Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/252

248 America may well take a lesson—research as well as instruction was to be regarded as equally the function of the university. Emphasizing the latter point, the second article provides that "Each imperial university shall consist of a university hall and colleges; the university hall being established for the purpose of original research, and the colleges for instruction, theoretical and practical." These purposes and ideals have been faithfully followed in the organization and work of each of the universities. Subsequent ordinances have provided for the financial support of the institutions and have specified the number and rank of officers and instructors; several independent government institutions, such as the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory, the Marine Biological Station, and the Botanic Garden have been added to the university; regulations as to degrees have been made, and additional facilities have been provided; but the fundamental character of the universities remains as fixed in the ordinance of 1886.

In Tokyo Imperial University there are now six colleges: those of law, medicine, engineering, science, literature and agriculture, and University Hall; the latter the research institution. At Kyoto the school, being younger, is less completely developed, the colleges being those of law, medicine, literature, and science and engineering. Here, as at Tokyo, a university hall also provides for research or graduate studies, as that term was used twenty years ago in America before postgraduate work became so formalized. The term college, as used in Japan, does not correspond exactly to usage either in England or America. The college is more nearly a "faculty," as that word is applied in the larger American schools. Each college is presided over by a director and each controls, through a faculty meeting, the curricula, examinations and qualifications of candidates for degrees. The faculty must also hold itself in readiness to consider educational or technical questions submitted by the minister of education and hence becomes an official adviser of the government on matters within its field. The directors of the various colleges, together with one professor from each, constitute the university council, presided over by the president. This council may consider questions relating to the institution or abolition of a course of study in any college, questions relating to chairs in the universities, regulations for the internal government of the institution, granting of degrees, and may suggest modifications of imperial ordinances, and of regulations by the minister of education relating to the university. The council also must, on request, advise the president or the minister of education. The president, who is appointed directly by the Emperor and ranks with a cabinet officer, has general control of the affairs of the university and, as in America, has large powers. Baron Kikuchi, the president of Kyoto University, and formerly holding the same position at Tokyo, has been minister of education and has rendered distinguished service to the state in many ways. Baron Hamao,