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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The university is strictly governmental and is under the control of 

 the Department of Education, one of the main divisions of the im- 

 perial administration. It includes six colleges — law, medicine, engin- 

 eering, literature, science and agriculture. In general, its students 

 are the graduates of high schools and are enrolled in a three-year 

 course, medicine and law requiring, however, four years. It may be 

 safely said that the grade of the regular work of the university is 

 higher than that of the American colleges, for I find that the courses 

 which are set down in the curricula of many colleges for freshmen and 

 sophomore classes are given in the Japanese high school. One may 

 further note that in the interest of general higher education the univer- 

 sity courses are practically free. And as evidence of the democracy 

 of learning one may sometimes note a young noble sitting shoulder to 



shoulder with the son of a peasant. It goes almost without saying 

 that every university student is expected to understand lectures when 

 given in one of the European languages. 



With this introduction we may briefly refer to the development of 

 our university. Between the end of the sixteenth century and the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century young Japanese who had been 

 thirsting for western learning began their study of medicine, astron- 

 omy, physics, chemistry, gunnery, fortification, by the aid of text- 

 books, mainly written in Dutch, which they had obtained, often in 

 spite of much local disfavor, from the trading station at Nagasaki. 

 Succeeding in their western studies, some of these Japanese workers 

 opened schools at several places for the dissemination of their hard- 

 earned knowledge. And one of these schools, named Bansho-shirabejo 

 (the place for the examination of the writings of the barbarians). 



