Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/201

Rh course the Red Gate (as the Tōkyō University is familiarly called) would remain the classic portal of modern learning. The college of medicine, in which his own studies were pursued, is entirely under German influence: none but German and Japanese professors give instruction. In the other faculties of law, engineering, literature, science, and agriculture, English teachers predominate. Most of the students work desperately hard, but enjoy great liberty. The majority are poor, and some have very rough manners. The Emperor was informed on one occasion by his Chief of Police, who had been summoned to receive orders to repress anti-foreign demonstrations, that "the offenders were invariably either rickshaw-men or students." Their life is far more gregarious than that of Oxford or Heidelberg or the Sorbonne. In the small block of residential buildings within the university grounds six or eight young men read, eat, and sleep in one room. These are a privileged minority of scholarship-winners, and are subjected to rather irksome restrictions in the matter of visitors and late hours. But the larger number live in lodging-houses, where practically no more control is exercised than over any other class of citizens. Competition is so severe that posts cannot be found for any but a small fraction of the budding doctors, lawyers, and journalists who hope to make a living in those professions. In consequence the disappointed graduates turn sōshi and live by their wits as spies, agitators, actors, authors, or even as itinerant musicians. Naturally, extreme views are adopted and discussed with the fervour of youth. The wildest socialism, the narrowest nationalism, find apostles. Though full of enthusiasm for most Western innovations, Nitobe San was strongly opposed to the