248 Ayao Ku\Vx\,Kr 



liad heard this theory wlien he was in Nagasaki and popularized it by 

 publishing in Yedo, between 1790 and 1800, his books on "the Dutch 

 Theory of the Heavens", "Illustrated Astronomy of Copernicus", and 

 other works. 



KShidziiki Tadao, an official interpreter and a pupil of Motoki, was 

 an ardent scholar who gave up his profession and entered into seclusion 

 in order to concentrate on the study of Dutch books. He wrote books 

 on astronomy and physics besides those on the Dutch grammer. His 

 translation from the Dutch version of a book by the English astronomer 

 John Keil appeared in 1798 and was entitled "Rekisho-Shinsho" meaning 

 a "New Handbook of Calendology". This containing commentaries by 

 Shidzuki himself, had a wide circulation in niunuscript form. As the 

 general public looked on the heliocentric theory with some doubts and 

 suspicions, the translator tried also to explain it by means of the 

 dynamic principle of relativity, as it is called today. With regard to 

 the cosmogony, he also expounded a kind of nebular hypothesis which 

 was of course independent of that of Kant and Laplace. 



After this epoch, Dutch learning spread from Yedo and Nagasaki 

 to various parts of the country including Kyoto, Osaka and other cities 

 where it attained conspicuous popularity. It is to be understood, 

 however, that at this time both Dutch books and Dutch teachers were 

 scarce and the difficulties met with by students were enormous. The 

 story is told that the Governor of Chikuzen once happened to stay over 

 two or three days in Osaka on his journey to Yedo. Tiie late Fukuzawa 

 Yukiti and his fellow students in the Ogata Institute heard that the 

 Govei-nor carried with hini a Dutch translation of Faraday's work on 

 electricity for which he paid 80 gold yen. Upon their earnest entreaty 

 the book was loaned to the students for a while. Thereupon they set 

 themselves to the brave task of copying the book. One read aloud 

 while the others wrote and when these got fatigued a fresh group took 

 their turn and thus they worked ceaselessly day and night until they 

 finished copying the book before the Governor's departure for a further 

 journey. There were also some captains of the Dutch ships as well as 

 the ship's doctors who, staying in Japan for the purpose of investi- 

 gating the manners and cutstoms of the country became teachers of 

 Japanese students. Among such pioneers, the names of Thunberg, 

 Titsiiigh, Doe(T, and fSiebold are most famous. 



During the interval between 1800 and 18GS the number of published 

 works and translations on physics, chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, 



