimi / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is
advised to contact the publisher.
They say the cup in Shōsō-in was brought to Japan from Persia by way of
China and Korea.
Inoue Yasushi, The Opaline Cup, Translation by James T. Araki

A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive.

Plaque at the entrance of the National Museum of Afghanistan

These are the memories of mankind, and they are lost forever.
Donny George Youkhanna, former Director-General of Iraq Museums
I dedicate this book to my late father H.P. Azimi and to my mother, A.J. Azimi,
whose deep feelings for beauty have kept alive our cultural heritage, even in exile;
and to scholars, craftsmen, conservators, museum curators and all who strive to
protect cultural and historical treasures in times of war, violence and ignorance.
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 11

Foreword 15

Preface 17

Introduction 21
Occupation is not war

I Japan’s culture and cultural institutions before the war

Bridges with the United States
More than 36 views of Mount Fuji 29
Encounters with the West 35
Cultural fruits and frictions of the Meiji Restoration: The
Iwakura Embassy 39
Indispensable friendships at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts 44
Ernest Fenollosa – the Boston-Japan bridge 46
Okakura Tenshin – Teacher and Mentor 49
Culture, the foundational stone? 53

II Prerequisites for occupation

Planning the U.S. post-war policies for Japan
Building towards the Arts and Monuments Division 55
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s America and the New Dealers 56
The American Defense-Harvard Group 60
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) 62
The American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of
Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts
Commission) 65
The Civil Affairs Training Schools (CATS) 76

III ‘Understanding Japan’

The specialists
Scholarship influencing policy and the bureaucracy? 85
Joseph C. Grew – contested Dean of the ‘Japan Crowd’ 89
George B. Sansom – supreme diplomat and supreme scholar 94
Ruth Benedict – the enemy, too, is human 98
Scholars and the Pacific War 101
IV The shape of an occupation
A league unto its own 107
SCAP, its leadership and structure 110
Culture under the Occupation 119

V The arts and monuments division

Culture within the Civil Information and Education (CIE)
Section 127
George L. Stout – Father of MFAA, Founder of A&M 140
Langdon Warner – An idol returns 144
Sherman E. Lee – How it all worked 153
Expecting the worst, getting the best? 160

VI Conclusions
Rethinking the 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Property163
Quo Vadis? 167
Imaginable consequences 171

Illustrations
1 Okakura Tenshin, circa 1901 179
Courtesy of Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki, Japan
2 Langdon Warner in Kara Khoto, Silk Road, circa 1923-1924 179
Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard
University
3 George Sansom, Shigeru Nambara and Hugh Borton at
Columbia University 180
Courtesy of Weatherhead, East Asian Library
4 Bust of Langdon Warner in Izura, Ibaraki Prefecture 180
Photo by Nassrine Azimi
5 Howard Hollis and Sherman Lee at Residence of Masuda
Takashi, Odawara, 1947 181
Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art Archives
6 Memorandum to Chief of Arts and Monuments, September
17, 1946, Draft reports on inspections of public collections 181
Sherman Emery and Ruth Ward Lee Personal Papers,
Courtesy of Cleveland Museum of Art Archives
7 Laurence Sickman, circa 1944 182
Lawrence Sickman Papers, Mss 001, Courtesy of The Nelson
Atkins Museum of Art Archives, Kansas City, Missouri
8 Arts and Monuments Division organogram, date unknown 182
National Archives and Record Administration (NARA)
9 Memo of December 4, 1945, Arts and Monuments Personnel 183
National Archives and Record Administration (NARA)
10 Memo of January 25, 1946 from George L. Stout 184
National Archives and Record Administration (NARA)
11 Memo of March 1946 from George L. Stout 185
National Archives and Record Administration (NARA)

References 187

Index 201
 Acknowledgements

This book took forever to write. Without the people listed below it would
certainly have taken longer still.
My gratitude first to Nunokawa Hiroshi, for his guidance on the original
research as my committee chair at Hiroshima University. An inspiring
historian of contemporary Japan and specialist of Hiroshima’s reconstruc-
tion, Professor Nunokawa was for three years an unwavering source of ideas,
encouragement and humor.
Edgar Porter and Frederiek de Vlaming walked with me every step of the
way – editing, commenting, encouraging, discouraging. I am indebted to
them, as much for their intellectual solidarity as for their seemingly endless
well of friendship, and especially patience.
Fukui Haruhiro, Marcel Boisard, Miyagawa Shigeru and Carol Rinnert
were pillars of support and sounding boards all along, at times so (welcom-
ingly) tough – it has been my privilege, to know and learn from them.
It was my good fortune to read early on the excellent 2003 article by
Geoffrey R. Scott, of Pennsylvania State University, on the role of cultural
experts at SCAP. I am indebted to him for unstinting, collegial support and
for that most admirable quality – intellectual generosity.
The friendship and help of Otsuka Bannai Masako, Okahata Michiko,
Tashiro Akira, Nishikiori Akio, Roger Buckley, Kristin Newton, Faezeh
Mahichi and Ann Sherif with everything, including painstaking translations
of Japanese documents, has been precious. Laura Levy Merage has been my
pillar for all things art over more than four decades. Kanameda Keiji and
Kuwajima Hideki kept my research focussed and disciplined.
Librarians and archivists hold a special place in my life: I thank in
particular the outstanding Hayashi Rie and all the dedicated librarians
at the beautiful International House of Japan in Tokyo, for constant, and
constantly cheerful, assistance. Librarians at Hiroshima University’s Chuo
Library, the Higashi Senda Library, the Hiroshima Shudo University, the
Hiroshima International Conference Center and the Prefectural Museum
of Art, as well as the able staff at the National Diet Library in Tokyo, all
have my gratitude. A special thanks to the curators at the Yamamoto Yūzō
Memorial Museum in Mitaka, and all those who have kept his evocative
house in such good conditions.
In the United States the knowledgable archivists at the National Archives
and Record Administration (NARA) at College Park, Maryland as well as
at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art (AAA) in Washington were
12  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

invaluable, as were the wonderful archivists at the Cleveland Museum of Art

and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas. For their able assistance
I thank Tomoko Bialock at UCLA’s East Asian Library, Tatsumi Yukako,
curator at the Gordon W. Prange Collection of the University of Maryland
and the staff of the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
At the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), a special thanks
to the Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies and its staff, notably Deputy
Director Noel Shimizu, for my appointment as visiting scholar from 2016 to
2018. It was a time of struggle with the endless book revisions – but this felt
less of a hardship at the beautiful Music Library. Two lectures I gave at UCLA,
too, greatly helped to clarify ideas and to receive inputs at a critical time.
At Amsterdam University Press, my appreciation to Saskia Gieling, Mike
Sanders and the rest of the team – for so ably and efficiently shepherding
this project to completion.
To all those colleagues and friends who listened patiently over the years
as I rambled on about the importance of culture and cultural heritage
protection in war or occupation, shared ideas or simply prodded me on, in
no particular order I express unbounded gratitude to Tommy Koh, Chang
Li Lin, Jeremiah Lo, Steve Leeper, Elizabeth Baldwin, David Eaton, Monte
Cassim, Dohy Kiyohiko, Unezaki Masako, Sakoda Kumiko, Marina Vasilescu,
Francois LeBlanc, Ran Ying Porter, Akieda Naito Yumi, Kurokawa Kiyoshi,
Najm Meshkati, Carlos Lopes, Koizumi Naoko, Tashiro Kanako, Uye Shin-
ichi, Hotta Taiji, Humaira Kamal, Michael Fors, Sharapiya Kakimova, Mark
Selden and Michel Wasserman. Writing the book on Beate Sirota Gordon
was a perfect prelude for this one.
I thank friends and former colleagues in Afghanistan, and all who love
that ancient, long-suffering land, notably Tawab Saljuki, Sabahuddin Sok-
out, Nagaoko Masanori, Noguchi Noboru, Amir Foladi, Sara Noshadi and
the many alumni of the UNITAR Hiroshima Fellowship for Afghanistan.
The eloquent descriptions by Maeda Kosaku and Nancy Hatch Dupree, of
treasures lying deep in Afghanistan and across the ancient Silk Road, made
me weep often. The late Jonathan Moore, heart and soul of our missions to
Afghanistan, educated and inspired me through his unique experiences as
a former US coordinator for refugees.
My partners at Green Legacy Hiroshima (GLH) and colleagues at UNI-
TAR kept the flame (and seeds) of the survivor trees alive at those times
I was drowning in my research: a special thanks to Matsuoka Kenta for
his dedication to GLH, and also to Kumamoto Mihoko, Shimazu Junko,
Watanabe Tomoko, Horiguchi Chikara and Yamada Hideko. I pay tribute
to the encouragements of former president Ichikawa Taichi of Hiroshima
Acknowledgements 13

Shudo University, colleagues Jana Townsend and Takei Mitsuko, and my

wonderful students and assistants, always inspiring.
Words cannot describe my debt to my family. My inf inite love and
gratitude first for my gentle mother Azar, who nourished and sustained
me in Hiroshima and Carlsbad; to my sweet sister Sherri, who since she
was born has had the knack to cheer me; to my brothers Bob and Farhad,
for being pillars of advice and technical support and to my aunts, uncles,
cousins and nieces – Mashi, Robab, Fati, Kourosh, Shahriar, Nazli, Mitra,
Afsar, Vanessa, Lotfali, Asgar and Ezzat – who rejoiced with and for me
throughout. It truly takes a village…
All this is for the next generation – for Arianna, Ryan, Jakie, Charlotte
and all the children: sheer beauty.
 Foreword

I first met Nassrine Azimi in 2006 at an international conference in Japan.

She was at the time Director of the United Nations Institute for Training
and Research (UNITAR) Office for Asia and the Pacific, in Hiroshima. The
discussion focused on international affairs and the role that culture plays
in promoting peace through understanding. Many speakers waxed eloquent
over those two days, but one stood out for her passionate plea to accept and
promote those whose cultures are ignored or found strange or unworthy,
and how horrific it is to abuse and diminish them. I have followed Nassrine’s
development of these ideas since then, both through informal conversations
and her many writings found in publications such as the New York Times
and her 2015 book, Last Boat to Yokohama.
Throughout her life, we find a person who appreciates and relishes the
dynamics of local histories and cultures, but ties these seamlessly to the
global. Nassrine is known by all who connect with her, whether personally,
professionally or virtually, as a force guided by expansive curiosity and
knowledge tied to a passion for cultural heritage protection, peacebuilding
and peacekeeping. Born in Iran, later becoming a Swiss citizen, and now
residing in Japan, Nassrine begins her day wondering how the world, all of
it, will shape her, and how she can help shape it by connecting us all. This
book is but one of her most recent contributions in this journey to which
she invites us, her latest contribution extolling the importance and the
power of culture in our lives, and the need to protect it.
The Introduction to this book is titled, ‘Occupation is Not War’. Here we
are reminded of the destructive power of cultural stereotypes as represented
through the racist caricatures used by both the American and Japanese
propaganda machines, the very machines that encouraged the horrors
perpetrated during the war in the Pacific. Nassrine then leads us to the
back rooms of a small number of far-sighted American officials and scholars
who understood that the protection of the enemy’s deeply revered and
matchless cultural properties, be they sacred sites or treasures, public spaces
or traditional architecture, held the potential to heal both sides, eventually
to right the ship from hatred to understanding. It shows an enlightened
appreciation for the humanity of the very people these Americans had only
recently been killing. Surprisingly, we discover that some of these plans
took shape before the war’s end and the start of the Occupation – surely
an inspiring example of what can be accomplished when people in power
begin protecting a former enemy’s cultural heritage even before they land in
16  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

the country. These men and women understood early on that their actions
could make room for a more peaceful, mutually advantaged citizenry of
both countries.
The contrast to modern times is striking, and instructive. Nassrine alludes
only briefly to the dismissive, pitiful efforts on the part of the U.S. to protect
the cultural properties of Iraq and Afghanistan following the invasions
and occupations of these countries but instead asks the reader to reflect
on how the world, especially the United States, could have lost its way in so
short a time. Being reminded of current failures after following the more
enlightened actions in Japan before, one wonders how today’s political and
military leaders could so easily dismiss the global peacebuilding advantages
of celebrating and protecting ancient and priceless cultural heritage.
This book describes a brief but remarkable episode in preserving cultural
heritage sites and identity, reminding us of how interconnected we are,
and of how beautiful and seamless the tapestry of cultural representations
exists all around us, if we but have the foresight and patience to appreciate
them. It reminds us what an enlightened people, guided by an enlightened
leadership, can actually accomplish.

Edgar A. Porter
Professor Emeritus
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
 Preface

This book is about the American Occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1952, seen
through the lens of culture. It tells the story of how during WWII a handful
of brilliant and dedicated scholars, based at the Supreme Commander for
the Allied Powers (SCAP) headquarters in Tokyo, made it their mission to
protect the cultural property of a hated and recently defeated enemy from
chaos, destruction and even the rampages of their own troops.1 The book
describes the long road travelled by Americans and Japanese alike – not
just scholars but also politicians and policymakers, military personnel and
ordinary citizens – before and throughout the war, who made the safeguard
of cultural heritage under the occupation possible.
Three distinct but intertwining principles of the American Occupation
of Japan inform this narrative throughout. The first was the attention paid
during its planning to ‘cultural understanding’ – in this case creating an
environment which allowed diverse individuals and programs specialized in
or devoted to Japanese studies across various branches of the United States’
government to exercise influence and undertake what was possible and
necessary to know the enemy. Why and how this could be done, considering
how many other pressing priorities there were, and how spectacularly
absent such a stance has been in more recent military occupations, was
one of my initial queries.
The second was the importance of preserving the enemy’s cultural
heritage in war and even more compellingly during the Occupation, as did
the United States in Japan. Why did the most powerful nation on earth
go to the trouble of doing so? Again, one short answer is that the planners
understood that pride in cultural heritage bestowed dignity, and an enemy
or an occupied nation without dignity is far more hostile, desperate and
therefore difficult to govern than one that feels its culture respected, or at
least not destroyed, by the occupier.
Third and last, it was a matter of responsibility. An occupier is bound, by
international law and by simple ethics, to preserve the cultural heritage of
the occupied – not just so as to placate its former enemy but because cultural
heritage of any nation is the heritage of all of humanity. It is the contention of

1 World War II, the Pacific War, the Asia-Pacific War have been used interchangeably, though
the Japanese war theater is often referred to as the Asia-Pacific War or even the 15-Year War. As
my focus is mainly on the American side, I refer for the most part to the generic term WWII.
Equally, Occupation is spelled with a capital O when referring specifically to Japan.
18  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

this book that many of the Americans involved in the Occupation, including
within the arts and monuments community, firmly believed in and lived
up to this principle.
Throughout the Occupation years, competent and qualified American
cultural experts, based at the Arts and Monuments (A&M) Division of the
Civil Information and Education (CIE) section of SCAP headquarters, worked
in close partnership with like-minded Japanese scholars to improve and
enforce the protection of Japan’s cultural heritage – one outcome of which
was the early passage of Japan’s 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural
Properties.2 What was truly remarkable was that so early on American
occupiers had had the foresight to establish a cluster within SCAP devoted
exclusively to arts and monuments. This was not as surprising as one would
think, however, and the policies it propelled did not appear out of thin
air, but rather were the consequence of a long, deliberate process. There
had been broad thinking, endless debates and elaborate plans regarding
cultural heritage protection in war areas in advance of the actual Occupation.
Familiarity with Japanese culture and history, and before that a certain
cultural affinity for Japan within American circles of power, continued to
influence post-war perceptions and shaped some of the early policies of
the United States and, during the Occupation, impacted the work of SCAP
itself. Once Occupation began, considering that its initial priorities as well
as those of the Japanese government were overwhelmingly about survival,
security and economic rehabilitation, the fact that culture in general and
cultural heritage in particular remained serious components of SCAP’s
postwar reconstruction plans seemed to me to deserve great attention.
Cultural understanding and heritage protection in war and occupation
remain contemporary challenges. While the central thesis of this book is
the occupation of Japan, it is impossible not to think, throughout, of more
recent conflicts and occupations. I hope that at the very least my work can
prompt more debate and reflections on the preparatory measures and initial
policies (or lack thereof) before the occupations of Afghanistan in 2001 and
Iraq in 2003. One symbolic moment stood out for me as the beginning of the
unravelling tragedy that the occupation of Iraq was to become: the depth
of disconnect between rhetoric and reality, and maybe disdain for cultural
considerations reflected in the terse statement made at a press conference

2 The Agency for Cultural Affairs and most Japanese language sources refer to ‘properties’. The
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) official depository
refers to ‘property’. While their meaning and intent are the same, for purposes of consistency
I maintain ‘properties’ when a reference or direct quote, but ‘property’ otherwise.
Preface 19

on April 11, 2003 by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. On being

questioned about the theft of treasures from the National Museum of Iraq
by mere looters, even as highly equipped American soldiers and tanks stood
by, Rumsfeld responded, ‘Stuff happens.’3 In hindsight, that moment seemed
to distill the absence of any genuine understanding of or empathy for the
preservation of Iraq’s culture and cultural heritage, or even the most basic
readiness for the momentous task of occupation.
It is not the purview of this book to generalize about cases other than
Japan. Far more thorough and independent studies on these themes, and
on culture as an essential feature of recent occupational enterprises, are
needed – both the culture of the occupied lands and, no less urgently, the
culture of the occupying powers. But if my book can raise any interest in
how and why these thematics are so important, then I shall feel gratified.
Looking back at the American experience in Japan, it becomes clear
that unless a country, its culture, religion, history and society are deeply
understood and appreciated by individuals not on the sidelines but actually
embedded or at least influential in the occupation planning machinery, it is
hardly realistic to expect that cultural preservation can become a legitimate
military priority. No occupying force can justify or sustain the expenditure
of human capital and material resources for a cause that it, or its political
masters, neither understands nor considers paramount.

3 http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln&us_
occupation_of_iraq_tmln_general_topics=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_post_invasion_looting
 Introduction
Occupation is not war

America spent close to four years entangled with the Japanese in the
Pacif ic War. It was a brutal and bloody conflict. In total, some 1.75 mil-
lion military were killed on the Japanese side, more than 110,000 on the
American side. 1 The battle of Iwo Jima, a speck in the Pacif ic Ocean,
alone took more than 25,000 lives and left as many wounded. The atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed almost one in every three
citizens of each city.
Hatred and prejudices ran deep on both sides. Racial stereotyping
added further venom. Technological advances had given greater power
to propaganda machines, which became ferocious throughout the war.
Sophisticated tools in photography and mass media meant that not only
anti-American/anti-Japanese propaganda campaigns were far more ef-
ficient compared to wars of earlier times, they were also reaching vaster
numbers of the population, in ways that would have been inconceivable
in past battles.
Caution and distrust, before and in the early phases of the Occupation,
were constants. America’s civilian and military decision-makers neither liked
nor trusted Japan, seemingly even less so than they liked or trusted Germany.
Ernie Pyle, the legendary American journalist killed while covering the
Pacific War, wrote of the hatred the Americans cultivated for Japanese in
raw terms: ‘In Europe we felt that our enemies, horrible and deadly as they
were, were still people. But out here I soon gathered that the Japanese were
looked upon as something subhuman and repulsive; the way some people
feel about cockroaches or mice.’2 Such observations shock today, but they
were quite representative of the times.
The Americans, like the Japanese later, also expected the worst from the
other. In a flow of ‘Top Secret Directives’ prepared by the State-War-Navy
Coordinating Committee and signed by the secretaries from the three
branches, the fear of the Japanese is palpable, resulting in minute and
detailed considerations regarding every probable scenario and outcome
for an occupation. In a directive dated July 10, 1945, for example, one reads:

1 The Encyclopedia Britannica estimates the total number of Japanese dead during Pacific
War at two million, inclusive of civilians, but not including those who later died of starvation
and disease. Robert Harvey in his book gives the figure at three million.
2 Quote from Ernie Pyle, published in Brave Men, 2014 and in https://www.goodreads.com/
author/quotes/188592.Ernie_Pyle
22  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

The conditions which will bring about a Japanese collapse or surrender

and the situation which will exist at the time cannot be accurately fore-
seen. However, there does exist the definite possibility that a collapse
or surrender may occur any time prior to a total defeat. In order to be
prepared for this contingency, it is necessary that plans be made, based
on assumed conditions […].3

Another directive, this one issued shortly after surrender, on August 28,
1945, reads:

It should be recognized that the estimate of occupational forces required

[in Phase I and to some extent in Phase II] are based on being able to
counter acts of treachery and sabotage on the part of local Japanese.
Although there has been no indication to date that such acts are likely to
occur, it is considered prudent to be prepared for any contingencies until
such time as experience in the occupation of the first two or three positions
may warrant reduction in the estimate of forces required in these periods.4

There is an on-going myth that the Occupation of Japan was somehow easy
(presumably as compared to future occupations). It is at times implied that
the Japanese were rather willing and welcoming hosts of the occupiers, or
assumed that the GIs were all well-behaved and respectful towards the
occupied. In reality it was all extremely complex, full of hit-and-misses,
of failures as much as successes. In the immediate aftermath of defeat,
millions of soldiers of the Japanese Empire had returned from the war
front. Economic circumstances were dire beyond description and would
get worse throughout 1946. With no jobs and little dignity or respect from
their own compatriots, let alone the occupiers, there was no guarantee that
at any moment a group of desperate soldiers would not make a suicidal
attack against the American invaders, about whom horror stories had been
circulated relentlessly throughout the war years. The father of one of my
closest friends in Hiroshima, in 1945 a 22-year old demobilized soldier, had
vowed, probably like many others in the early stages of surrender, to murder

3 Joint War Plans Committee, a plan for the U.S. Occupation of strategic positions in the Far
East in the event of a Japanese collapse or surrender prior to ‘Olympic’ or ‘Coronet’ [code names
used for invasion of Japan], had estimated the possible time of collapse or surrender of Japan
as August 15, 1945 – which was to be the exact date of surrender (from Edgar A. Porter and Ran
Ying Porter, discussed September 2, 2015).
4 Joint War Plans Committee, Ultimate Occupation of Japan and Japanese Territory, J.W.P.C.
385/3 of August 28, 1945 (from Edgar A. Porter and Ran Ying Porter, discussed September 2, 2015).
Introduction 23

General MacArthur. Imprisoned by Japanese authorities in Hiroshima, he

was only brought to his senses by an old prison ward, who convinced him that
nothing could be achieved by such a foolish act. Thousands of angry young
men in Japan were in a similar frame of mind at the time. Most historians
now agree that had such actions been sparked, the Americans would have
needed hundreds of thousands more occupying forces.
Difficult decisions, such as whether or not to maintain the Emperor
system, or whether or not to keep the existing bureaucracy in place, had
been continuously debated in US decision-making circles from as early as
1942. The main consideration that ultimately weighed against the Emperor’s
indictment, for example, was that removing him could create such a vacuum,
unpredictability or possible chaos that the risks simply did not justify the
end – an enormously difficult decision to explain and defend for politicians
in 1945, considering that at the time more than 70% of the American popula-
tion wanted the Emperor of Japan arrested and punished as a war criminal.5
Similarly, the Occupation chose to work through the existing Japanese bu-
reaucracy, in hindsight a wise decision considering how few Americans knew
Japan well or spoke the language. This policy further forced the Japanese
government itself to take responsibility for the sensitive demilitarization
of millions of returning soldiers. That all this could unfold without violence
was a remarkable achievement, lulling many to think now, with the benefit
of hindsight, that it had been somehow easy to achieve.
Thomas Lifson also points out the high risks for chaos and violence,
especially in the early stages of the Occupation. He considers tendencies to
forget or underestimate the impact that such fears had on many political
decisions taken at the time at best uninformed, at worst dangerous:

5 The issue remains deeply controversial among both Japanese and Western scholars. In December
2014, Herbert P. Bix, author of ‘Hirohito and the making of modern Japan’ (HarperCollins, 2000)
penned an op-ed in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/opinion/hirohito-
string-puller-not-puppet.html challenging, again, the premise that the Emperor was merely a
puppet of the militarists. The philosopher Kato Norihiro made the same observation in another
op-ed a few weeks later on the occasion of the release of the Hirohito papers, http://www.nytimes.
com/2014/10/15/opinion/norihiro-kato-daring-to-ask-hirohito-about-his-role-in-WW2.html
An earlier assessment, by Sebastian Swain in Reflections on the Allied Occupation of Japan:
Democratization and the Evasion of War Responsibility: the Allied Occupations of Japan and
the Emperor, presented at the London School of Economics and Political Science in October
1999, argues that MacArthur’s decision to maintain the imperial institution in the chaotic
circumstances of late 1945 was wise, but questions the decision to protect the person of Hirohito
rather than pressing abdication in favor of a less tainted imperial family member, as was suggested
by even some members of the Emperor’s inner circles. Takemae (2002) reprises a similar position,
see especially pp. 519-520.
24  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

Occupation is never easy. Even the most successful of military occupa-

tions under the best possible circumstances have their troubles. This is
a factor to keep firmly in mind when considering the situations in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
The American occupation of Japan has to be counted as a spectacular
success – maybe the greatest success in the world’s history of occupations
– in retrospect […]. But at the time, it was often dicey. […] To be sure, there
were no insurgents flowing over the border because Japan is an island
nation. But the danger of a communist revolution was always regarded as
serious, all the more so after war broke out on the Korean Peninsula. There
was also a counter-force, the often shadowy remnants of militarist circles,
consisting of secret societies, purged officials and their confederates, and
those seeking to restore something like the pre-war regime.6

Looking at Japan today, it is also easy to forget how catastrophic its

economic and social conditions were at the time of unconditional sur-
render in August 1945. By then the country had been at war for almost
15 years, and the end result of its military follies was utter ruin. In the
f inal months of the conflict, more than 60 major cities had been heavily
f irebombed and two laid to nuclear waste. The number of civilian dead
and wounded was horrendously high, and the intensity of the suffering of
those who had survived indescribable. Though the Americans had spent
most of the war years preparing for its end, and for possible occupation,
in reality none had anticipated the magnitude of Japan’s devastation
nor the disarray of its people. Few foreign observers have conveyed the
scale of the tragedy as succinctly as the historian Marius Jansen, in the
opening pages of The Making of Modern Japan. Jansen writes how as part
of his military service he was dispatched to Okinawa, f inding there a
gentle people ‘stripped of everything except their dignity, dazed and
surprised to f ind themselves alive after the carnage of a battle that had
reduced their numbers by one-quarter’.7 John W. Dower describes how the
Americans were to confront ‘a populace that […] had undergone intense
“socialization for death”.’ 8 James A. Cogswell quotes for his part this
moving statement by one of the f irst Japanese speakers to the churches
of the United States:

6 Thomas Lifson, ‘The lessons of the occupation of Japan’, the American Thinker, posted August
22, 2007, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/the_lessons_of_the_occupation.html
7 Jansen (2000), p. xiii.
8 Dower (1999), p. 87.
Introduction 25

Everything in Japan is crushed, smashed, or diminished, spiritually and

materially. She has surrendered completely. She has no sovereignty at
present, has no diplomacy, no army, no navy, no steamers, no honor, no
pride, no confidence, no houses, no clothes, no food to live on. I do not
want to exaggerate the desperate conditions of Japan too much and give
you a misunderstanding – but I cannot give you false information.9

Yet, and in spite of such calamitous post-war conditions, when culture could
understandably have been of the least concern for leaders, there were those
Japanese and American alike still concerned about and committed to the
protection of Japan’s cultural heritage.
Neither was all lost in August 1945. Japan – in spite of the wreckage of
intense firebombing in the war’s final months – still had a significant number
of cultural treasures and institutions. Some 150 museums were in existence –
the buildings damaged or destroyed beyond hope but many of the collections,
especially those of the major museums, moved out to the countryside for
safekeeping, often thanks to the heroic efforts of staff and curators. Until
1943 and even throughout the war, the Ministry of Education had continued
designating cultural property, though thereafter it too focused all efforts
and resources on removal and safe storage.10 These artistic collections, as
well as temples, shrines, gardens and other treasures, now urgently needed
to be put under some protective measures if they were to escape damage
from what could be a just as catastrophic situation of post-war chaos.
Did the American Occupation have any direct influence on preserving
Japan’s cultural heritage in the immediate post-war years? Evidence suggests
that it did. To begin with, the very existence of a division within SCAP, one
devoted entirely to arts and monuments, was an extremely rare feature, not
seen so early or at such a scale in any American military occupation, before
Japan or since. That the group’s mandate visibly enjoyed the endorsement
of Washington, the senior leadership at SCAP, and the Japanese legislature
and executive (notably the Ministry of Education) was also telling. Finally,
and importantly, the fact that some of the Division’s advisors and staff were
already, or soon to become, prominent professionals in artistic and cultural
circles indicates that this Occupation may well have been a case all unto
its own. In the words of Geoffrey R. Scott:

9 James A. Cogswell, ‘The Occupation: A New Day in Japan’s Religious History’, in The Oc-
cupation of Japan: The Grass Roots, 1991, p. 37
10 Geoffrey R. Scott, ‘The Cultural Property Laws of Japan: Social, Political, and Legal Influences’,
Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal, 2003, p. 351.
26  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

This succession of distinguished scholars, the personal influences that

they shared, the empathy each had for the Japanese people and their art
as demonstrated by their vocational commitments and personal efforts,
and the unbroken intellectual lineage harkening back to Morse, Fenollosa,
and Okakura, was the vehicle through which the West in general, and the
United States in particular, significantly impacted the cultural property
perspectives of Japan.11

But it was definitely not easy, especially had there not been a clearly articu-
lated official policy by the War Department, to protect cultural property
and assets. Such a policy did exist however, and was promptly endorsed by
General MacArthur from the early moments of the Occupation. Without
this supportive framework, it is hard to imagine that a handful of staff at
A&M could help put in place protective measures, considering culture
would be at the lowest echelon of everyone’s pressing ‘to-do’ lists, both on
the American as well as the Japanese side. It helped that within the ranks of
the small A&M team, there were competent experts who possessed enough
diplomatic skills to work ably with the US military and with the Japanese
government. These Americans complemented perfectly the work of their
Japanese counterparts – prominent scholars in their own right who worked
as field representatives, examiners, interpreters or advisors to the Division.
These intertwined networks of expertise laid the foundations in the crucial
early months, so that Japan’s pre-war efforts at cultural property inventory
and protection systems were not only not lost but emerged even better and
stronger by 1950, despite unimaginably difficult post-war conditions.
There was, of course, an ideological, even philosophical, leitmotiv and context
to all this work. The word ‘democratization’ with regard to access to cultural
goods appears frequently in the internal documents of the A&M Division. When,
for example, the Imperial Household Agency of Japan acquiesced to an annual
two-week public opening of the famed Shōsō-in treasury in Nara – till then
off-limits to all except a selected few – this had been officially at the behest of
Japanese scholars but was implicitly and explicitly endorsed by the A&M, one
among many subtle influences and transformations introduced to the system.
In another instance and long before it became reality in the 1960s and 1970s,
there were tentative lists being studied by the A&M staff for creating a network
of public prefectural museums. While it is true that such developments could
have taken place anyway in later years, they certainly would not have happened
so soon had the Occupation ignored, or worse still, abused the defeated enemy’s

11 Scott (2003), p. 358.

Introduction 27

cultural property – we can well imagine the kinds of damages that could have
been inflicted. There emerges furthermore a certain convergence of ideas,
even solidarity, between the American and Japanese experts and scholars
towards similar goals for the protection and use of cultural assets. This was
an auspicious arrangement that, as Takemae has noted, occurred not only
in the Civil Information and Education Section (CIE), of which the Arts and
Monuments Division was a part, but across SCAP in general.

Japanese employees […] in some staff echelons, such as Legal Section and
Civil Information and Education Section (CIE) outnumbered Americans.
Most of these individuals, although occupying subordinate positions,
were not only highly qualified for the tasks they performed but firmly
committed to the ideals of reform. Serving as the eyes and ears of the staff
sections, Japanese […] were consulted daily on matters large and small.12

So it is possible to conclude that rather than any single person, policy or

project on its own, it was the accumulation of many factors that helped create
an effective ‘cultural policy’ at GHQ/SCAP, to the great benefit of Japan’s
cultural property and future generations. Beate Sirota Gordon, who had
grown up in Japan in the pre-war years and served from December 1945 to
May 1947 as the first civilian woman on MacArthur’s staff, has described in
these terms the continued post-war passion for Japanese art and culture – in
this case referring to music:

When the war ended and the Occupation forces arrived, the Japanese were
concerned mostly with keeping body and soul together. Nonetheless the
music schools which had been devastated by bombs started gathering
instruments […].13

Till the end of her life, Sirota Gordon retained her optimism about the
state of the Japanese arts and her faith in the power of culture in general.
She also remained convinced that the American Occupation had had a
positive influence on numerous aspects of Japanese society, including its
cultural institutions and heritage.14 At a symposium in Norfolk, she spoke
thus about the performing arts of Japan, words that may be equally apt for
much of this book’s arguments:

12 Takemae (2002), p. 141.

13 Sirota Gordon, Norfolk Symposium (1984), p. 137.
14 Interview with Sirota Gordon, January 2011, New York City.
28  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

The current state of the arts in Japan is excellent. Just as Japan is exporting
Toyotas and Minoltas and Hondas, Japan is sending to North America such
innovative groups as the off-beat Sankai Juku dance troupe, the theater
of Suzuki Tadashi, and the music of Takemitsu Toru, as well as Kabuki,
Bunraku and the Japanese classical dance and music. It is interesting to
note that many Americans are now studying Japanese arts both in the
United States and in Japan. Who would ever have predicted that there
would be a Shakuhachi school in New York with thirty pupils, with a
teacher who is an American? Who would ever have predicted that Queens
College or Wesleyan University would have a course in Japanese Koto?
Who would ever have thought that the most prestigious orchestra in
the United States would have a Japanese conductor? Who would ever
have thought that such universities as the University of Hawaii and
the University of Kansas would teach young Americans Kabuki acting
techniques? And so the seeds sown in the Occupation of Japan have borne
fruit. Not only have they brought the Japanese performing arts into the
forefront internationally, but they have made Americans appreciate and
respect the arts of what used to be an alien country.15

The American Occupation of Japan may have been a rare, even unique
example of a sustained effort to integrate cultural understanding into prior
thinking of and planning for an occupation, marked by a commitment to
cultural heritage protection from inception. It is fair to suggest that thereafter
almost every single case of a US-led occupation, or its reconstruction policies
in general – pre-, during and post-occupation – have underestimated or
outright ignored the intrinsic universal values and significance of national
and local cultures and cultural heritage. The price to pay has been steep,
for the occupied but also for the occupier.

15 Sirota Gordon, Norfolk Symposium (1984/1988), p. 138.

I Japan’s culture and cultural
institutions before the war
Bridges with the United States

More than 36 views of Mount Fuji

When it comes to culture, the commonly held belief seems to be that Japan
is somehow fundamentally different from most other countries in terms of
its ability to protect its traditions and cultural heritage.
Throughout its recorded history, more specifically from the time of the
emergence of a unified state in the Asuka/Nara periods, Japan has indeed
demonstrated a particular predisposition for creating, collecting, safeguard-
ing and recording a rich and diverse body of works and monuments in
almost every sector of the human arts and crafts. That these efforts were
undertaken in spite of continuous wars (except for the roughly two and a
half centuries of the peaceful Edo period) and the quasi permanence of
natural catastrophes renders them even more impressive.
The inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago further seem to share,
in spite of their long-warring feudal history and habits, some deeper
sensitivity to and appreciation of beauty. It is not easy to settle on any
single reason or argument for this particular characteristic. It could well
be due to the permanence of natural calamities across the land, which
has strengthened rather than weakened the desire to create beauty when
and where possible, given the impermanence of the present existence
– more poetically rendered as mono no aware. It could be the long and
narrow archipelago’s physical attributes and geography – its diversity and
stunning natural beauty, its abundance of forests, mountains, lakes and
rivers, its distinct four seasons.1 It could be due to the influence of the
island-nation mentality and the country’s relative isolation (including
from too direct foreign influences and attacks) yet physical proximity
to the two great ancient cultures of China and Korea. Or it could be a
result of the symbiosis of the Shinto religion, with its cult of and rever-
ence for nature and a certain dexterity for creating things, with the
ref ining inf luences of Buddhism – and the cohabitation of these two
belief systems in close proximity over many centuries. The particular

1 H. Paul Varley, Japanese Culture, University of Hawaii Press, 3rd edition 1984 (1973), p. 276.
30  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

talent of the Japanese for record-keeping, i.e. f inding myriad ways to

remember, register and bring back to life the lessons of the past, too,
must have exercised some form of influence. 2 Indeed, it is probably the
confluence of all of the above, and other factors yet unappreciated, that
have distilled to this degree so much artistic ability, as well as – and
this is important – a shared capacity for its appreciation, among even
ordinary Japanese.3
The Scottish missionary and scholar of China and Japan, W. Scott Morton,
has written that even though the Japanese may adopt – eagerly and with
open arms – new ideas, styles and fashions, they remain profoundly attached
to their own history and traditions, in just about every possible arena. The
uniqueness of Japan’s arts, according to Morton, lies in

[…] the thrilling effect of traditional forms upon modern art and design
[…] not susceptible of easy explanation, but […] felt and experienced
through a study of Japan’s cultural past. 4

Langdon Warner, the inimitable observer of the arts of Japan, distilled –

perceptively so for one that young (he was 25 at the time) – the intricacies
and the certain universality of the tea ceremony in a letter sent to his
father during the f irst year of his stay in Japan. Warner, critical of the
West’s tendency to take too seriously and ponderously the writings even
of his own sensei (teacher in Japanese) Okakura Tenshin in The Book
of Tea, nonetheless put his f inger on a unique feature of the Japanese
relationship with art and culture. Taking the example of an outside
import, i.e. the common tea (which had come from China during the
Tang era), and ref lecting upon the Japanese capacity to accumulate
and integrate outside cultural influences to create something entirely
new, specif ic to Japan and yet universal (in this case the tea ceremony),
Warner noted that:

2 Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior, University of Hawaii Press, 1976.
Sugiyama Lebra includes another dimension for a certain aesthetic sensibility, noting the work of
Ishida Eiichiro about ‘wet-rice agriculture’ of Japan as a distinct influence on its culture, versus
the Western culture influenced historically by its nomadic pastoralism (pp. 16-17).
3 Fosco Maraini and Eric Mosbacher Meeting With Japan: A Personal Introduction To Its People,
Their Culture And Their History’ The Viking Press, New York, 1960 (1959), p. 71.
4 W. Scott Morton, Japan – Its History and Culture, New York: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks, 1984,
p. 234.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 31

It is significant of the Japanese race that a comparatively small company

of poets and philosophers should have been able to find a way to the
Delectable Land [n.b. Tea Ceremony] which should appeal to so large a
number of their country-men.5

Of course, not all such refinements were the fare of ordinary Japanese, at
least not until the mid-Edo period. The fruits of culture in Japan, for a large
part of its history, had remained exclusive to the ruling classes. It was only
once education started to become accessible to commoners (from the late
Edo and especially Meiji periods onward) that a consistent and widespread
aspiration among ordinary Japanese for the finer aesthetic pleasures of life,
and a greater appreciation for objects of beauty, also arose.6 With this there
came too a certain ability and indeed affinity for learning the new – the
background and context to the openness of the Japanese to foreign art and
culture.7
Still, returning to our original question as to whether the Japanese are
uniquely talented in collectively protecting their cultural heritage – the
answer should probably be no. Japan, not unlike other countries, has been
vulnerable to waves of self-inflicted destruction of its cultural heritage – be
it in the name of progress and modernity, for sheer economic gain or simply
out of indifference and ignorance.
Since the Meiji era, for example, whenever there have not been enough
social, traditional or legal protections in place, much of the country’s built
heritage, important and exquisite, has been lost for good. Particularly
widespread in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the drive towards indus-
trialization and Westernization, the scale of destruction of cultural heritage
was huge, in some cases irreversible. A vast number of Japanese castles, for
example – symbols of feudal power perhaps but also gems of architecture

5 Theodore Bowie, Editor, Langdon Warner through his letters, Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 1966, p. 22.
6 Donald Keene and Shiba Ryotaro in Conversations, The People and Culture of Japan, JPIC,
2016 (Japanese original in 1972), p. 128. Shiba contends that historically the Japanese have been
far more forgiving of rulers whose sense of cultural aesthetics were advanced, even if they were
worthless statesmen ‘[…] we tend to value aesthetic heroes over political justice. We don’t look to
them for salvation, we just think they’re classy because they were very refined and could build great
tea rooms’.
7 In Klaus Antoni, Kokutai – Political Shintô from Early-Modern to Contemporary Japan,
Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen: Tobias-lib, 2016. This ability for learning the new has also
been seen as a negative tendency, to reproduce only the outward form of ideas, be they political,
religious or cultural. Thus according to Antoni, there was continuity and not any drastic break
between Edo, Meiji or modern times in Japanese political history, for example.
32  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

and design – were dismantled in the drive to abolish the fiefdoms and to
help establish the Meiji government’s authority and ambition to unify the
country.8 The same can be said of vast numbers of old towns and their
traditional architecture.
Further, while massive destruction of the built heritage took place during
the last months of the Pacific War, when most major cities were subjected to
carpet-bombing by the Americans, much of what was left was dismantled
after surrender, to be replaced by hastily built constructions. Initially desper-
ate post-war conditions, extreme poverty and a pressing need for shelter in
draconian housing circumstances made such a ‘build-however-wherever’
approach unavoidable. Yet laissez-faire habits of misconstruction somehow
persevered, carrying over into more prosperous times. In many cities it even
accelerated during the high economic development ‘bubble’ years of the 1970s
and 1980s. The damage to the country’s architectural heritage during these
years has been inestimable, yet some of these mindless building practices
continue unabated even today.9 Entire sections of Japan’s shitamachi, or
traditional downtowns, originally built in wood, were bulldozed across
the country after WWII, to make way for cheap housing or out-of-scale
high-rise complexes – a kind of haphazard destruction and construction
that has become the blight of numerous Japanese urban agglomerations
(and indeed many rural ones). For its part, the loss of much of the urban
fabric and architectural heritage of small and medium cities has been, but
for isolated patches, endemic and irreversible. Not even Kyoto, the nation’s
capital for almost 1000 years and today still the crown jewel of its cultural
icons (and which was not bombed during the war) has evaded the urban
destruction carried out in the name of development during the post-war and
the bubble economy: well into the 1980s, tens of thousands of traditional
wooden houses were still being dismantled in Kyoto with impunity, replaced
by constructions in cement, tin, plastic and mass-produced prefabricated

8 Today, only 12 castles out of hundreds intact till the Meiji era are assumed to be ‘original’.
Indeed, the Meiji government destroyed, to the everlasting chagrin of lovers of architecture
like this author, some 200 castles. On a positive note, however, the grounds were used for the
benefit of the general public – as well as for educational, cultural and military purposes. In some
prefectures – many of them the former samurai domains – the prefectural or municipal offices
were built on or close to castle sites. And today there is a movement across Japan to revive and
rebuild many of the old castles back in the original style (‘Castle ruins symbolize modern Japan’ by
Hitoshi Nakai, The Japan News, April 7, 2015). One lesson to retain is that if the historical, cultural
and social records and narratives are not lost or forgotten, cultural heritage can be revived.
9 The demolition of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in 1967, or the iconic lobby of the
Hotel Okura as recently as 2015, are quoted by the architectural conservation community as
signs of the general indifference to protecting heritage, including contemporary architecture.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 33

tiles.10 Gunter Nitschke, a German architect who has been involved in the
renewal of Kyoto’s old town, pointed out that:

Kyo-machiya (typical Kyoto town houses), which are disappearing at an

alarming rate, have so far received little attention in the movement to
protect historically valuable buildings. It is estimated that in the 18th
century 400,000 citizens of Kyoto lived in these beautiful structures.
Within the confines of Kyoto only three such townhouses have been
selected for preservation, one each by the national, prefectural and city
governments.11

What Japan has achieved for its cultural heritage protection, therefore, has
been the result not only of mystical or unique traits, habits, education, taste
or tradition, but also of the application of effective legal mechanisms and
practices, as we shall see later.12
The thematic is therefore vast and the broader context, even if it cannot
all be summed up in this book, should be kept in mind. Furthermore, to
fully understand the roots of Japan’s artistic treasures one must look not just
into its own past, but also at the influences of its two giant neighbors, Korea
and China. The impact of Buddhism on Japanese art and sensitivities has
been far-reaching, but Tang Dynasty China influenced Japan in more ways
than one. It was the model for much of the concept of ‘state’ in Japan, the
destination of choice for numerous large Japanese delegations and embassies
throughout the 8th and 9th centuries, and the urban and administrative
inspiration for its first great cities. The wealth of arts imported via the Silk
Road from further afield in Asia, thanks to collections such as the Shōsō-in,
in Nara, show the manner in which the Japanese adopted and adapted
not just artistic techniques and know-how, but at a very early stage also
mechanisms to care for heritage. Many studies have been conducted on
these origins, even if more could be done in a comparative context, studying
in parallel the trajectory of other Asian nations, for example.13

10 Alex Kerr, Dogs and Demons – Tales from the Dark Side, New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
11 Gunter Nitschke in http://www.kyotojournal.org/kyoto-notebook/urban-renewal-in-kyoto/
No 4., Fall 1987. Nitschke points out that in Kyoto only 384 buildings are currently protected as
cultural property (and therefore can receive government or local financial subsidies).
12 See also the writings of Kambayashi Tsunemichi of Ritsumeikan University.
13 As would any significant discussion of the influence of not just Shinto and Buddhist faiths
but also Confucian philosophy on the aesthetics of the Japanese people. For a more detailed
reflection, see the superb chapters on Kukai (Ch. VII) and the influence of Confucian scholars
Hayashi Razan and his descendants during the early and middle Tokugawa period as well as the
34  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

In this book I limit myself to the cultural heritage story of Japan from the
Edo period (1600-1868) onward, when ideas closer and more familiar to our
modern concepts of cultural heritage protection started taking shape. The
Edo period was a time of self-imposed isolation but also of great transforma-
tions and increased prosperity for commoners, and it profoundly changed
the practices of a feudal and still bitterly divided land. During those two
and a half centuries of relative peace, the notion of culture as a source of
leisure and education (and income) accessible to the masses, emerged.
Subsequently, the need for a more systematic approach to cultural heritage
designation and preservation also started garnering attention.
With the dawn of the Meiji period (1868-1912), fascination with things
Western turned into a national obsession. This was a source of concern to
some intellectuals, artists and art connoisseurs, Japanese and foreign, who
feared that the country would lose its traditional cultural heritage, and
they rallied to caution the government and the public about the need for
its protection. A few – most connected to one another and to one particular
institution, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts – were to become pillars of this
movement. They included Edward S. Morse, Ernest Fenollosa and especially
Okakura Tenshin, to name but the more prominent, leading figures in early
efforts to protect traditional cultural heritage in the face of a wholesale
adoption of things Western. It is in large part thanks to their foresight that
the groundwork for the precursors of cultural heritage laws in Japan started
taking shape as early as the 1870s.14
These pioneers of the cultural heritage movement also introduced to
the West the richness and depth of Japan’s traditional culture and crafts.
Their shared sense of mission, along with their friendships and professional
affinities, later inspired a new generation of scholars of the caliber of the

later movements for the amalgamation of Confucianism and Shintoism (Ch. XVI), in Sources
of Japanese Tradition, Vol. I, Tsunoda Ryūsaku, William Theodore De Bary and Donald Keene,
New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.
14 The 19th-century awakening of preservationists to the possible threats to Japan’s traditional
arts and crafts almost ran in parallel with the government’s feverish attempts to promote State
Shinto by downgrading Buddhism, in the process destroying thousands of Buddhist temples and
artifacts across the land (known as the haibutsu kishaku campaign). Ironically, this was also the
context and background to the passage of a first law for the protection of cultural heritage, in
1871. The law was further extended in 1919 to include monuments as well as historic and scenic
sites, in 1929 to include national treasures, and in 1933 to include artworks and also to lay the
foundations for the expanded 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. In short, one
can say that the spirit of the more recent cultural preservation laws was influenced by work done
in previous centuries, during the Edo era – putting Japan among the earliest countries to have
embarked on a path for a systematic approach to cataloguing and protecting cultural heritage.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 35

archeologist Landon Wagner, and laid the foundations of a legacy that would
survive the Pacific War and, as we shall see later, bear influence on circles of
decision-making in the United States before and during Japan’s Occupation.

Encounters with the West

Commodore Mathew Perry’s ships appeared in the waters near Edo (present-
day Tokyo), on a first four-day surprise visit in July 1853, then again for
a longer, and less friendly, stay in February 1854. At the time, Japan was
still a cohesive, though vulnerable and agitated, nation. The arrival of the
Black Ships was to unravel any remaining cohesion while intensifying the
vulnerability.
Perry and many of his retinue were convinced that in ‘opening’ Japan
to Western – or rather American – presence and trade, they were cracking
open a system entirely sealed off from the rest of the world, a nation in the
dark about modern scientific and technological advances.15 Perry was of
course misinformed and this perception misguided, ignoring prior influences
from Chinese, Korean and Russian traders, Portuguese missionaries, as well
as Dutch and other sea-faring country envoys, all of whom in one way or
another had cracked open the sakoku (closed country) policy of the Tokugawa
Shogunate. Indeed during the more than two and a half centuries of the
peaceful Edo period (as the Tokugawa reign was called), from 1600 onward,
ordinary Japanese in general and the merchant classes in particular had
been able to urbanize, gain access to literacy and gradually develop the
means, and the tastes, to enjoy and acquire all forms of cultural products.
Since the advent of the Tokugawa, there had developed a top-down spread
of culture – most of it sparked by broader access to education among the
population. Marius Jansen, the preeminent historian of the Meiji era, notes:

[…] the average samurai, poorly schooled and barely literate at the time of
Sekigahara (n.b. decisive battle of 1600), was enjoined by early shoguns and
lords to follow the path of letters as well as that of arms; urban life gave

15 The famed but insufficiently informed Commodore’s confusion about Japan was not limited
only to its history of foreign relations but extended to the political power structure and divided
roles between Edo and Kyoto. Perry and his men were quite unaware of Japanese power structures
and believed, throughout both missions, that they were/should be dealing with the Emperor,
only, as the supreme leader of Japan. The fact that it was the Shogun in Edo who held the reigns
of power was not clear to them (Visualizing Japan, MIT/Harvard MOOC with John W. Dower,
Andrew Gordon and Shigeru Miyagawa, September 3, 2014).
36  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

point to this, and by the end of the century most samurai had acquired
at least some literacy.16

Further, despite the formal sakoku policy, from the early 17th century, knowl-
edge of the outside world had flowed into Japan consistently, albeit slowly
and often secretively. This was done through the Chinese, Koreans, Russians
and later, more enduringly, the Dutch.17 Through the port of Nagasaki and
the small island of Deshima, the Tokugawa allowed the Dutch to establish
trade relations. The Dutch also became instructors to Japanese scholars
of Western science and technology, leading to the emergence of a special
class of scholars called the rangaku.18 This opening to Western learning,
that the Dutch traders almost inadvertently brought during the Edo era,
laid the foundations for Japan’s transformative later developments in the
realm of education and scientific knowledge.
It must be noted that from the point of view of the Tokugawa Shogunate
there were very compelling reasons to select the path of closure vis-à-vis
the West and impose the sakoku policy. Foremost among these was the
legitimate concern that some of the Christian envoys coming from Europe
were in reality forerunners, if not outright spies, of colonialism, aiming to
prepare the terrain for full-scale colonization as had been their practice and
indeed proven track record in other parts of Asia (and elsewhere). Also the
Tokugawa, originally the ruling daimyo of the Eastern provinces, had taken
good note of, and not forgiven, the machinations and support of Christian/
European powers for their enemies, the daimyo of the Western provinces,
who had lost the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 but who still resisted, or at
least resented, the overarching powers of the new Shogunate.19
As a result, draconian controls on open exchanges with the outside world
were set in place to protect the Shogunate’s power base. This policy did
delay Japan’s technological and industrial progress but from other, differ-
ing perspectives in ‘nation-building’, it also bore a number of advantages

16 Marius B. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2000 p. 159.
17 After Spanish missionaries and Portuguese traders a few decades earlier, the Dutch were
to become the only Westerners allowed to trade with Japan throughout the Edo period.
18 Rangaku from oranda – Japanese pronunciation of Holland, and gaku – learning, refers to
‘Dutch learning’.
See Ian Buruma, Inventing Japan, 1853-1964, New York: Modern Library/Chronicles Book, 2003,
pp. 14-17. Of course most of this commentary applies to Western countries, for throughout the
Edo there were continued exchanges with China and Korea.
19 Varley (1984), pp. 146-147.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 37

– advantages that are becoming more obvious with each passing decade. The
flourishing of an indigenous culture and accompanying cultural institutions
is one vivid example. Because this period of peace and relative isolation
continued for so long, it allowed for a real-time deepening, expansion and
overall flowering of an original, widespread and profoundly Japanese artistic
and cultural sensitivity. The Meiji or post-WWII periods may have been
just as dramatically transformative, but the pace of change then was far
more rapid, and the social upheavals induced more dramatic, such that the
effects may have acquired less staying power.
A second Tokugawa policy, central to any discussion about the develop-
ment of Japanese cultural traditions and institutions, was the sankin-koutai
system. As part of its efforts to control the feudal lords (daimyo), the Toku-
gawa Shogunate instigated an elaborate mechanism to force them to spend
alternate years away from their fiefdoms, in residence in Edo (where their
families also were to remain permanently as ‘hostage guests’). This arrange-
ment imposed on the daimyo the expenditure of vast amounts of time,
effort and money for the incessant and demanding back and forth travels
to the capital – resources they could no longer put to use for raising armies
against the Shogunate, were that to be their intention.20 Just as interestingly,
among the many indirect ramifications of the sankin-koutai was the birth
and rapid expansion of Japan’s road-building and travel, leisure and culture
industries, to a degree unparalleled in Asia at the time. The intricate system
and biannual expeditions of daimyo and their many retainers to and from
Edo greatly helped the advancement of a sophisticated network of post-
station towns and infrastructure, inns, commerce, entertainment, craft
and distinctive regional products. What today is rightly a pride of Japan, its
‘service industry’, certainly has its precursor in the sankin-koutai system.
Almost inadvertently, opportunities for travel among ordinary people –
mainly for purposes of pilgrimage, but increasingly for leisure and culture
as well – also arose, becoming another of the distinctive features of the Edo
period. Previously, the only kind of travel ordinary people were allowed to
undertake was limited strictly to pilgrimages to sacred shrines, like the Ise
Jingu or the Izumo Taisha.21 With the advent of the sankin-koutai system, the
situation started to change dramatically. In the words of Jansen, it brought
with it ‘momentous consequences for Japan’s future’ and was instrumental

20 Jansen (2000), pp. 128-134. How one wishes the same could be imposed on many an arms-
importing country today!
21 NHK BS premium, shin nihon fudoki on Matsuo Basho travels http://www.nhk.or.jp/
fudoki/141003broadcast1.html
38  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

in accentuating centralization and the further enhancement of cultural life

in the capital (and gradually in other large cities):

It fixed the attention of the ruling class on life at the capital; after the
first generation of feudal lords, daimyo were born in Edo and did not
visit their domains until they attained their majority. The system also
drained the economies of provinces in all parts of Japan. It required the
development of a system of national communications that did more to
unify the country than Ieyasu’s victory at Sekigahara. As commodities
of every sort were funneled to the center, regional economies grew to
cross domain political boundaries. The provision of materials needed
for life at the capital and transporting them there provided economic
opportunities for commoners, and as the merchant and artisan classes
grew in size and importance, a new popular culture emerged. Gradually
a national culture grew out of what had been provincial variants.22

As early as 1643, the concept of identifying nihon sankei (three places of

scenic beauty) had been established by the scholar Hayashi Gaho (Shunsai).23
That tradition, an early and informal precursor of the various cultural
property laws, came to include over time other categories such as rivers,
lakes, mountains, gardens, castles, night views (and even hot springs!). It
became hugely popular with ordinary people, prompting nationwide shared
interests and traditions, and leading to the birth of a veritable domestic
‘tourism industry’.24
The real engines for the growth of cultural and artistic activities in the
capital Edo, as well as in the major urban centers of the time such as Osaka
and Kyoto, were the newly prosperous merchant classes. Though delegated
to the bottom rank of the then four-class social system (samurai, farmer,
artisan and merchant), in reality the merchant class exercised great influence
on changing the social norms of the time. Accordingly,

The sustained peace of the Edo period (1600-1868) fostered the growth of
a money economy in which urban merchants prospered. Empowered by
wealth, they sidestepped the official class system to become the heroes

22 Jansen (2000), p. 128.

23 http://nihonsankei.jp/eng/index.html At least three generations of the fascinating Hayashi
family of Confucian scholars and their descendants would hold influence over the Tokugawa.
24 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Special_Places_of_Scenic_Beauty,_Special_His-
toric_Sites_and_Special_Natural_Monuments
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 39

and consumers of a vigorous, new form of popular culture that celebrated

worldly pleasures and rejected the austere warrior code. Although the
Samurai dismissed them as dandies and upstarts, the merchants were
often refined in their pursuit of sensuality and at their best achieved a
balance between earthiness and delicacy that makes the popular art
created by and for them seem fresh even today.25

To entertain these new urbanites, the Edo period saw the spread of many
popular performing arts – kabuki, kyogen, kagura and even noh – which
became widely accessible to the merchant classes in large cities. During
the Genroku years (1688-1704) – culturally and artistically maybe the
richest in the Edo period – great impetus was given to the flourishing of
almost every sector of the decorative and performing arts, with its fruits
in constant demand from the households of feudal lords, as well as from
those of wealthy merchants. The latter in particular had not only acquired
the appetite but just as importantly the resources to consume, patronize
or collect art in every possible form – print-making, painting, sculpture,
calligraphy, architecture, theater, music or poetry. The appearance of this
new and culturally avid bourgeoisie in turn prompted yet broader popular
interest in culture and travel, spurring the development of a domestic
infrastructure that facilitated the long-distance movements of ordinary
people, in groups or even individually.26 It is worth noting that all these
changes were occurring in parallel, and growing exponentially, in a virtuous
cycle. The Edo period thus saw the emergence of the foundations of cultural
heritage laws, museums, categories and rankings – and the stirrings of the
concept of a culture conceived for and accessible to the masses.

Cultural fruits and frictions of the Meiji Restoration: The Iwakura

Embassy

Much of Japan’s attempts at recognizing, reorganizing and even safeguarding

its cultural property has its origins in the Meiji era. Intense and decisive
efforts by Meiji leaders to emulate and promote Western systems and norms

25 Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1993, Tokyo: Kodansha, p. 321.

26 As a sign of the times, the publication of maps – in every imaginable scale and detail –
turned into a boom during the early Edo period already. Ordinary Japanese had access to an
unprecedented level of geographic information, compared to many of their counterparts in
other countries (Jansen 2000, p. 168).
40  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

was to thoroughly and rapidly change the mores of a still feudal society. In
a steep and stunning U-turn from sakoku, Japan’s national priorities shifted
dramatically, and the country started adopting, absorbing and adjusting
to changes that came about with the vast amounts of new knowledge and
information pouring in from the West – in technology, fashion, culture,
laws, architecture, education and governance. The speed with which these
changes were unfolding – led by a number of talented young men (and a rare
few young women), for the most part from former impoverished samurai
families – was extraordinary, and the scope huge.27
Thus after almost two and a half centuries of relative isolation, Japan
was suddenly thrust open in every imaginable sector of society to foreign
or, more precisely, Western influences. Advisors abounded: Germans were
called in to help reform the military, French to work on the constitution,
Americans to set up universities and improve agricultural practices, and
the British, in large numbers especially in the Nagasaki and Kobe areas, to
start trading companies and help with commerce and industry.28
Initiated already towards the f inal years of the Tokugawa and then
picking speed, scale and momentum immediately after the advent of the
Meiji Restoration, a number of ‘learning missions’ (in the style of the study
and information-gathering embassies sent to China during the Nara and
Heian periods) were dispatched to Europe and America. Enacted somewhat
hesitantly by the Shogunate during its sunset years, by the advent of the Meiji
period these missions acquired open ambition, enthusiasm and frequency.
The most prominent among them, one which set as its task a systematic
gathering of information about the workings of the national institutions
of the West through study and observations, was the Iwakura Embassy
(1871-1873). This 18-month tour of the United States and Europe, named after
head of delegation Iwakura Tomomi, included some of the most prominent
leaders of the Meiji Restoration, men of the calibre of Ito Hirobumi, Okubo
Toshimichi and Kido Takayoshi. In total some 50 diplomats, politicians,
historians and students – including five young girls – a majority of whom

27 Conversations with Nishikiori Akio, on Meiji breakthroughs in architecture and engineering,

October 6/7, 2015. Nishikiori believes that many of the daimyo families and former samurai,
no longer preoccupied with war and generally finding commerce distasteful, had turned their
attention to learning and education, and were encouraged in this by the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Almost 250 years of peace allowed for many such young samurai, especially those from smaller
domains, to be educated and consequently ready to swiftly take leadership roles at the outset
of the Meiji era.
28 Nassrine Azimi & Michel Wasserman, Last Boat to Yokohama, New York: Three Room Press,
2015.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 41

were setting foot outside Japan for the first time, partook in the historic
journey of discovery and learning.
Formally, the purpose of the Iwakura Embassy was ‘to pay goodwill
visits on behalf of the Emperor to the monarchs and heads of state of the 15
Western countries with which Japan had concluded treaties’.29 In reality, its
most important objectives were first, to renegotiate the unequal treaties and
second, to examine Western society at close range. The manner in which
the Iwakura Mission proceeded is a prime example of just how diligent and
single-minded Japanese leaders of the early Meiji era were about acquiring
Western institutions, science and technology, culture and norms. According
to Jansen,

Nothing distinguishes the Meiji period more than its disciplined search
for models that would be applicable for a Japan in the process of rebuild-
ing its institutions. The Tokugawa bakufu had, to be sure, begun this
process. Members of missions abroad spent increasing amounts of time in
observation while carrying precedents in world history for Japan’s decision
to send its government – fifty high officials – accompanied by as many
students and high-born tourists, to the Western world on a journey that
kept them away from their jobs for a year and ten months from 1871 to
1973. That Japan did so was remarkable, and that the travelers returned
to find their jobs waiting for them is more remarkable still.30

The impact of missions such as the Iwakura was huge and their influence
in almost every sphere of Japanese life lasting. In the realm of culture
per se the leap towards the West brought with it staggering new develop-
ments, including the creation of national cultural institutions and heritage
preservation laws. Though Western concepts of collections and museums
had actually started taking root in Japan during the late Edo era thanks in
part to interactions with the Dutch, such efforts at collecting and organizing
increasingly accelerated after the Meiji Restoration as part of the educational
aspirations of its young leaders. The Iwakura Embassy was to often note
with admiration throughout its travels how Americans and Europeans
had opportunities to educate themselves through their museums and
libraries.31 The transcripts of Kume Kunitake, scribe of the delegation, make
clear how visits to museums came to hold a special place for the Embassy.

29 Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, pp. 640-641.

30 Jansen (2000), p. 355.
31 Varley (1984), p. 207.
42  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

When visiting the British Museum in September 1872, for example, Kume’s
entry reflects the early Meiji intellectuals’ understanding of the potential
of museums, and for such museums to become direct repositories of a
nation’s identity:

When one looks at the objects displayed in its museums, the sequence of
stages of civilization through which a country has passed are immediately
apparent to the eye and are apprehended directly by the mind.32

The politician and reformer Kido Takayoshi, another member of the Embassy,
visited as many museums as he possibly could too. He also inspected schools
and universities, attended the theater and the opera, and even went to
circuses and horse shows. His dedication and stamina to see, understand and
learn were impressive: Kido was after all one of the handful of top Restoration
leaders, held in great esteem by his countrymen – yet he showed few qualms
about putting himself in the position of a mere student throughout the trip
(this kind of studious diligence was common among the early leaders of the
Restoration). Kido wrote in his diary that he was particularly impressed with
memorials, historical archives and collections, often expressing admiration
for the capacity of the West to educate itself, and to invest time and capital to
mark events and individuals of importance.33 The Iwakura Embassy visited
museums at almost every stop, and in 1873 its members toured the Vienna
International Exposition, the first such event in which the Meiji government
was officially participating.34 It is stunning to think that barely five years
after the tumults of the Restoration, the young government could set up
such an impressive display of uniquely Japanese cultural and traditional
items, and at such a high-profile international gathering.35

32 The Kume Diaries, Tokumei Zenken Taishi O-Bei Kairan Jikki (True account of a journey of
observation through the United States and Europe) henceforth called jikki – in Takii Kazuhiro,
The Meiji Constitution, Tokyo: International House of Japan Press, 2007, pp. 27-35. And also in
London Review of Books, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n08/matthew-fraleigh/glittering-cities of
Japan Rising: The Iwakura Embassy to the USA and Europe by Kume Kunitake, edited by Chushichi
Tsuzuki and R. Jules Young, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
33 Kido Takayoshi, The Diary of Kido Takayoshi, Vol. II, pp. xxx-xxxii translated by Sidney
Devere Brown and Akiko Hirota, Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press 1985.
34 There had been Japanese art and items displayed abroad during the Tokugawa, but these
were mostly from collections by foreigners or relatively small initiatives. The most significant
international artistic event priori to the Meiji era was Japan’s participation in the 1967 Universal
Exhibition in Paris, which launched the wave of ‘Japonisme’ in the West.
35 Including, based on the recommendation of the government’s advisors, a classical Japanese
garden and even a Shinto shrine. http://www.ndl.go.jp/exposition/e/s1/1873-2.html
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 43

Thanks to the Iwakura and similar missions, Japan could therefore closely
observe, and later replicate, Western cultural institutions. In the early Meiji
years already numerous such institutions, many modeled after Western
counterparts, were built. The success of Meiji leaders in building large mu-
seums was the more impressive in that it imposed enormous technological
challenges and expenditures on a very young, fragile government. However,
it also excited the genius and drive of Japanese artists, scholars, bureaucrats,
engineers and, especially, architects (including foreign architects working
in Japan, like the British Josiah Condor). The scale of some of these national
and public institutions of culture, notably the three great museums in
Tokyo (1882), Nara (1889) and Kyoto (1897), as well as the speed of their
construction – all completed before the end of the century – was simply
breathtaking:

The masterminds behind museum construction are, of course, the archi-

tects. Besides Josiah Conder […] his pupil Katayama Tôkuma (1854-1917)
who oversaw the major buildings of the Imperial Museums project as state
architect for the Imperial Household. Fellow architect Mamizu Hideo
(1866-1938) who also enjoyed a prolific career as an architecture critic
conveys the vitality of the field in Meiji Japan. Influential voices in the
Meiji period, Okakura Kakuzô (1862-1913) and Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908)
need no introduction, except to elucidate the lesser-known ways in which
they participated in the development of the Imperial Museums.36

Building the national museums in particular had required the talents

of a new breed of architects, but also those of an extraordinary number
of ‘carpenters, stone masons, bricklayers, roof layers, plasterers, metal
smiths’ and practitioners of other crafts. These artisans and engineers
were obliged to learn fast – dealing along the way with issues such as the
unfamiliar Western-style buildings’ scale and design, adopting and adapting
new technologies for cooling and heating for the protection of works of
art, experimenting with new methods of earthquake resistance for large
stone constructions.37 The establishment of the national institutions of
culture and learning also greatly affected the public, which visited these

36 Claire Cuccio in the Museum Anthology Review, of The Imperial Museums of Meiji Japan:
Architecture and the Art of the Nation by Alice Y. Tseng, University of Washington Press, Seattle,
2008.
http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/view/452/551
37 Tseng (2008) as reviewed by Cuccio
http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/article/view/452/551
44  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

new and alien spaces for art and culture en masse, and adopted them
wholeheartedly.38
As we shall see later, these transformational and rapid strides also alarmed
quite a few Japanese scholars and artists early on, who perceived the exces-
sive focus on Western culture at the expense of Japan’s own traditional arts
and crafts as a threat to the nation’s identity. Gradually, however, a kind of
compromise was reached between the promoters of radical Westernization
and the traditionalists (both these groups had their foreign supporters). In
1889, a learned committee with the prominent Okakura Tenshin (of whom
more will be said later) as chairman of its board of directors, was formed to
carry out ‘a large-scale survey of the historical and artistic merits of over
two-hundred-thousand works of art from shrines and temples across Japan
[…] in the public interest of preservation and exhibition’.39 The Committee
was also tasked with deciding which of these treasures should be added to
and exhibited in the imperial museums in Nara and Kyoto. Throughout these
early efforts to safeguard Japan’s cultural heritage, a number of dedicated
foreigners were becoming increasingly engaged in the debates.

Indispensable friendships at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Meiji era policymakers did not merely promote the dispatch of delegations
like the Iwakura Embassy to learn from Western institutions of education
and culture, they also actively invited numerous Western experts and
educators to Japan. Despite Japan’s limited history of and experience in
cooperation beyond its own frontiers in the realm of cultural heritage,
exchanges with the West progressed at a remarkable speed. Connections
were not just institutional either – the Meiji era was to foster the development
of deep and ultimately indispensable personal friendships between many
Western (specially American) and Japanese scholars of art. As we shall
see, these friendships and influences in the realm of culture continued to
reverberate all the way to WWII and beyond, well into the Occupation and
post-Occupation years. 40
Among those Americans who early on engaged in cultural exchanges
between Japan and the United States, one pioneering – and surprising

38 For more information on this history, see the Kyoto National Museum website
http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/dictio/kenchiku/kyohaku.html
39 Kyoto National Museum http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/eng/dictio/kenchiku/kyohaku.html
40 In this long narrative, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was to play a distinct role.
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 45

– advocate was Edward Sylvester Morse (1838-1925). Surprising because

Morse specialized neither in culture nor in Japan – but was rather a self-
taught zoologist by profession – though he had, ever the Renaissance Man,
also dabbed in ethnology, archeology and art history! He first came to Japan
in 1877, one of many Western travelers prone to undertake the journey in
those early days of enthusiasm for ‘Japan tourism’. His primary objective
in visiting, however, had not been tourism but the conduct of research on
obscure marine invertebrates called Brachiopoda, and he was soon kept
busy with this work at a small laboratory in picturesque Enoshima, near
Kamakura. It was during this period that he was asked to lecture – and
subsequently invited to teach zoology – at the newly established Tokyo
Imperial University, where he continued his teaching and research until
1880. 41
Considering how little contact Morse had had with Japan prior to this
first visit, his accomplishments, his lasting and eclectic love for Japanese
art, and most particularly his influence on other scholars and institutions
in New England with connections to Japan, proved remarkable. Not only
did he become fully engaged in research with Japanese collaborators in
his own field of zoology, but he also travelled the country extensively with
friends and colleagues, studying Japanese pottery, tea ceremony and noh
theater, writing a reference book on Japanese homes and architecture, and
even assisting with the establishment of the collections of the Imperial
Museum. 42 About his discovery trips around Japan and his companions
therein, it has been noted:

Morse went on four trips through Japan, to Nikkō in 1877 […] to Hokkaidō
in 1878 […], to the Inland Sea and Kyūshū in 1879, and to Kyōto and the
Inland Sea in 1882 (with W.S. Bigelow and E. Fenollosa). Besides collecting
specimens for his zoological and anthropological research, the research
in the prehistory of Japan was always one of his main concerns during
these journeys. 43

Morse’s contributions to America’s understanding of Japanese art and culture

proved impressive and lasting. A prolific writer and lecturer, upon returning

41 L.O. Howard, Biographical Memoir of Edward Sylvester Morse, 1838-1925, Washington, DC: U.S.
National Academy of Sciences, pp.10-12, http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-
memoirs/memoir-pdfs/morse-edward.pdf
42 Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, p. 1008.
43 Introduction to Morse’s essays in the Bulletin of the Society for East Asian Archeology, in
http://www.seaa-web.org/bul-rep-00a.htm
46  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

to Boston he would give numerous public talks, sharing his passion for
and knowledge of Japanese life, arts and artifacts with fellow Bostonians.
Later, he became the director of the Peabody Academy – today the Peabody
Essex Museum – and helped with the creation of the Asian collections at
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 44
Throughout this productive and multifaceted career, Morse acquired
many students, colleagues and protégés. Ernest Fenollosa, with whom he
would later do fieldwork in Japan, was one of them and he went on to become
a prominent figure in preservation movements for Japanese traditional arts
(it should be noted that Morse’s invitation letter to Fenollosa on behalf of
the Tokyo Imperial University had been a public and general call for applica-
tions, and not directed to any individual lecturer specifically). For his part,
Fenollosa would later play an instrumental role in shaping or influencing
key figures in the Japanese cultural preservation circles, including Okakura
Tenshin and Langdon Warner.45

Ernest Fenollosa – the Boston-Japan bridge

Writer, poet, curator, teacher, activist and collector Ernest Fenollosa (1853-
1908) deserves far greater recognition than he has received in any narrative
of Japan’s early cultural preservation movements. Somewhat forgotten in
the West today, he is surely – alongside Morse, Okakura and Warner – a
key figure in the history of modern Japan’s artistic legacy and among those
closely associated with the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the institution
which was to play such a prominent role in Japanese art preservation efforts
in America (as well as in Japan). Fenollosa’s passion for the arts of Japan
propelled him to a position of influence, and he used this perch to raise
American popular awareness of and interest in Japan. His lasting friendships
with towering figures such as Okakura and his mentorship of students like
Warner would further ensure that his legacy could be continued, including
during the Occupation itself. 46

44 https://peabody.harvard.edu/node/171
45 Lecture to the US-Japan Friendship Association of Hiroshima, October 8, 2013. In the talk
I referred to the connections that transcended generations ‘from Edward Morse to Fenollosa;
From Fenollosa to Okakura; From Okakura to Langdon; From Langdon to […] today to Joe Price,
whose magnificent collection of Japanese Art just finished a tour of the Tohoku region, closing
at the Fukushima Prefectural Museum.’
46 Kuniko Yamada McVey, Japanese Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library, November 27,
2015 workshop of Japan Art Librarians, Current Status of and Challenges faced by Libraries for
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 47

In response to the invitation by the Tokyo Imperial University, Fenollosa

arrived in Japan in 1878, at first solely to teach philosophy and political
economy. Very quickly, however, he became an ardent admirer and vocal
advocate of the Japanese traditional arts, at a time when under the young
Meiji government itself Japanese interests and efforts were almost entirely
directed at the acquisition of Western art and culture. Fenollosa shared the
feelings of those who thought that the artistic and traditional treasures of
Japan were being squandered, and joined their ranks in calling for greater
efforts by the government to protect and preserve the traditional arts,
and to introduce and exhibit these more readily to the general public. 47
Though new to Japan, he was able to acquire a high public profile rapidly,
and was frequently invited to give lectures on traditional cultural treasures.
Alongside his colleague Okakura Tenshin, he conducted one of the first
inventories of Japanese national treasures, during which they visited shrines,
temples and gardens, in particular in and around Kyoto and Nara. 48 In
1886 he accompanied Tenshin to Europe and America, to learn of Western
experiences that could be of relevance to Japan’s preservation movement.
Despite these worthy contributions to cultural heritage preservation
efforts in Japan (he was also involved with the founding of the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts), to some, Fenollosa’s legacy remains mixed. He was undeniably
ahead of his times and a welcome presence in Meiji Japan: a learned and
respected foreign advocate in preservation circles whose calls for greater
efforts by the government to safeguard national and traditional treasures
were often heeded. On the other hand, along with his friends and fellow
Bostonians William Sturgis Bigelow and Charles Goddard Weld, Fenollosa
himself was to amass a large (and superb) collection of Japanese art which
he sent back to Boston (these were later donated to the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts). 49 There are those who criticize and challenge Fenollosa’s legacy

Japanese Study in North America: Approach to Audiovisual Materials, p. 6. http://www.momat.

go.jp/am/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/04/J2015_560.pdf
47 Donald Keene and Shiba Ryotaro (1972/2016), p. 121. Keene recounts the incident of a foreign
missionary visiting Kyoto and being approached by a monk from Chion-in Temple with a
proposal to sell its bell. Whether the story is fact or fiction, Keene’s point is that: ‘There wasn’t
much appreciation for Japanese antiquities back then. In that era everyone was in love with
new things from the West. Fenollosa wanted to teach the Japanese the value of their artwork.’
48 http://artdaily.com/news/54286/Japanese-Masterpieces-From-The-Museum-of-Fine-Arts-
in-Boston-travel-to-Tokyo Retrieved October 24, 2014. It was said that this work also led to the
discovery of ancient Chinese scrolls brought to Japan by traveling Zen monks centuries earlier.
49 The three Bostonians would meet in Japan in the 1880s and later join forces often to promote
and collect Japanese art. Both Bigelow and Weld were from wealthy families and trained as
physicians. For both, the love of Japan and Japanese art were accidental developments – in the
48  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

by today’s standards, pointing to this inherent contradiction between his

preservationist statements and his instincts and actions as a collector.
On balance though, Fenollosa’s work contributed to a real awareness of
and consequent moderation in the Japanese art world’s obsession with all
things Western. It helped the emergence of a domestic cultural preservation
movement that was to later flourish fully under Tenshin. And in spite of some
justified criticisms about his collecting practices, thanks to the objects he
brought back, he was able to prompt a deeper and broader understanding of
and appreciation for Japanese arts in 19th century America. Upon returning
to Boston, he became curator of the Department of Oriental Art at the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts (where he would later be replaced by Okakura) and was
asked to organize the Japanese pavilion for the 1893 Columbian Exposition
in Chicago. His erudition and passion throughout this event were to make
a marked impact, as ‘millions of visitors became aware of the treasures to
be found across the Pacific Ocean.’50
In 1897 Fenollosa once more returned to Japan, this time to teach English
literature at the Imperial Normal School in Tokyo. He had sold his precious
art collection to Charles Goddard Weld in the meantime, on condition that
it be donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). After his death,
his will was executed and this collection helped establish at the MFA one
of the world’s best Japanese art collections outside of Japan, one which was
to provide a fertile training ground for many future Arts and Monuments
staff of SCAP.51
Fenollosa’s work in heritage preservation in Japan, too, proved presci-
ent. He had rightly cautioned against the negative effects of a wholesale
embrace of everything Western at the expense of the East’s own traditions.
He had been among the first to articulate the possibility that such a trend,
unchecked, could even result in grave social and political upheavals. His
contributions to the debate about the place of art and culture in enhancing
or alienating feelings of belonging and strengthening a sense of identity,
directly and indirectly essential to any ‘occupational project,’ remain valid
and deeply pertinent.

case of Bigelow as a flight away from a domineering father, and in the case of Weld the result of a fire
that destroyed his sailboat as he was traveling around the world and stranded him in Yokohama.
50 See Yale Library http://brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/orient/fenell.htm
51 For all his contributions, Fenollosa was decorated by the Emperor of Japan in 1909 with
the Third Order of the Rising Sun. After his death, his wife compiled the two-volume Epochs
of Chinese and Japanese Art from his notes (1912). The poet Ezra Pound, with the help of the
translator Arthur Waley and the poet William Butler Yeats, also published from Fenollosa’s
manuscripts and his own notes the Certain Noble Plays of Japan (1916).
Japan’s culture and cultur al institutions before the war 49

Okakura Tenshin – Teacher and Mentor52

In Japan’s history of cultural heritage protection, Okakura Tenshin (1862-1913)

is a larger-than-life presence, one whose long-lasting influence is due far
more to his visionary ideas about art and culture, than to any particular
artistic talents. A public intellectual, art critic, philosopher, teacher, painter,
essayist and author of classics such as The Ideals of the East and The Book
of Tea, Tenshin was a multi-talented, and in many ways uniquely original,
individual. His The Book of Tea introduced the realm of the tea ceremony
and some of its underpinning philosophy in an easy to understand manner
to the English-speaking world (even though he was certainly not, nor ever
considered himself, a tea master). He was also friend and mentor to numerous
young scholars, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, who were to become
devoted to him for life (one such devotee was Langdon Warner, who always
referred to Tenshin as his ‘sensei’ or teacher). He later became something of
a cultural advisor to art patrons, through whom he helped build a bridge
to the community of collectors in America.53
Thus as early as the 1870s, in the midst of the Westernization fever that
had gripped Japan, Tenshin became a leading figure among intellectuals
and artists increasingly alarmed by the loss of the country’s traditional
arts. The group, while welcoming new ideas and techniques from the West,
advocated, in the words of Tenshin, ‘a strong re-nationalizing of Japanese art
in opposition to that pseudo-Europeanizing tendency now so fashionable
throughout the East’.54 Just as significantly, they were among the first to
articulate the need for some form of legal protection of cultural heritage
– early advocacy work that makes Tenshin something of a spiritual father
for cultural property laws of Japan.55
Tenshin’s vision was not confined to his own country, nor even to the
realms of culture and the arts exclusively. As Westernized as he was himself,
and as open to new ideas, Tenshin was part of a 19th-century movement of
intellectuals across Asia seeking an identity that would not imply rejection
of their own past or a slavish adoption of all things Western. His Asia is One

52 Like many others during this era, Okakura Tenshin went by a number of names. In this
study he is referred either in full (Okakura Tenshin) or Tenshin (sometimes Kakuzo): like many
Japanese artists he was frequently called by his given name, Tenshin, even if in Western circles
Okakura is more common.
53 Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1964 (originally 1906).
54 Okakura Kakuzo, from Introduction to The Ideals of the East, Tokyo: Tuttle publishers, 1970
(originally 1904), p. xii.
55 Scott (2003), pp. 338-346.
50  The United States and Cultur al Heritage Protection in Japan (1945-1952)

statement, used and abused by Japanese militarists in the 1930s, was actually
an expression of the longings of many across the continent at the time, for an
Asia able to resist the cultural dominance, colonial appetites and military
aggressions of the West. This movement, seeking to find elements that would
unite rather than divide Asia – an ‘Asia bound by culture’ as noted by the
Indian scholar Brij Tankha – was therefore lodged in the context of a much
larger national, intellectual and spiritual quest, one that would include giant
figures of the likes of Gandhi, Tagore and Sun Yat-sen.56
Tenshin was born and raised in Yokohama by a businessman father, who
was keen for his offspring to master English. Consequently he attended
a Christian school where the curriculum was dominated by English (his
English was said to be better than his Japanese). He met Ernest Fenollosa
in the late 1870s while the latter was teaching at Tokyo Imperial University.
This encounter, and their subsequent collaboration, turned into a significant
milestone for efforts in, and a rethinking of, cultural heritage protection in
Japan. Together the two like-minded scholars visited temples, shrines, gardens
and collections across the country, in particular in the Kyoto and Nara areas
and, in 1886, travelled to Europe and America to research preservation move-
ments in Europe and to draw possible lessons for similar efforts in Japan.57
In 1905, Tenshin was named advisor for the Chinese and Japanese Art
Department at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts where he later became assistant
curator. The move to Boston – he had been assigned to the post previously
held by Fenollosa – and the connections he eventually made there, including
with enlightened and wealthy collectors such as the millionaire Isabella
Stewart Gardner, proved portentous.58 Thanks to Tenshin’s advice and
expertise, Gardner had developed a deep interest in Japanese art, and she
went on to purchase magnificent pieces for her collection. But even more
importantly, she brought public attention to the cultural preservation causes
then being championed by Fenollosa and Tenshin.59 Having a patron of
Gardner’s stature, wealth and social prominence further influenced and

56 Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. II, Tsunoda Ryūsaku, William Theodore De Bary and
Donald Keene, New York: Columbia University Press, 1958, pp. 396-398. Most of these public
intellectuals were born in the latter half of the 19th century, and their pan-Asianism was not just
cultural but ran in parallel with national constitutional movements across the continent – for
example in Iran from 1905, and in Turkey from 1908. Jawaharlal Nehru’s Non-Aligned Movement
was part of this same lineage.
57 Tenshin Memorial Museum of Art, Ibaraki http://www.tenshin.museum.ibk.ed.jp/07_eng-
lish/03_tenshin.html
58 Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia pp. 1136-1137.
59 Visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, August 30, 2014.
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VOLUME 34, NO. 3, MARCH, 1880 ***
Vol. XXXIV. No. 3.

THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

“To the Poor the Gospel is Preached.”

MARCH, 1880.
 CONTENTS:

EDITORIAL.

Paragraphs 65
Zeal for Study 66
Tropical Africa 67
The Negro in America and Africa 69
Dr. Blyden on the American Missionary Society 70
Rev. Chas. B. Venning—Items from the Field 71
African Notes 73

THE FREEDMEN.

At Talladega: Rev. J. E. Roy, D. D. 74

North Carolina—McLeansville School 75
South Carolina, Charleston—Church and School Work—Cause of the
Exodus 76
Georgia —Report of Board of Commissioners on Atlanta University 78
Alabama, Talladega—Why he likes it: Rev. H. S. DeForrest 79
Alabama, Athens—Building Progress—Missionary Spirit 80
Mississippi, Tougaloo—Student-Conversions—Crowded Rooms 81
Tennessee, Memphis—School work and Week of Prayer 82
Texas—Two Hours’ Work by Student Canvasser 82

THE INDIANS.

An Indian Boy’s Letter 83

THE CHINESE.

Anniversary at Sacramento 85

CHILDREN’S PAGE.

How to make Money for the Missionaries 87

RECEIPTS 88
Constitution 93
Aim, Statistics, Wants 94
 NEW YORK.

Published by the American Missionary Association,

Rooms, 56 Reade Street.

Price, 50 Cents a Year, in advance.

Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as second-class matter.
 American Missionary Association,
56 READE STREET, N. Y.

PRESIDENT.

Hon. E. S. TOBEY, Boston.

VICE-PRESIDENTS.

Hon. F. D. Parish, Ohio. Rev. J. H. Fairchild, D. D., Ohio.

Hon. E. D. Holton, Wis. Rev. H. A. Stimson, Minn.
Hon. William Claflin, Mass. Rev. J. W. Strong, D. D., Minn.
Andrew Lester, Esq., N. Y. Rev. A. L. Stone, D. D., California.
Rev. Stephen Thurston, D. D., Me. Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D., Oregon.
Rev. Samuel Harris, D. D., Ct. Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., D. C.
Wm. C. Chapin, Esq., R. I. Rev. A. L. Chapin, D. D., Wis.
Rev. W. T. Eustis, D. D., Mass. S. D. Smith, Esq., Mass.
Hon. A. C. Barstow, R. I. Peter Smith, Esq., Mass.
Rev. Thatcher Thayer, D. D., R. I. Dea. John C. Whitin, Mass.
Rev. Ray Palmer, D. D., N. J. Hon. J. B. Grinnell, Iowa.
Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D., N. Y. Rev. Wm. T. Carr, Ct.
Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., Ill. Rev. Horace Winslow, Ct.
Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., D. C. Sir Peter Coats, Scotland.
Hon. Seymour Straight, La. Rev. Henry Allon, D. D., London, Eng.
Horace Hallock, Esq., Mich. Wm. E. Whiting, Esq., N. Y.
Rev. Cyrus W. Wallace, D. D., N. H. J. M. Pinkerton, Esq., Mass.
Rev. Edward Hawes, D. D., Ct. E. a. Graves, Esq., N. J.
Douglas Putnam, Esq., Ohio. Rev. F. A. Noble, D. D., Ill.
Hon. Thaddeus Fairbanks, Vt. Daniel Hand, Esq., Ct.
Samuel D. Porter, Esq., N. Y. A. L. Williston, Esq., Mass.
Rev. M. M. G. Dana, D. D., Minn. Rev. A. F. Beard, D. D., N. Y.
Rev. H. W. Beecher, N. Y. Frederick Billings, Esq., Vt.
Gen. O. O. Howard, Oregon. Joseph Carpenter, Esq., R. I.
Rev. G. F. Magoun, D. D., Iowa. Rev. E. P. Goodwin, D. D., Ill.
Col. C. G. Hammond, Ill. Rev. C. L. Goodell, D. D., Mo.
Edward Spaulding, M. D., N. H. J. W. Scoville, Esq., Ill.
David Ripley, Esq., N. J. E. W. Blatchford, Esq., Ill.
Rev. Wm. M. Barbour, D. D., Ct. C. D. Talcott, Esq., Ct.
Rev. W. L. Gage, D. D., Ct. Rev. John K. Mclean, D. D., Cal.
A. S. Hatch, Esq., N. Y. Rev. Richard Cordley, D. D., Kansas.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.
 Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, D. D., 56 Reade Street, N. Y.

DISTRICT SECRETARIES.

Rev. C. L. WOODWORTH, Boston.

Rev. G. D. PIKE, New York.
Rev. JAS. POWELL, Chicago.

H. W. HUBBARD, Esq., Treasurer, N. Y.

Rev. M. E. STRIEBY, Recording Secretary.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

Alonzo S. Ball, C. T. Christensen, Samuel Holmes, Wm. T. Pratt,

A. S. Barnes, Clinton B. Fisk, Charles A. Hull, J. A. Shoudy,
Geo. M. Boynton, Addison P. Foster, Edgar Ketchum, John H. Washburn,
Wm. B. Brown, S. B. Halliday, Chas. L. Mead, G. B. Willcox.
COMMUNICATIONS

relating to the work of the Association may be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary;
those relating to the collecting fields to the District Secretaries; letters for the Editor of the
“American Missionary,” to Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, at the New York Office.
DONATIONS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
may be sent to H. W. Hubbard, Treasurer, 56 Reade Street, New York, or when more
convenient, to either of the Branch Offices, 21 Congregational House, Boston, Mass., or
112 West Washington Street, Chicago, Ill. A payment of thirty dollars at one time
constitutes a Life Member.
 THE
AMERICAN MISSIONARY.
Vol. XXXIV. MARCH, 1880. No. 3.

American Missionary Association.

We are glad to be able to announce the safe arrival of Prof. Chase at Sierra Leone, about
the 8th of January, and hope before our next issue to receive valuable advices from him.

We call attention to the Thirty-third Annual Report of the Association, recently published. In
addition to the general survey which was read at the Annual Meeting at Chicago, and the
minutes of that grand gathering, we have given, as usual, a detailed report of our work,
and we suggest to pastors and others who may desire to inform themselves in regard to
particular aspects of it, that if they will notice, they will find all this matter so classified in
the Report that they can easily select just what they want. Thus, after the list of
institutions and teachers, they may find the following headings: Delay in Opening Schools,
Quality of the Work, Closing Exercises, Industrial Departments, Growing Favor, Buildings,
Rented Property, Libraries, Student Aid, Religious Character of Schools, Colored Teachers,
Theological Departments. The Church Work and other main departments are analyzed in
the same way. We have done this, hoping to make the Report a helpful document and one
easily used by the friends of the Association. Dr. Storrs’ sermon is also printed with it.

Miss Parmelee’s paper, read before the Woman’s Meeting at the Anniversary in Chicago,
excited so much interest at the time and since, and gave so vivid, so faithful and so
sympathetic a view of the perils of the girls of the South, that we have, besides giving a
portion of it in a former Missionary, re-printed it in full, and have sent it largely to the
Christian women of our churches. We beg them to read it, remembering that its statements
are facts, and that the evils of which it speaks are among the better class of the colored
women of the South, and hardly suggest the depths below, in which the mass are at home,
and into which education and enlightenment only make the fall more fatal. May God’s spirit
move the hearts of our Christian women to save their sisters.
One of our colored ministers, trained in an American Missionary Association school, in
stating some incidents of his life to a friend, said that he was led, when about sixteen years
old, to give up gambling and licentiousness, simply out of regard for his teacher, fearing
that she would learn of his evil ways and despise him. That teacher little thought then, and
has never learned even, of the blessed influence upon that young man, of her pure and
consecrated life, which, through the providence of God, led to the transformation of a
gambler and profligate, into an efficient and esteemed Christian minister, through whom
she is now preaching to hundreds and even thousands.

The Superintendent, scouring through Georgia, came across Rev. Mr. Thomas, a choice
man, who has charge of two colored Presbyterian churches at Union Point and Woodstock,
under commission of the Northern General Assembly, and who got all his schooling—three
years—at our Lewis High School in Macon, Ga. So the fruit of our tree of knowledge, is
falling over into other church lots, and we are glad of it. Such fruitage is a great
encouragement to the teachers of our minor schools.
A Bible Example of Reconstruction.—It was after the return from Babylon. Civil and the
moral reformation went hand in hand. The first Governor, Zerubabel, who was a grandson
of a former king, had the high priest, Joshua, to lead in the worship, and the prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah, to preach and to teach. The next Governor, Ezra, instituted for the
instruction of the people an extensive system of Bible-readings. “So they read in the Book,
in the law of God, distinctly and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the
reading.”
The next Governor, Nehemiah, was a reformer. He put down the practices of taking
heathen wives, of violating the Sabbath, and of exacting illegal interest. No improvement
has as yet been made upon that style of civil reconstruction. Religion and education, the
church and the school, must go along with the re-ordering of the State. So we find our
work at the South in the line of a Divine pattern. The Bible gives us its ideal of dealing with
freedmen by taking into its sacred canon the five books of Moses for the emancipated
Israelites, the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah, for the restored captives.

ZEAL FOR STUDY.

A good deal has been said, from time to time, of the abatement among the colored people
of that eagerness to learn, which marked the days immediately following their
emancipation. Of course, much of it is true; many found by trial that it was not so easy or
instantaneous a process to learn to read as they had supposed; the pressure of self-
support drew away the attention of others from their aspirations after an education; unduly
excited ambitions and crude hopes were seen to be unfounded, and in the disappointment
many were discouraged. But all of it is not true. There are many instances yet of the early
eagerness to learn among the young, and even among the old; we give an instance from a
teacher’s letter: “One woman, 39 years old, lives in the country, and walks six miles to
school, and six miles again after school to her home. Her seat has been vacant only on one
or two of the rainiest days since the school opened, September 1st. At home, she has all
her household affairs to look after, and finds time to study at night even then; and if, on
account of helping her husband to pick cotton in the fall, she would go late to bed without
‘knowing her lesson,’ it ‘worried’ her so, she said, that she ‘could not get a wink of sleep,’
and her husband would waken to find her up and studying. She is gaining slowly in
rudimentary knowledge, and is very much pleased, or, as she would say, ‘proud’ of her
success. Several such ones, eager to learn, I have under my care, and though they can
learn but slowly, it is really better than that they should never know anything, though I
think we would count it hardly worth while to take such pains so late in life; yet, better to
get upon the first round of the ladder than not to rise at all.”

TROPICAL AFRICA.
The Three Lake Missions.
Among the great movements of this stirring age, none are, perhaps, more far-reaching
than those for the exploration and evangelization of Tropical Africa. The splendid
achievements of Livingstone and Stanley crown and complete the efforts of their heroic
predecessors. Africa’s three great central lakes and her two great rivers—the mysteries of
the ages—are now explored and mapped.
The missionary efforts that have followed these discoveries reveal an enthusiasm, and a
consecration of talent and life, worthy of the vast field thus opened. In the promptness of
the response, the money and the lives devoted and the number of missions founded or
projected, the last five years give a history that probably has no parallel in the records of
Christian missions. The story of these adventures in discovery and evangelization has the
fascination of romance, and is pathetic in the piety and the sufferings of both travellers and
missionaries.
We select as illustrations the three Lake Missions of Tropical Africa.

1. The Victoria Nyanza Mission.

On the northern shores of this greatest of Africa’s central lakes is the dominion of King
Mtesa—a name now familiar to the civilized world. He rules over two millions of people, has
a navy of 300 war canoes and an army of 150,000 warriors. In 1875, Stanley reached his
capital. The welcome was cordial, and for two months the traveller taught the King the
principles of Christianity with such happy results that the Bible was studied, and in
obedience to its teachings, an enemy and rebel, conquered in battle and doomed to death
in accordance with African morals and invariable practice, was spared! Stanley appreciated
the true value of the King’s “conversion,” and saw the need of having his own incipient
teaching followed up by steady missionary labors. His appeal for such labors was written in
Africa and appeared in a London paper Nov. 15, 1875. The prompt response should be
noticed. Three days after it appeared, came an anonymous offer of $25,000 for the
founding of the mission, and soon another equal sum was proffered. The venerable and
efficient Church Missionary Society undertook the work. The consecrated money was soon
followed by the consecrated men. In 1876, the company of missionaries landed at Zanzibar,
and travelling the 800 miles of jungle in six months, and marking their first disaster in the
death of one of their party, reached Mtesa’s capital. They were welcomed with enthusiasm,
and when the name of Jesus was uttered, a salute was fired. The work was begun
immediately, but soon the second great disaster came—two of the company, Lieutenant
Smith and Mr. O’Neill, were murdered at no great distance from the capital. But instead of
discouragement, these disasters called forth new enthusiasm. Three young men were
promptly sent out by the Church Missionary Society. They took the Nile route, but a journey
that should have taken three or four months was protracted to nine by the floating islands
in the Upper Nile and the ignorance of the Arab captain. One of the missionaries received a
sunstroke and was obliged to return. At length they reached Uganda and were joyfully
received, but soon came the greatest calamity—a week after their arrival two French Jesuit
priests came also, and succeeded in so disaffecting the mind of the King as to arrest the
work, and lead to the withdrawment of most of the missionaries. The summary at the
latest dates is: Sixteen missionaries in all have been sent, of whom six have died and three
have returned sick. Of the seven still in Africa, four have been permitted to go on various
duties and three remain at Uganda without the facilities either to carry on their work or to
withdraw.
2. Tanganika Mission.
Ujiji, the location of the Tanganika Mission is endeared to the friends of Livingstone. Here
he made his temporary home, and here, almost ready to die, he was discovered by Stanley,
to be restored to vigor and to toil still longer for Africa, till at last he was found dead upon
his knees. The plan for a mission here was formed by the London Missionary Society,
scarcely less venerable than the Church Missionary Society.
Mr. Arthington of Leeds, Eng., one of the generous and prompt donors of $25,000 for the
Nyassa Mission, gave a like sum for this. Four ordained missionaries, one scientific man and
one builder, left London in March, 1877. Their journey from the coast of Africa was
protracted over thirteen months in consequence of the many obstacles and vexatious
delays. Added to these trials, death did its fearful work. Under these discouraging
circumstances, Dr. Mullen, the intrepid and beloved Secretary of the Society, obtained the
reluctant consent of the Directors to lead in person an additional force, and to hasten the
progress of the supplies. But he had gone only 200 miles from the coast when death closed
his useful career. No event in the last five years has cast such a gloom over mission circles
in Great Britain as the sad fate of this noble man.

3. Nyassa Mission.
Again is the stimulus of Livingstone’s labors seen, and his name and memory honored in
the founding of another mission: the Livingstonia on Lake Nyassa. It was a labor of love for
the Free Church of Scotland, aided by sister communions to undertake this mission. In the
Spring of 1875, the expedition started, having been furnished with all needed supplies,
including a beautiful steel steamer and two boats for the use of the mission on the Lake.
After a tedious journey up the Zambesi and Shiré and a toilsome land journey of 60 miles,
around the Murchison Falls, the Lake was at length reached.
After a brief search, a site was selected that held out unusual hopes of coveted advantages
—there were no mosquitos and a favoring lake breeze gave promise of health. But alas for
the unforeseen and insignificant difficulties that sometimes defeat the greatest
undertakings—the fatal tsetse fly compelled the choice of a new location. But we cannot
give space for the subsequent details.
The disasters and deaths in these missions have had a depressing effect upon the hearts of
Christians in Great Britain, and we fear that the discouragements will to some extent be felt
in this country. But we must guard ourselves against hasty inferences and unwarranted
fears. We should remember:—
1. That trials at the outset are often God’s means of arousing a deeper faith. The history of
missions, modern and Apostolic, is full of examples. The Teloogoo Mission where such an
unusual work of Divine grace has recently been experienced and the converts have been
numbered by thousands, was for a long time the scene of unfruitful labors. Bishop
Crowther’s Mission in West Africa, now so strong and growing, had an early experience of
toils and persecutions. The Apostles themselves encountered imprisonments and death not
only, but their labors were sometimes followed by defections, perversions of doctrine and
scandals in life.
2. We should take courage from the fact that the slave-trade, the worst foe to missionary
labors in Africa, is feeling the effects of the earnest efforts of Great Britain for its
overthrow. Sir Samuel Baker, and after him Col. Gordon, the stout old Covenanter—the
Havelock of Africa—have crippled its power on the Upper Nile, while the labors of Sir Bartle
Frere, and subsequently of Dr. Kirk at Zanzibar, have been equally effective along the coast,
so that the Church Missionary Intelligencer feels authorized to say that “the slave-trade if
not killed, is scotched.” The missions themselves, though hindered in many respects, have
had a salutary influence in shaming and arresting this fiendish traffic.
3. Finally, the church of God must bear in mind that the Saviour’s last and great command,
“Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel,” is accompanied by that all-comprehensive
and all-sufficient promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” God
will redeem the whole world, and in the Saviour’s heart and plan, Africa is not forgotten.

THE NEGRO IN AMERICA AND AFRICA.

Dr. Edward W. Blyden, of Liberia, Africa, is the author of an interesting article in the
Methodist Quarterly Review for January, 1880, from which we gratefully reprint elsewhere
his tribute to our work. Anything which comes from the pen of this distinguished gentleman
—one of the most cultured men of the race whose cause he pleads—is well worth reading
and consideration. With much that the Doctor says, we are in full and hearty agreement,
but beg leave to make one or two suggestions, growing out of what seem to be at least
not unwarranted deductions from his positions.
No one can regret more than we do the prejudice which exists, in this country especially,
against the colored man. And there is no doubt that, as Dr. Blyden observes, even among
those who are not unmoved by the story of his wrongs, and who are earnestly engaged in
philanthropic efforts for his uplifting, this personal prejudice and sense of superiority does
exist. That it is not so to anything like the same degree in England and on the Continent, is
suggestive in the light it casts upon the fact among us. On what is the difference of feeling
founded? Certainly not altogether in the natural race-prejudice. That is a fact not to be
denied. There is a prejudice which is universal between all people of distinct races of men.
It is felt by the original inhabitants of Africa against the Caucasian, as Dr. B. shows, as well
as by the white man in his own home against the black. But in this land, the prejudice is
intensified by the position and the character of those who have made up the negro
population.
Dr. Blyden objects to our calling the Negro, Indian and Chinaman “the despised races.” He
even dislikes to have Africa called “the Dark Continent.” Of course, our brother knows that
the sympathies of this Association are, as they have always been, with these people of his
land, and that our toils and labors have not been limited, nor of brief continuance, in their
behalf. All this he most fully and kindly acknowledges in his article. It is hardly necessary
for us to say, then, that we have used the term as describing what is, and as contrasted
with what ought to be. It is true, rightly or wrongly, that they have been looked down upon
and are still despised. And we have used the word as setting forth the fact, and as,
therefore, the strongest plea to Christian sympathy and help; for we have been sure that
where we could enlist these, the term would no longer have application. The good
Samaritan did not despise the poor Jew who had fallen among thieves, as he held him up
on the ass which bore him to the inn. He was too busy pitying and helping him. Perhaps
this is enough to say. We have used the term “the Despised Races” not as an epithet, but
as a plea.
A fair inference at least from the Doctor’s article is, that he sees no hope for his people on
this continent, and that their only way to success is to emigrate to the land of their
mothers, and to make its reclamation their ambition. But how does that affect our work
and the present generation? The American Colonization Society, as seen by its last
published report, sent out to Africa during the year 1878, one hundred and one colonists;
during the same year the bark Azor transported two hundred and forty. It is but a spoonful
dipped from this deep sea. It is but the smallest possible percentage even of the increase
of the colored population of America. Meanwhile, what are we to do with the five millions
who remain, and with their children and their children’s children? What we do for them we
must do for them here.
We, too, believe in colonization; in the evangelization of Africa by Africans; and the only
difference in our aim and purpose from the work with which the Doctor is so fully
identified, is that we want to distribute our colonists more widely. It is well to have a
Christian republic in Africa. But it is our desire to plant small colonies of twenty-five or
thirty, among whom shall be both ministers and mechanics, here and there through the still
“dark continent”—points of radiation for the light of life and of Christian civilization which
they are to hold forth.
We are full of sympathy and interest with the good work in Liberia. May the Lord bless it
abundantly. But the work here is not hopeless. Hundreds of thousands of the Freedmen
still answer, from amid all their disappointments and disabilities, “We are rising.” Our plan
and purpose desire to take part in both hemispheres of the whole rounded work—to save
the African in America and in Africa alike.

DR. BLYDEN ON THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

The American Missionary Association, whose publications we have prefixed to this paper, in
their work of lofty and noble purpose through the South are endeavoring to prepare the
negro for higher spheres of labor than “cotton-fields, turpentine orchards, and rice-fields.”
Every negro who is at all acquainted with matters in the United States must have the
highest admiration for it. Almost alone among the benevolent institutions of that land in the
days of the great struggle, they never for one moment yielded to the imperious dictates of
an oligarchical monopoly, but gave expression to the idea which they inscribed upon their
banner, that one of the chief purposes of their organization was to resist the tyranny of the
autocracy which doomed the negro to perpetual servitude. No one could be enrolled
among its members who was a slave-holder. They have the gratitude of the negro race.
But history will have a brighter page than even that with which to adorn their annals, when
she comes to recount the devotion and sacrifices of the hundreds who have been sent
forth under their auspices, as uplifters of the prostrate host in the South, to whom, left as
they were, paralyzed by slavery, free movement and real progress were intrinsically
impossible without the aid of such agencies as the American Missionary Association. As
time rolls on, the romance which clings to those heroes who fought to unfetter the body of
the slave, will fade beside the halo which will surround these who have labored to liberate
his mind.
(Methodist Quarterly Review.)

REV. CHARLES B. VENNING.

One of our most earnest and devoted missionaries at the Jamaica Mission, after severe and
protracted suffering, has entered into his rest. Mr. Venning went about fifty years ago,
when Negro-slavery was at its height, to work on a Jamaica sugar estate. He was then an
ardent young Englishman, and easily led into dissipation and vice. But the Lord arrested
him, and the course of his whole life was changed. He entered the Mico Institute, a
Training College for Schoolmasters, and was a successful teacher. He then became
interested in the efforts of the American Missionary Association, and desired to devote
himself entirely to school work and religious teaching among the Negroes in the country
districts of the Island. His name stands on the list of missionaries in our first Annual
Report, and he has labored faithfully every year since—while his health would permit by
active efforts, and when on a bed of suffering by example and counsel.
We quote the following from the letter of a fellow missionary: “I never saw a man who so
entirely devoted himself to the work as he did. He had the true missionary spirit. He not
only preached the Gospel in his own church, but from house to house and in the most out-
of-the-way places; indeed everywhere where men would give a listening ear. No other
missionary in the Island did so much for the education of his people as Bro. Venning, and
outside of the towns there could be found no people so intelligent as his. He watched over
his flock with almost a painful interest—encouraged and reproved. He gathered the poor
that were otherwise uncared for about his own door, gave them shelter, fed them from his
own table, and clothed them from his own wardrobe.”
One who knew him intimately at the Island writes: “He labored literally night and day most
earnestly for the salvation of souls and the welfare of those who had been converted.
Being a born educator, he has left his mark upon the generation that has grown up under
his instruction. As a private Christian, he was most real and honest, and free from all guile,
exemplifying in all his life, in the most striking manner, those beautiful words of Scripture
‘harmless’ and ‘blameless.’ His faith triumphed nobly in the end. In my interviews with him
of late, it has been most interesting to see with how firm a grasp he held fast to the
assurances of God’s blessed word, and thus found perfect rest and peace to his soul.”

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

Nashville, Tenn.—Religious interest is reported in the school. Six persons have professed
their faith in Christ. The day of prayer for colleges was observed and we hope that good
may result from the day.
McIntosh, Liberty Co., Ga.—Pastor Snelson writes: We observed the week of prayer. The
weather was mild, and consequently we did not have to go into the Academy for the use of
the stoves. Last Sabbath, eleven were received into the church by confession and one by
letter. It was a blessed day with us. There is much here to do. Miss E. W. Douglass is a
great help to us. The people all like her. She is at work any and everywhere. They call her
in some places the lady-preacher. I would to the Lord that more missionaries like her were
sent throughout the field of the American Missionary Association. Pray for us.

Anniston, Ala.—On Thursday night, December 25th, the colored church was crowded to its
utmost capacity to witness the exercises of the school children, which consisted of songs,
recitations, etc. The Rev. P. J. McEntosh has had this school and church at Anniston in
charge for a number of years and has labored with untiring energy to elevate the colored
people, and has met with a great deal of encouragement. After the school exercises, the
presents from the Christmas tree were distributed among the children. Several white
visitors were present and spoke very highly of the management of the church and school.
On Friday night, they gave a fair at which they realized $56.80.—Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Times.

Greenwood, S. C.—Mr. J. D. Backenstose writes: I have just closed my first week of school
for this year (1880), and am glad to be able to report a larger number of students than
ever before at this place.
I have had to rent a room of one of my neighbors, and we have as many boarders now as
we can well accommodate, even with our new house, and more are to come in the middle
of the month.
The house is 18×36, containing two rooms 18×18, with two windows and a door in each
room and a chimney in the middle. Each room is to contain three bedsteads, and from six
to nine chairs. The house completed and furnished will cost $228.68, a little more than we
calculated, but it is large, well built and well furnished.

Talladega, Ala.—Both of the barns, one being new and very valuable, with most of their
contents, including hay, grain, corn, and corn-fodder, 300 bushels of cotton-seed, with tools
and farm-implements and three cows, were burnt Wednesday night, Jan. 7. Evidently it
was the work of an incendiary, but not instigated at all by any prevailing ill-will toward the
College. Subscriptions were at once circulated among citizens, both white and black, and
while the amount raised is not large, the number and willingness of the contributions prove
the interest felt by this community in the College. Efforts will be made to rebuild at once.
The loss is estimated at $1,200. It falls heavily on the agricultural department, which is
becoming an important factor in the college work. The farm does much toward feeding the
large family, and gives opportunity of self-help to the young men.

North Carolina.—While Islay Walden’s people in Randolph county were hauling in logs for
the lumber of their new church, the mill was burned, and a part of their boards. The owner
not being able to rebuild, and there being no other mill near, the people came together to
help him, the young colored preacher putting down $25 from his scanty salary. They hope
to have the mill under way again in three or four weeks. Meantime they will hurry in their
logs, to be the first of the new sawing.

Tougaloo, Miss.— We have a colored man visiting his daughter to-day; his first visit to
Tougaloo. He says he is keeping his daughter in school with the money saved by himself
and wife on snuff and tobacco since signing the pledge; the result of the work of one of
our students who taught in his district.

New Orleans, La.—The Central Church is having a wonderful revival. Mr. Alexander has
preached every night since the beginning of the year. The interest is remarkable, crowding
the room every evening with a quiet, orderly, and earnest audience; many have been
converted. Twenty-eight united with the church Feb. 1st.

AFRICAN NOTES.
—The long delayed tidings have been received by the London Missionary Society from
Messrs. Hore and Hutley at Lake Tanganika. The particulars of Mr. Dodgshun’s death are
given. Annoyances and delays interposed by the Arab slave-traders are rehearsed. We give
a few extracts from letters:—
“During the seven months of our stay here, we have done much towards making friends
with the natives; they have closely observed us, and admit that they can see nothing bad;
but the influence of the Arabs is so powerful that they, the Wajiji, are afraid to make any
definite negotiations with us apart from the Arabs.

“The slave-trade at Ujiji is merely a small local affair—slaves captured in war, &c., amongst
surrounding tribes, and passed from hand to hand, till they finally come to a stand in some
Arab’s shamba: this used to be done in the market, but since we came here, it has all been
kept out of sight. Once only some Wajiji offered us a slave for sale as they passed by our
tembe. The traders owning these domestic slaves, have from twenty to one hundred of
them (I think Muniyi Heri reaches the larger number); they are their domestics, boatmen,
carriers, body guard, and cultivators, and, of course, form the principle population of the
place, filling up with huts the spaces between their masters’ larger houses.
“Slavery amongst the natives is another matter. The Wajiji are great slave-holders, slaves
being as common as domestic servants at home; but no great numbers are owned by
individuals as among the Arabs. A common present between chiefs is one or two slaves,
and Mirambo sends small parties from time to time to buy both slaves and ivory. When the
Portuguese and Arab slave-trades are crushed out, or nearly so, we shall see and more
fully realize the extent of native slavery, or slave customs, which cover the continent
through its length and breadth. The former will have cost an immense outlay of the power
and influence of civilized Europe ere it is swept away. The latter will take years of faithful
mission labor to eradicate.
“To fulfil my promise to an Arab, to whom I said, ‘We do not want to buy except for our
own use; but I will send your words to England,’ I add these few lines:—The Arabs say, ‘If
the white men will come here and buy, we will grow as much sugar and rice, and spice and
oil, &c., as they want, and would much rather get our money in that way, than in
dangerous [and, as they admit one by one privately, illegal] slave-hunting.’ I keep telling
them that the slave-trade is dying out, and they had better look to something else before
they are left in the lurch.”

—“I have great trouble with my sailors who of course are not sailors. On one occasion I
was close off Cape Kiungwe. About two A. M., pitch dark, a heavy squall burst on us from
the northward, with sheets of rain. I could not see one foot in front of my eyes. This lasted
for two or three hours, the boat sweeping along at a great rate without a stitch of canvas,
and a nasty foaming sea. All six men became perfectly helpless, and huddled together
inside the cabin. The good little binnacle, however, kept the compass-lamp burning, and by
it only I knew where to steer; had it gone out, none of them could have put it to rights. I
could not possibly let go the tiller; they were perfectly unable to work the paddles had they
been required, and it was only after roaring myself hoarse at them that I could rouse them
to bale the water out. When they get home they strut about with a little cane in their
hands, and boast of their sailorizing.”

—“I trust,” he writes, “no one will call this mission disastrous, or condemn Ujiji hastily as
unhealthy. It is certainly much healthier than Zanzibar, and both Mr. Hutley and myself
were never more persistent in our determination to go on. Certainly we want more help,
but the work is going on. We are living down native prejudices and suspicions, and the lies
of slanderers. We will slacken no effort to carry on this work; and I am speaking, not at
home, but in the midst of the work and its difficulties. May God induce His stewards to do
their part, and see in the vacant spaces of the ranks only cause for new and earnest effort.
I commenced this letter with but mournful news; I desire to close it with an expression of
thankfulness to God for what health and strength and success He has given us, and with
an earnest appeal to all missionary hearts to apply their means and strength with renewed
vigor to this work, and to be assured that, however cavilers may talk of disaster, there is no
despondency here.”
—On the eve of going to press the Directors have received a telegram from the Society’s
agent in Zanzibar, to the following effect: “The Rev. W. Griffith and Dr. Southon arrived at
Ujiji on the 23d of September; all well.”

—An Alexandria despatch to the Daily News says Ismail Eyoud Pacha has been appointed
Governor of the Soudan, vice Gordon Pacha resigned.
 THE FREEDMEN.
REV. JOS. E. ROY, D.D.,
FIELD SUPERINTENDENT, ATLANTA, GA.

AT TALLADEGA.
At the Faculty Meeting.—Three men and four women present. Prayer. The circle is passed
around for matters of business. Besides minor things these results are reached; Will
observe the day of prayer for colleges, with an address at morning worship, with a prayer-
meeting in the afternoon for the male students, one for the females and one for the
faculty, and with a general meeting at night; will hold a Normal Institute on the last two
days of the present term, inviting the colored teachers in the region round about to come,
and asking Mr. A. W. Farnham, Normal Professor at the Atlanta University, to be present
and help; will have a series of familiar lectures, alternating on Friday night with the young
people’s sociable. Surely all this looks like business.
At the Library.—The donation of books to the value of more than four hundred dollars, from
Rev. W. H. Willcox, of Malden, Mass., attracts the eye, and feasts it, too. The books are
new, of standard and current interest.
At the Prayer Meeting.—One of the colored young preachers reports the fine large old Bible
which, as the gift of some Eastern friend, he had taken into his little church at the Cove on
the preceding Sabbath. The people had requested him to express their thanks. Then
President DeForest followed. There is a story connected with that book. It came with a box
of things from the Congregational Church at Columbus, N.J., Rev. E. B. Turner’s. It came
from Harriet Storrs, who is a cousin of my mother. Every page of the book has been prayed
over. Out of the Sabbath-school of that old hill-town church, six ministers of the Gospel
have been raised up, among whom, I suppose, they count myself, for that was my father’s
home; and two wives of foreign missionaries have come from the same source. Surely that
old nest must be kept warm for more of such productiveness.
At Evening Prayers.—It is in the dining-hall, where the students of both sexes and the
teachers meet. The repast over, the President, as is his wont, gives a resumé of the current
news, the discovery of the intro-Mercurial star, the day’s phase of the Maine affairs, and
other such. Then the students at two of the tables recite each a verse upon a particular
topic, temptation; then the sweetness of a religious song; then prayer; then a quiet and
orderly retiring. It is alone the religion of Jesus that can present such a scene.
At the Farm.—You enter its enclosure, passing under a graceful arch that bears in large
letters the emblazonment, “Winsted Farm.” So everybody knows what town it was in
Connecticut that did a good deal toward the providing of that industrial department. The
wheat and the rye and the oats are covering the fields with green, even at this mid-winter
time. You can see that there is good farming in that locality. You can see it, too, by
contrast.
Co-operative Farming.—During the last season the colored people about our church at
Lawson’s, in Alabama, Rev. J. W. Strong, pastor, rented a half-dozen acres of land, and
cultivated the most of it in cotton, for the purpose of adding to the fund for supporting
their school. They had a board of managers. They worked when called upon. They plowed
and hoed. They at last picked out the cotton and found that they had two bales, worth
$120. One bale they sent to the colored folks’ Industrial Fair, on the grounds of Talladega
College. This church is now also engaged in building a house of worship, having the frame
erected, intending, with the aid of $100 from the A.M.A., to go on this season with the
finishing, and hoping that a revival will be its process of dedication.

NORTH CAROLINA.
Our School.

REV. ALFRED CONNET, MCLEANSVILLE.

Our school is put down as a common school. That is correct. Yet we are laboring to make it
more than a common school. To this end we have graded it as follows:
A. Normal; B. Normal. A. Intermediate; B. Intermediate. A. Primary; B. Primary.
Through the kindness of friends in the North the school had been supplied with a good
many books, and unfortunately, there was a great variety of text-books. We have ordered
new, standard books, and have secured uniformity. As we had new books it was easy to
require all to begin at the bottom and work up, and to do thorough work.
In a very few instances we have found pupils who can go into two classes in the same
branch. In this way they bring up from the first, and at the same time go on with a more
advanced class.
The grading, the new books, and the uniformity of books, have each and all had a
stimulating effect. They see there is a ladder to climb. They see they cannot start at the
top, or the middle, but must begin at the bottom. They study harder. The school has
improved in numbers and in regularity of attendance. The number enrolled is 84.
Our pupils are from four counties, including this (Guilford) county. Thirteen are here paying
board, or boarding themselves. Of the thirteen all are professors of religion but three: one
is a minister, two are preparing for the ministry; one professed religion since he came here
a year ago, one of those preparing for the ministry united with the church at the last
communion, and one is a teacher. Of those enrolled last year, seven are teachers, six of
whom are now teaching, and one attending school. One pupil who is a minister reports
over forty hopeful conversions in connection with his labors during the summer vacation.
A year ago we greatly felt the need of dormitories, and accommodations for students to
“batch.” For this the Association could make no appropriation. One of the neighbors has put
up a building for this purpose, another is building, and a third has converted an old store-
room into dormitories, and four families have taken boarders. Last year our school was
confined to one room; now we have added a recitation room.
On the whole, the outlook is hopeful. By the close of the present school year twelve to
fifteen of our pupils will be able to obtain teacher’s license from the County School-
Examiner.

SOUTH CAROLINA.
Church and School Work—The Cause of the Exodus.

REV. TEMPLE CUTLER, CHARLESTON.

The work goes quietly on here in Charleston—in all its departments. The school is
flourishing. It never had so many pupils as now, and was never more popular than under
the direction of Mr. Gaylord. We are not ashamed to have visitors from North, South, East,
or West, visit Avery. If any of your readers doubt the capacity of these colored boys and
girls, let them come and see for themselves.
Miss Wells, our missionary, is doing good work—visiting the homes and teaching the
mothers and daughters how to make the home what it should be.
The church work goes on slowly. The feeling of unity and harmony is increasing, and, so
far as I can see, may be said to be universal in the church. We have had stormy weather in
Plymouth for some time; it has been a sort of Cape Hatteras, around which the winds have
revelled, but now the sky is clear and the sea smooth. We have a large growth of tares in
the church that does neither us nor anybody else any good. If we should undertake to root
it out, I do not know how much wheat might come up with it, nor how much wheat we
would trample down in getting to it. Oh, how wise we need to be in dealing with these
people; what a broad mantle of charity we have to throw over them. Those of us who
glean after the reapers in this field, where the “patriarchal institution” once flourished, find
that either the type of piety that prevailed in the “Abrahamic household” was very
defective, or the “Abrahamic duty” was woefully neglected. Certainly, the idea of religion
that prevails among the former dependents of these modern patriarchs, is not that of
either the Old or New Testament. But why throw stones at the old defunct institution?
What did I say? Defunct? I wish to God it was defunct, and that these freemen had a fair
chance and a free fight for their rights and liberties. But that day is a long way off; and I
fear the shimmer of the morn is not yet seen. I want to be just as hopeful as possible. I
never was a croaker. I generally see the bright side of a thing. But sometimes, when I
come in from some tale of oppression and misery, the clouds just shut right down—it is
midnight. When I am made to know that there are 20,000 poor wretches here in this city
that are the carcass on which rich cormorants are fattening, my soul is sick within me.
Congress may investigate the cause of the emigration of the colored people to all eternity,
and come to what conclusion they may, it won’t stop. I pray God it may not stop until
enough laborers get away from the South to give room for those who remain to grow. God
knows the truth, and He will open some way for His people to go out. I assure you His new
Israel has not yet come to the land flowing with milk and honey. What think you of a man
supporting a family of four on 25 cents a day, and paying five dollars a month for house
rent? What think you of a family of five living on the wages of the daughter who gets six
dollars a month working out, and paying five dollars a month for house rent? Hungry
mouths will stifle conscience. Or, how long could the good people of the North live on
hasty-pudding without molasses or milk, morning, noon and night, and nothing else, day
after day and week after week?
Do you say, why not go back into the country and work the land? So I said to one who had
brought his family of five or six down here to starve with the rest: “Why didn’t you stay up
in the country?” “Couldn’t lib up dar no how. Starve up dar shuah. Rent so high couldn’t lib.
Had free acres of land and a po, misable shantie, and had to work fo days ob de week fur
de rent, and but two days to tend my own crop. Hab to buy ebreting ob de commisary. Hab
to pay twenty cents a pound fur meat (bacon), and forty cents a peck fur grits (corn meal).
Starve to deff up dar shuah.” Four days’ work every week for the rent of three acres of
land! The best land in that section is worth four dollars per acre. Call the man’s work worth
twenty-five cents a day. His rent was one dollar a week—fifty-two dollars a year. No wonder
the landlords are not anxious to sell land to the colored people, when they can get four
times the value of the land every year in work at twenty-five cents a day. Defunct
institution! Yes, on the statute book. “But, my man, why didn’t you buy the land at four
dollars an acre?” “Well, sah, some ob ’em did buy de land. I dunno how much dey pays;
but I knows when dey’s paid two or tree stalments dey can’t pay no mo, and gibs em up.”
Do you wonder the people listen to glowing pictures of better opportunities somewhere
else? If these people had a decent chance at home, they would not listen to invitations
away. The fact is, they are perfectly helpless, and there is nothing for the mass of them but
to sit down and wait, wait, wait, through the long, long years till the morning comes. I do
not wonder they emigrate. I pray God they may continue to go, until those who remain
shall have their hands full to supply the demands for labor. It may not be better for those
that go, but it will be better for those that remain. The more you thin out your woodland,
the taller and stouter will be your timber. The only hope for this people is a scarcity of
laborers. There are so many who must have work, or die, that every vacancy has a dozen
ready applicants. Twenty-five cents a day, I am told, is all that some of these planters will
give to man or woman; and they can get enough at that price. In such circumstances, you
cannot expect people to haggle long about the price of labor. The cry is simply, “Give me
my hire.” And then, if you remember that two hundred years of slavery in a man’s blood is
not a very good preparation for independency, you may get a pretty good idea of the
situation of the people.
But my letter is too long. Tell the churches to pray for the freeman of the South. I do not
say freedmen, because there are thousands here who were never slaves and are no better
off. Ask the churches to help us to give them the only consolation they can at present have
—a sure and intelligent hope of a better world than this on the other side—and not expect
them, out of their deep poverty, to pay for their own schooling or preaching just yet.

GEORGIA.
Report of the Committee of the Board of
Commissioners to the Atlanta University, June, 1879.
A large majority of the entire Board attended the examination of the colored University at
Atlanta, which receives an annual donation of $8,000 from the State. The report of the
special committee appointed to make a suitable minute of the exercises and the condition
of the Institution was unanimously adopted. It is as follows:
To the Board of Visitors:
Gentlemen—The undersigned, your appointees, herewith submit the following report upon
the final examinations of the Atlanta University, for the school year just closed.
The Board attended these examinations in an almost entire body. They were promptly and
courteously met by President Ware and his associates, and the examinations proceeded
with systematic regularity. The exercises were designated by neatly printed programmes,
with the time and place of recitation distinctly set forth.
The examinations were fairly conducted and disclosed the fact that the most advanced
methods of teaching were employed. These methods were mainly topical, supplemented by
appropriate questions, which evinced that the students had an intelligent comprehension of
the subjects under consideration. We were especially impressed by the evidences of
patient, systematic, untiring training on the part of the teachers, so well adapted to the
colored, or any race, and by the progressive manner in which a subject was developed. All
branches taught, passed in review before us, and whether the immediate subject was
reading, grammar, history, mathematics, the classics, or other branches, the means
employed and the results attained were entirely satisfactory. The examinations were
entirely oral and the decorum and order maintained were of a high character.
The cleanliness of the recitation rooms, the preservation of school property and the gradual
improvement of the grounds were marked.
The final exercises at Friendship Church were very creditable to the institution. The
subjects of the speeches and essays were appropriate, without political bearing, and they
were delivered and read in a becoming manner.
Comparing the examinations with preceding ones, we are satisfied that the University is
steadily on the up-grade, and that it is becoming a centre of great interest among the
colored people.
The religious training of the pupils appeared to be excellent.
The Normal feature of the institution we regard with especial interest. In no way can
education be so rapidly extended, or its improved methods so effectually multiplied, as by
the special training of teachers. This we believe to be the great educational want of our
State.
We have one suggestion to make, viz: as the oral recitation has been now so satisfactorily
developed, would it not be beneficial to introduce some written examination work in the
higher classes, as affording a better comparative test, and as advancing the examinations
fully up to the modern standard?
It is your committee’s opinion, based upon the foregoing, that the State has acted wisely in
her appropriation to the Atlanta University, and that a continuance of it is to her best
interests.
Respectfully submitted,
 H. C.
Mitch
ell,

Chairman Special Committee.

T. G. Pond, C. M. Neal.

On motion the above report was ordered to be submitted to the Governor.

H
.
H
.
J
o
n
e
s
,
Chairman of General Board.
J. T. White, C. M. Neal.

ALABAMA.
Why He Likes It.

REV. H. S. DEFORREST, TALLADEGA.

A minister recently called to one of our schools in the South, gives these reasons for liking
his place.
1st. I am needed. This is a great work and the workmen are few. It is not at all here as it
used to be, and perhaps now is, in Boston on a Saturday morning, scores of men standing
with carpet-bag in hand, waiting for a chance to preach, and many waiting in vain. We
have here more of field than we can occupy. On all sides comes up the Macedonian-African
cry, “come over and help us.” I am often weary on Saturday and poorly enough prepared
for Sunday, but am spared the anguish of not knowing where to go or what to do. Besides,
there is so much of self-denial in the work that there are probably not a great many
thinking that, if I should die or leave, there would be a vacancy, and if there should be a
vacancy they would like to fill it. Not many are interested in my will; few would care for my
shoes,—I hope to wear them myself and wear them here. For,
2nd. There is here a grand, perhaps unsurpassed opportunity for influencing men. I am not
only a Home Missionary, but also a Foreign Missionary to Africa, and that last with special
facilities. I am master of the language, and do not work at the disadvantage of a half-
learned and half-murdered tongue. Neither is there any prejudice against me as a
Foreigner because of my brogue, or my dress or my habits. Without the honors of a
Foreign Missionary, I am also without many of his disadvantages, and my national and
Yankee peculiarities, which might hinder across the sea, help on this side of the Atlantic.
This is indeed a missionary field, but operated with special facilities. It is a double
missionary field. For,
3d. The most pressing work in our own country is here. As surely as in 1861 our national
peril is largely in the South. Ignorance is dense; immorality is rampant: lawlessness is
wide-spread, while intelligence, morality and obedience to law form the only basis for such
a government as ours. To save our country, we must save the South; to save the South, we
must save the Southerners, and there are no Southerners more hopeful and more
deserving than the late slaves. They are down but their faces are upward. Give them a
hand and they will take it, especially if it be a “Yankee hand,” and a little lifting develops a
good deal of spring in themselves. Thus it is that Patriotism as well as Humanity and
Christianity keep me here, and no campaigning in our recent war seemed more a duty of
loyalty than that in which I am now engaged. I am glad to be in the ranks and to still wear
the blue. But,
4th. Looking beyond our broad land, I hope, standing here, to reach some portion of the
“Dark Continent.” I regard this as a good pou sto for moving Africa. Our students, more
than those who have been life-long readers, use their memories. They are more
impressible than the young of some other stock. They have a strong desire, as they are
helped, to help others. Apparently the great missionary movement of the next few years is
to be in Africa. The call is already heard for men. Some of these men are here, and the
impressions now made, the very words we now speak, may yet be felt and heard in lands
whence the fathers of these men were stolen, and in the jungles which the white man may
well fear to tread.
5th. Besides, there are some special rewards in this work. If we have the white man’s
contumely, we have the black man’s love. A more grateful and appreciative people than
some of these, fresh from the prison-house of bondage but now rejoicing in a double
freedom, I have never seen. Seldom is a pastor more fervently and affectionately prayed
for than are some of us here. And I suspect as the Lord judges souls—He seeth not as man
seeth—we have our companionship chiefly with the foremost of this part of the Land.
These and similar considerations have led me to think that this College stands somewhere
on Mt. Pisgah. Certainly just now I would rather be here than in any other part of the
Universe of God. Tell our friends at the North that we do not need their sympathy but we
do need their help. With more of means we could greatly multiply our labors and their
results. Let those at the rear at least send on supplies, and more abundantly.

Is the Work in Vain?—Building Progress—A Missionary Spirit.

REV. HORACE J. TAYLOR, ATHENS.

Sometimes one is tempted to say that the work here is in vain. We know, for instance, that
a great deal has been done during the last fifteen years by the Principal of Trinity School,
and yet one can see that the work is by no means finished. Have not some people at the
North been thinking that, after fifteen years of good work among the colored people of the
South, the A.M.A. ought to be about leaving the field here for some other? Some here say
to me, it will be a work of centuries to bring up this people; others, that the colored race
never will be fit for anything but farm laborers; they must be hewers of wood and drawers
of water. Some people in Ohio think the religion of the colored man in the South is a “pure
and undefiled” religion. Some people here think there is no use in trying to give the colored
man a pure system of religion. “They get together and shout and carry on, and that is all
they are fitted for.” “Their religion is impure and defiled, and they cannot appreciate a pure
religion.” So say the enemies of the colored race. Well, this is partly true; too true. The
colored man has emotion, and his late masters were too often content with that “religion”
in the slave. As slaves they were allowed to preach and steal and commit adultery, and all
together, too.
When we think of the pit from which they have been lifted, and of their ancestry—only a
few generations ago heathen all of them, cannibals some of them—can we think that the
results are less than we might expect? A great deal has been done here, and there is a
great deal to show for it. Some might think there was not much to be seen of good results.
A church of forty-four members—three less than two years ago, five less than one year ago
—some weak ones, the church as well as the school still pecuniarily dependent on the
A.M.A., they will not be ready to cut loose from the fostering care of the Association for
some years yet.
Christ said that the kingdom of heaven was like a grain of mustard seed, or like a little
leaven. These churches and schools act like leaven in a mass of ignorance. And this leaven
works. And it is because of this leavening power of the Gospel that we are encouraged.
The whole will be leavened in time. But time is necessary. The Congregational churches
have undertaken a mighty work, and they must patiently stick to it for years yet. Much as
can be seen of the results of the work here, more than half of it cannot be easily seen.
Other churches have been enlightened and helped. Even those who try to keep out the
light can’t prevent some of it getting through the chinks.
You will want to know about the work for the new school building. If we had had the least
idea that we must work five months with less than one hundred dollars in money, we never
would have undertaken the job. We hoped a fair share of the subscriptions would be paid
in cash. One or two had themselves to buy the moulds for making the bricks, and the
shovels to dig with, and the cord to line the ground with. We had no boards to cover the
bricks, so, instead of kilning the bricks as they were made, they were piled in an old log
house. Many were broken in this way. Then they were moved when we had boards to
cover the kiln; and many more were broken. And from the 1st of August—we didn’t begin
to prepare the ground till July 17th—till November we had heavy and frequent rains. The
papers said such a season had not been known for many years. We were hindered in our
work, and lost bricks from the rains. But we have over a hundred thousand bricks, and a
total expense of one hundred and fifty dollars. If the workers next summer can have the
money, as we hope, they will not work to such disadvantage, for they will have boards on
hand, and can kiln the bricks as they make them, and have tools. The building will be
finished, but it takes more time than we at first thought. Such a school-house was not
necessary fifteen years ago. Our neat church building, and the necessity for a substantial
school building, are proofs of the great work done here by Miss Wells. I enjoy this work,
and have become attached to the people. But it is too nice a place for me. I never
expected to preach from a carpeted platform. I must go far hence to more destitute places
beyond—to the islands of the sea. But the work is one. Whether in Alabama or Micronesia,
under the A.M.A. or the A.B.C.F.M., we are working for one Lord, to establish the kingdom
of Christ on earth. We can but praise Him that He calls us to work in any corner of His wide
vineyard.

MISSISSIPPI.
Sunday-Schools—Student-Conversions—Crowded Rooms.

MRS. G. STANLEY POPE, TOUGALOO.

The year thus far has been most pleasant and profitable. During the fall term we had an
unusually large number of students who entered into study with faithfulness and energy.
Many who had been teaching during the summer, gave most interesting reports of their
work. The Sunday-school and temperance work had been vigorously pushed with excellent
results; one of which is over thirteen hundred signers to the temperance pledge. Some
conversions in their Sunday-schools were also reported; and quite often now some one
speaks in our prayer-meeting of receiving a letter from a pupil asking for prayers that he
may become a Christian.
Just at the close of the fall term we were visited with a remarkable outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. Our good Dr. Roy had been here, and a sermon which he preached left impressions
which brought some to decide for Christ. And then the Sunday-school lessons. I remember
watching the young people during the closing exercises of Sunday-school the Sabbath
before Christmas, and I saw that there was deep feeling, and felt sure that there were
some who would not long resist the Spirit, and during the next three days there were
nineteen conversions.
Three or four others have since then found Christ. There is also a marked Christian growth
and a growing interest in the study of the Bible. Our hearts are greatly encouraged, and we
go forward rejoicing that we are permitted to work for Christ. Truly “The Lord hath done
great things for us whereof we are glad.”
At present we have one hundred and four boarders, with the prospect of more soon. Every
room is occupied, and we are crowded to what seems the utmost limit of our
accommodations. What we shall do with those yet to come, is a problem which neither
mathematics nor the laws of expansion have solved. Shall they hang up in the trees or
bivouac under them? We want to put an addition to the “barracks,” but have not the means
necessary. Dear friends at the North, shall we turn these young people away? What is your
answer? We hope that by a year from now, a good substantial building will be at least in
process of erection, that shall do away with some of the temporary accommodations we
now have.
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