Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/259

Rh large enough for baseball! "The latter bids fair to become the national game of Japan as it is of the United States, young Nippon taking to it as readily as does young America. In adopting the game the Japanese have also adopted the American nomenclature so that cries of "Ball two, Strike one" and "Out at first" are heard on campus and sand-lot on both sides of the Pacific. Military drill, compulsory through middle and higher schools is not, I believe, required of university students, though they show in their bearing the effects of their previous training. Those who, while in the university, become subject for military duty are excused until they complete their studies. They are also required to serve but one year and become eligible for positions as officers.

In equipment the imperial universities are excellently provided, but in lands and buildings, judged by lavish American standards, they are not so well fixed. At Tokyo the university stands within the grounds of Kaga Yashiki, the former residence of the Daimyo of Kaga, who gave the property to the government for the founding of the school. The club house is one of the old residence buildings of the Daimyo and is surrounded by a bit of landscape gardening that no art or money could reproduce without the element of time that entered into its making. Adjacent to the university is the home of the present Marquis, a part of the original holdings having been retained by the family. The buildings of the university are unpretentious, but well-planned and well-built brick structures. There is a central power station, water and sanitation have been well cared for, and for working plant the university is well provided. The same is true at Kyoto, though at both places money has been spent on men, books and apparatus rather than on buildings. The library at Kyoto consists of 255,000 volumes and that at Tokyo of about 240,000 Japanese and Chinese books, and 189,300 European and American. As Tokyo University is charged with the duty of compiling the historical records of Japan, the collection of native material is certain to increase rapidly in amount and value.

Both Kyoto and Tokyo universities support learned publications in literature, science and arts. The publications of the Medical School at Tokyo are in German, those of the Observatory in French, and the others in English, except the republication of documents relating to Japanese history, a monumental work in Japanese. The list of titles at Kyoto and at Tokyo reads not unlike similar lists from Johns Hopkins, Columbia or Chicago. As for doctor's theses, they read alike around the world, but one wonders what Shinjo Sogo, who obtained the coveted Hogakushi by investigating the subject, found to be the "Fundamental Ideas of Political Economy," and also what Naoji Oshina, Bungakushi, resolved on as the "Theory of the Moral Ideal." The study of the "Development of Pure Philosophy in India," by Taiken Kimura, should also be of interest. With the abundant materials available and the insight given by favorable historical background those who devote