"A Quiet Place" by Seicho Matsumoto Thoughts

written May, 2025.

A Quiet Place by Seicho Matsumo, 1971, is an interesting story about a bureaucrat who attempts to maneuver his way up the ranks, in this quest, Tsueno Asai's relationship with his wife Eiko has become cold and transactional. Asai faces an event that upends his life when his wife Eiko suddenly dies in an unfamiliar neighborhood. The circumstances surrounding Eiko's death are unusual and Asai despite his cold attitude towards his wife, becomes more and more involved in finding out what has happened to her and eventually he investigates of whom had caused his wife's death. Due to the nature of the story, this summary will have to due for the reader, but this review is more concerned with themes and patterns that emerge in this story.

One of the major themes of this book would be quite familiar to those living in the west, the theme of the "rat race" or more specifically, great sacrifice within a capitalistic system in order to pursue both more and power. Tsueno Asai would be a relatable character in Japanese socity, while still not a salaryman office worker per say, his power was more in cleaning up others mess up more so than making his own individual decisions. As "A Quiet Place" progresses, Asai does begin to get more autonomy, yet this self direction ends up causing him great trouble. The author, Seicho Matsumoto had been known for his leftist proclivities, and the story's lack of meaning within a corporate environment is consistent for Marxist interpretations of the futility of the lower classes to participate in Capitalistic structures.

When the reader considers the publication time of this book in Japan and the student protests and even before the Anpo protests of 1960, once can see the inference from the social events and the reader can see what Matsumoto was thinking in the 1960s.

Matsumoto in the book makes a commentary about gender/sexuality relations. In some ways, the idea of women making their own decisions is accepted by Asai and when the main conflict emerges in the book, Asai does not blaim his wife, but rather the main antagonist instead.

An interesting part of "A Quiet Place" is a criticism of rigid society, or at least bureaucracy. Tsueno Asai could have avoided problems, but because of the lack of compentancy in society and in his job, it incredibly leads to Asai's downfall. Considering the expectations of work culture in Japan, and the decline of birth rate in modern Japan, it is not as surprise that social criticism from the opposition would resonate with readers who traditionally participate in a collectivistic society and for where bureaucracy is expected.

In conclusion, reading Matsumotos work for the first time, his work has a Japanese approach to the mystery genre while attempting to follow literary themes, looking at reviews of the work online, readers are mixed from western readers , yet for those readers who are used to reading a plot that develops over time like a Maigret work by George Simmenon or an Agatha Christie work, Matsumoto's work is interesting and worth checking out.

Language Acquisition: Then and Now. Part 3

written December, 2022.

The Education Industry has seen these emerging trends in the late 20th century and early 21st century and has worked to put out many courses of various levels to try to reach new audiences. In the 1990s and 2000s, many mixed media packages, that is a paper book or pamphlet and audio CD package was a common experience in bookstores and online marketplaces. With that being said, the quality of the material was notably different compared to the past. Printed material in the middle of the 20th century to the 1980s was oriented towards serious students and thus had grammatical exercises, large vocabulary lists and self contained work. The newer courses that followed however was for a more casual audience. Research and work done by individuals such as Stephen Krashen and Professor Alexander Arguelles has documented the lack of content in newer courses. It is unfortunate since the price hasn’t been lowered to reflect this lack of content, but has kept pace with inflation. The trend of removing content to focus on casual conversation has continued into the 2010s and early 2020s as now it is almost a requirement to purchase multiple courses to reach the same threshold as those of an earlier time. Despite the failure of these modern courses of the same brand to provide the experience of before, there is now more substantial website media and application language learning.

In the age of social media, new applications have come about to meet the increased demand of second language acquisition. Applications such as Babel, Duolingo, Lingq and others have provided a platform, usually “fremium”, that is some basic material is free to learn with, whereas the majority of the content must be paid for. Despite being marketed for a casual market, these site have had success, especially with the increase of demand for learning the English language by people overseas. Generally, what these applications have in common is that they try to “gamify” the routine of memorizing and exposure to the target language.5050 One of the way they accomplish this is with using icons and email notifications to remind their audience to come back and keep their day streak going on. In addition, these websites will usually provide more incentives for customers to seek out other products to explore and presumably pay money for. The benefit of this type of media, is that it allows you to explore different offerings while not committing much time or money towards a given task. This is much different than going to University or other private school offerings where large expenses are due up front. The negative aspect of this learning methodology is while it has been examined that some progress can be made on these different platforms, it is not enough for those individuals who are looking to get credentials in a language on the European framework or other like frameworks and it will not replace having a teaching in a classroom to guide those students on common mistakes and how to avoid them.51

Another development has emerged in the American market for second language acquisition. The rise of Spanish language publication. Traditionally, through the 20th century, much of the publication of books and other printed media occurred in Spain and to a lesser extent Mexico.52 This restriction of location for publishing in Spanish has made it that a lot of material is not widely available in the United States in the past; however, since the 2000s, there has been notice in the corporate publishing industry that there is a fast growing demographic of Spanish speaking people in the United States. The amount of Spanish speakers has accelerated since the 1980s; therefore, big publishers in the United States are currently heavily invested in producing bilingual education material and publishing new Spanish language publications of known, popular books.53 It is now common to see a major author in the US have a simulation or near simultaneous release of their novel or nonfiction book in bookstores to reach this demographic. The methods and execution of business to reach this market has led to technological developments in the classroom. Now it is common to see middle school and high school students using published software, that is interactive software to connect their language to English vocabulary.5454 This software approach has had mixed results in performance of students in US State administered testing, but it will likely evolve to improve on what results have been accomplished according to standard metrics of assessment.

In conclusion, the study of language acquisition and its implementation will continue to be progressed forward by a mixture of government, military and private industry for different outcomes. Challenges exist that need to be addressed for the overall education system in the United States including the problems of using standardized tests to measure results and the decline of reading ability among the American public; yet, with concerted effort in the means and techniques to tackle these problems, these problems can be solved with the passage of time.

Work Cited

1. Mclelland, Nicola, and Richard Smith, eds. The History of Language Learning and Teaching I: 16th-18th Century Europe. NED-New edition. Modern Humanities Research Association, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv16km0ns.

2. Krashen, Stephen D. Principles and Practices in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1982.

3.Gummere, Francis B. “What Place Has Old English Philology in Our Elementary Schools?” Transactions of the Modern Language Association of America 1 (1884): 170–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/456007.

4. Ramos, Francisco, and Stephen Krashen. “Rapid Research Report: The Impact of One Trip to the Public Library: Making Books Available May Be the Best Incentive for Reading.” The Reading Teacher 51, no. 7 (1998): 614–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20201971.

5. Buck, Carl Darling. “Comparative Philology and the Classics.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 47 (1916): 65–83. https://doi.org/10.2307/282828.

6. Kaufmann, Steve. The Way of the Linguist: A Language Learning Odyssey. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2005.

7. Corson, Hiram, “The Aims of Literary Study” New York, NY: Macmillian and Company, 1895.

8. Korty, Margaret Barton. “Benjamin Franklin and Eighteenth-Century American Libraries.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 55, no. 9 (1965): 1–83. https://doi.org/10.2307/1006049.

9. Atiyah, Michael. “Benjamin Franklin and the Edinburgh Enlightenment.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 4 (2006): 591–606. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4599027.

10. Groen, Mark (Spring–Summer 2008). "The Whig Party and the Rise of Common Schools, 1837–1854".American Educational History Journal.35 (1/2): 251–260.

11. Henkin, Alan B., and C. Dennis Ignasias. “Planning in Public Education: Lessons from Horace Mann and Henry Barnard.” The Clearing House 51, no. 9 (1978): 430–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30185059.

12. Suen, Hoi K., and Lan Yu. “Chronic Consequences of High‐Stakes Testing? Lessons from the Chinese Civil Service Exam.” Comparative Education Review 50, no. 1 (2006): 46–65. https://doi.org/10.1086/498328.

14. Finkelstein, Barbara. “Perfecting Childhood: Horace Mann and the Origins of Public Education in the United States.” Biography 13, no. 1 (1990): 6–20. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23539439.

15. Doering, Aaron, Richard Beach, and David O’Brien. “Infusing Multimodal Tools and Digital Literacies into an English Education Program.” English Education 40, no. 1 (2007): 41–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40173267.

16. Stavans, Ilan. “Bilingual Nation: Spanish-Language Books in the United States since the 1960s.” In A History of the Book in America: Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, edited by David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson, 389–406. University of North Carolina Press, 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469625836_nord.31.

17. Freeman, Donald, and Karen E. Johnson. “Reconceptualizing the Knowledge-Base of Language Teacher Education.” TESOL Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1998): 397–417. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588114.

18. Abrams, Sandra Schamroth, and Sara Walsh. “Gamified Vocabulary: ONLINE RESOURCES AND ENRICHED LANGUAGE LEARNING.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58, no. 1 (2014): 49–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24034541.

19. Erard, Michael. Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners. New York, NY: Free Press, 2012.

20. Levy, Mike. “Technologies in Use for Second Language Learning.” The Modern Language Journal 93 (2009): 769–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25612273.

21. Gimbel, John. “German Scientists, United States Denazification Policy, and the ‘Paperclip Conspiracy.’” The International History Review 12, no. 3 (1990): 441–65. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40106226.

22. Keene, Donald, and Akira Yamaguchi. Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009.

23. Ichinokuchi, Tad and Daniel Aiso, eds. John Aiso and the M.I.S.: Japanese-American Soldiers in the Military Intelligence Service, World War II. Los Angeles: The Club, 1988.

24. Tedick, Diane J., and Constance L. Walker. “Second Language Teacher Education: The Problems That Plague Us.” The Modern Language Journal 78, no. 3 (1994): 300–312. https://doi.org/10.2307/330109.

25. Sabol, Steven. “Assimilation and Identity.” In “The Touch of Civilization”: Comparing American and Russian Internal Colonization, 205–34. University Press of Colorado, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1mtz7g6.10.

26. Kashima, Tetsuden. “Executive Order 9066.” In Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, 47–92. University of Washington Press, 1997. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnm2s.8.

27. Bray, Patrick (27 July 2016). "75th Anniversary Special: The Nisei legacy". Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.

28. Davis, Donald A. Lightning Strike: The Secret Mission to Kill Admiral Yamamoto and Avenge Pearl Harbor. St. Martin’s Press, New York: 2005.

29. Hanushek, Eric A., and Steven G. Rivkin. “Understanding the Twentieth-Century Growth in U.S. School Spending.” The Journal of Human Resources 32, no. 1 (1997): 35–68. https://doi.org/10.2307/146240.

30. Azuma, Eiichiro. “Brokering Race, Culture, and Citizenship: Japanese Americans in Occupied Japan and Postwar National Inclusion.” The Journal of American-East Asian Relations 16, no. 3 (2009): 183–211. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23613054.

31. Malley, Shawn. “Layard Enterprise: Victorian Archaeology and Informal Imperialism in Mesopotamia.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 40, no. 4 (2008): 623–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40206011.

32.McCormick, John R. “History of Foreign Language Teaching at the United States Military Academy.” The Modern Language Journal 54, no. 5 (1970): 319–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/322171.

Language Acquisition: Then and Now. Part 2

written December, 2022.

Another vein that emerged in the late 1800s and continued to the 20th century was the idea of Great books. Great books, an established canon of works for one to pursue an understanding of and to engage in fruitful discussion did notably escape the control of religious dogma, since in its canon, many works actually criticized religion; yet, even in institutions that had a religious identity it was still valued to be a teaching way. Many of the books in the Western canon of Great books, that is those which are commonly ascribed to it are works of different languages than English. Due to this, the more advance Great book programs like University of Chicago and Colombia promote individuals learning languages that are relevant to reading primary sources. This tradition had been very strong in the United States and it lead to derivative trends we would see in the late 20th century.

In the middle of the 20th century, education became a national issue. The Soviets had just sent up Sputnik in 1959, and thus science and engineering became pressing nature for the White House administration. Due to this, education was flooded with money and other resources in order to catch up to the Soviet Union.22 The pursuit of knowledge in this period was greatly helped with the rise of the English language as the lingua franca, that is the common language of commerce. Despite, the decline of the British Empire after World War 2; the United States became the predominant power in the world and everyone knew it. With this development, the influence of French and German declined in scholarly activity; although in some fields such as Engineering and Science, German continued to have a prominent role.2323 This is due in part to the Marshal plan and its funding to rebuild key industry in Europe. The Germans from their destruction emerged as manufactures of lots of cars and other high quality goods. The French on the other hand recovered and focused on chemical and nuclear energy development. Since the Eisenhower administration had deregulated part of the nuclear industry for its civilian production, this helped out the industries of other nations expand as well.24

Something notable happened to language learning in the 1960s and that was the rise of applied linguistics and genitive grammar. Applied Linguistics, being the preferred term for is essentially the umbrella term that took over for Philology in the English speaking world, while Genitive grammar, pioneered by scholar Noam Chomsky, attempted to scientifically analyses grammar and other elements of language in a robust mater.25 This genitive grammar arrived at a time in which philosophy had also turned more analytical with those in the English speaking world preferring Analytical philosophy, a way of looking at philosophy with mathematics and unique symbolism versus the continental tradition of the European continent, which put less emphasis on mathematical structure. This continental tradition emerged largely in France and thus the French language became more sought after by those in the English speaking world. 26What is interesting is that although the demand of science was being met by American students at the time, the language acquisition largely did not keep up to speed.

For different reasons, English speaking nations then and now continue to have difficulty in establishing good performance in language education. In Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, students take years of language education in a foreign language and yet many do not get very far.27 Some place the blame on the dominance of English in parlance, some blame it on the failure of the overall system of education. Whatever the reason, this lack of success in the field has caused people in these nations to miss out on developments in other countries. This is especially profound for business people as many English speaking nations now have vast amounts of different people moving there and thus have to find a way to meet the new supply and demand element of this. Part of the problem is the lack of innovation shown in many programs. Secular education in these countries still insists on students memorizing words, puts little emphasis on natural reading and just doing grammar exercises.28 Not only does the memorizing of words not work efficiently in the pursuit of language learning, it also takes away from one of the key motivations of language learning, motivation.

Motivation has and will continue to be an important aspect of language learning. For prospective scholars of the past, languages allowed for interested parties to explore new areas of the world for the culture, archaeology, and even literature. For those in Europe who had tried to make a name for themselves in their own frontiers, this was a large motivation. The ideas of Europe diffused over into North America and became more pronounced in the time period after the US Civil War. This coincided with the rise of American ambition to join the European powers in economic and military expansion. The Navy in this way was the most pronounced in its influence for scholars because of their reach in different ports of the world. After the Spanish American war of 1898, the US had gained the territory of Puerto Rico, Guam and gave the Americans the ability to buy the Philippines from Spain for 20 million dollars. From this intervention, it grew the need for the US to have negotiators in Spanish in particular to reach the new populations that it had annexed.29

To train US soldiers and members of the Navy, the US employed special institutions to train for languages and corresponding military manuals. The role of language was notable for one of the premier institutions of the US Army, West Point. In 1803, West Point had the vast majority of its military guides and manuals in French, and thus many people who spoke French were recruited domestically and from abroad.3030 Before and After the US-Mexican War, officers had the pressing need for Spanish and thus that was added to the teaching curriculum in the 1850s on wards, and so; as the 20th century rolled around there was precedent for the teaching of languages. The First World War caused the US to increase its investment in its language capabilities, despite its late entrance into the War, it had seen the technical challenges that required advance knowledge of geography and technical vocabulary. Due to this, it was more common for US personnel in the 1920s – 1930s to send officers to learn languages at foreign embassies.3131 With the rise of Hitler and the Japanese imperialistic empire, it became clear that the US needed to increase its institutions for language learning. The Defense Language institute predecessors were established to meet the needs of the military. There rigorous training was given out to prepare soldiers in the field for the roles they needed to play in intelligence and reconnaissance. Not surprisingly, the institute was first centered in California, an area with many bilingual people. The Defense Language institute at this time was called “Military Intelligence Service Language School”, MISLS led the efforts in the training of field officers in languages important for the time.32 By 1941, Japanese and German had become security necessities for soldiers and thus the 4th Army was ordered to start a formal school for Japanese. There it was run by Lietuenant Colonel John Weckerling and Captain Kai Rasmussen, graduates of previous programs in Tokyo. They recruited many Japanese Americans to help and to learn for the United States.33

Unfortunately, the start of the World War in late 1941, caused many racial legislation to be passed. In accordance, Executive Order 9066 was passed by President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt that required Japanese Americans to be removed from the West coast of the United States3434 Due to this, the 4th Army was pressured significantly and lost many members of the classes from suspicion by military police and then in June 1942, MISLS was moved to Minnesota for the remainder of the war. In Minnesota, members of the graduate class with proficiency in Japanese were sent to the Pacific in short order.3535 Something significant happened just a year later in the midst of battle for the Pacific; in April 1943, a MIS linguist, Harold Fudenna intercepted a radio signal about the whereabouts of the infamous Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto. This was the man who was responsible for the attack and planning of Pearl Harbor and from this information, the US Navy found Admiral Yamamoto’s plane and shot it down.3636 The death of such a respected military man from Japan was a major blow to the morale of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Successes such as this and further major operations established MISLS in a positive regard and thus when World War 2 had ended, MISLS returned to California and was renamed the Defense Language Institute. The Institute continued to expand and to this day runs two major centers, one in Monterrey, California and an English language school here in San Antonio, Texas.

In the aftermath of World War 2, the demand for language learning and better ways for professionals, soldiers, etc. to obtain it just increased because of the onset of the Cold War. The Cold War started slowly when talking about budgets and demand, but by the 1950s, massive expansion of the military and other services pushed many fields of diplomacy and education forward.38 For one thing, many interpreters and members of the military left the service with valuable skill sets. For Japanese studies, eminent scholars such as Donald Keene and Donald Richie came to establish themselves in Literature and film studies respectively. They had initial support from the US government during the occupation of Japan, but afterwards, it was individual effort in a new market that established them in their fields.39 In addition, the flow of information from the United States was not one sided, from Europe and Asia came many individuals to assist in economic and diplomacy. From Germany, the now declassified “Operation Paperclip” was an operation that confirmed and supported many German scientists from the ruined Third Reich, whether these individuals were virtuous or not was not important to the United States Government, but rather whether or not they had expertise to help bolster the Nuclear, rocket and other scientific developments aspects of the economy were they included to leave Germany.4040 To support this transition, many interpreters from the Defense Language Institute and other contractors with high secretary clearances were brought in to provide language support. All of these operations and developments were reasons why the next age of language acquisition moved from a very institution based system, to more of one of individual needs and aspirations.

The rise of the notable polyglot, that is by definition someone who has fluency and advanced proficient in many languages began to increase in the middle to late 20th century. There had been people in the past who had achieved great success in a number of languages, individuals such as Emil Krebs, John Milton and Giuseppi Mezzofanti; but, beginning in the 20th century offered more technology like video, audio recordings on tape and easier transportation for people to exploit these technological advancements to meet many people in different countries.4242 On these new technological grounds, individuals within the different structures of diplomacy, education and business sent prospective persons to learn in other countries and yet, they did not rely on coursework. For example, Steve Kaufman, a Canadian polyglot spent time in Hong Kong learning Mandarin, despite, Hong Kong being in a near proximity of China, Mandarin wasn’t the people of Hong Kong’s primary language and so, Mr. Kaufman went out of his way to learn by tape, reading graded readers, and speaking to as many people as possible. From there, he was posted to Japan and had to restart the process. Afterwards, throughout the 1980s onward, he was able to use self study methods to pick up many other languages for personal interest and business.4343 Steve Kaufmann methods of reading lots of books and listening to audio is what scholars of language acquisition call “input based learning”. The idea being that the majority of the exposure one would get from this is going to be from a personal self lead experience by working through material. This idea of self driven work is supported by scholars such as Professor Stephen Krashen’s research into applied linguistics and bilingual studies, his input hypothesis has been that comprehensible input, that is stories and sentences that can mostly be understood by the reader while adding new vocabulary is a strong method and perhaps the best method to learning a foreign language.44 While Krashen’s ideas and methods are not without some scrutiny, many individuals still find value in his ways of learning language, even proponents of Output based learning.

Output based learning is that of speaking with different people and producing the language as being the main method of learning the language. Of course, some input is needed in this method, yet, most of the productive work is done by producing the language of choice according to its proponents. An example of the output method in action would be of the polyglot Moses McCormick. On the social media website, Youtube; he would create many videos of him walking around in many different venues like malls, grocery stores, retail stores and even public gatherings and ask people he met, using context clues to whether or not they were from another nation and then ask them a series of introductory information. Moses McCormick stated on his videos and posts that he adapted a standard set of sayings and expressions from self study books such as Colloquial series and the Teach Yourself series and used personal experience from his tutoring and the usage of connecting words to formulate a standard procedure of what to learn first and then expand from this common curriculum. Doing this, he was able to establish a baseline of understanding of different languages and would then go on to search for additional material. As mentioned before about the failure of many students to learn how to hold a basic conversation with people of other countries after years of study, this method was much more effective for those who have adopted it. It is not a surprise, since the output hypothesis has been researched by scholars into its utility. The success of these modern polyglots in scenarios and learning pedagogy that largely avoid the classroom has caused many to seek out new ways to find more efficient methods in the process of language learning.47 Both of these polyglots, Moses McCormick and Steve Kaufman show a dialectic that has emerged in modern second language acquisition, the argument of a pure input based education versus an output based method.

Language Acquisition: Then and Now. Part 1

written December, 2022.

The History of language education is one of parallel ideas and continuously changing movements. From the age of the Enlightenment to our present time period there has always been multiple ways of thoughts and methods on how to teach language. In the time leading up into the 1700s, Christianity and its various lineages had played a major role in shaping the way in which people had thought about education, including languages; however, by the end of the 1700s, the character of education had changed. This was because the Age of Enlightenment had fundamentally changed how scholars and the public had looked at religion and thus this directly impacted the way in which education was taught. Secular education took a more important role in the upbringing of many professionals and thus while Latin was the main language of science and with its supplements of Ancient Greek, by the end of the 1700s and as the 1800s progressed, vernacular languages of English, French and German had become dominant in the time of the Industrial revolutions.1 With this reality in mind, it becomes sensible to limit the examination of this history of language acquisition to the United States, in order to track the developments from the 1700s onward. This is appropriate since despite the colonial foundation that had settled the Americas, the United States was more free to pursue different lines of heritage for its education. In the Americas, individuals such as Benjamin Franklin and Horace Mann had called for reform of education.2 This included establishing “classless schools” and public libraries. Such luxuries were not available to the common person in other western nations; therefore, it gave Educators the ability to develop into separate and remarkable paths for all education and more specifically language learning.

In following the paths language education was to take, it is appropriate to consider the origins. Class played an important role in European and American systems. The Monastery and private institutions gave those with capital the ability to become knowledgeable in a strict education of the Bible and great works composed by those who had established themselves as remarkable in the discourses of philosophy. Latin, being the language of religion and many scientific works in its later Latin form was studied and grammatical cases and tables were studied vehemently.3

This sort of rote education is not unique to the Western education experience from that time period of the 1700s to 1800s, as education in other parts of the world, notably cultures in the Asian continent utilize a lot of the same education pedagogy for thousands of years4. As the 1800s progressed, the monastery lost a lot of power of authority with the diffusion of knowledge to the majority and thus, private religious schools and secular schools became the prime mover of education.5 Along with this, a robust tradition of literary excellence established in the old world and beginning in the new world gave more students the opportunity to expand their horizons for understanding text. This motivated many to learn German, Italian and French in their studies to understand the radical ideas of writers of the day.6 What the diffusion of knowledge also allowed was the substantiation of knowledge being taught to those of the working class. From the 1840s onward, class played less of a role onto what education one received. Horace Mann in his role as secretary of Education in the state of Massachusetts, he worked to create a standard system where teacher would learn about trends of teaching and pedagogy that had been accessed as meritorious.7 In addition, he believed in taxes from the locals to fund their school systems and more involvement from the community, a common core that embraces democracy and ideas of the US constitution, Education must not be religiously aligned to one sect versus another, and that teachers should be well prepared to teach.8 To support his idea, he traveled to Europe and reported changes that were to be made in benefit of the school system. For the aspect of language education, he focused on children learning whole words instead of the alphabet, this is similar to how phrases can be learned in the approaches to learning foreign languages. Although, Horace Mann’s idea was limited in scope, as time progressed, more people came to support the idea of learning phrases to learn language.9

One of the biggest challenges that had been persistent among Americans in the 1800s and early 1900s was the problem of illiteracy.10 The nature of the US economy of the time meant there was many factors that had played into limiting education for people. Many immigrant groups did not speak English when they arrived at the United States and due to crowded conditions in cities, some did not have the opportunity to good schooling. To add on, there was the existing minority population within these areas whom due to racism and other factors such as economics had to send their children into the work force early or did not have the institutions to give people a solid education.11

For the immigrant populations, the rise of nationalism; particularly around the World War 1 era directly impacted German immigrants that they were not taught their heritage language. Other groups, even if they weren’t considered enemies of the United States were told by societal powers and even amongst their own families to assimilate and leave their culture behind.1212 This mentality was very unfortunate since many children missed out on rich literature from their home languages and didn’t receive a strong education in English and thus limited their prospects for advancement in the economy. What is interesting about this is how despite not being a direct class system like in the United Kingdom, the wealthy and business classes were actually showing the opposite of this trend. Language learning had always been important to those in Europe in order to conduct business and diplomacy and the same was true in the United States. Education at Ivy league schools and other elite institutions prided themselves on their robust philology program13

Philology, coming from the Greek root of Philologia, or the “love of language” is the term for the study of language in written and oral sources. It had a rich heritage in Europe and that knowledge had permeated the United States education system along with its overall ideas of the Prussian education.1414 With such a strong connection to Germany and its academic community, some scholars rejected the ideas and manners of this study due to World War 1. Of course, this mindset had roots in blatant nationalism and not objective criticism in methodology of learning language, it did wane the term in the United States, but the ideas still existed just under different labels. In the North East United States, specialization and overall rates of literacy were increasing at a steady rate; however, in other parts of the country, particularly the Southern United States, efforts were not as widespread.15

Many in the Southern United States did not receive a strong education until long into the 20th century, as Jim crow laws and other barriers kept many from joining their northern peers in educational attainment.16 This mentality kept the South behind in development, but did not affect the north as much as although education had been more centralized by the end of the 1800s, by the middle of the 1900s; much of education had a common school system but with a very decentralized structure. States more than anything had instructed schools on how to run their curriculum.17

For some of the gaps in education that existed, there was the increasing role of libraries and private tutoring that emerged to fill gaps. Public library systems greatly expanded in the 20th century, particularly in the American South and West, where large populations were moving to in the 1930s and 1940s. Philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller had established foundations and trusts to give away vasts amount of money to establish universities and public library systems. For those systems that existed, buildings and material was added in vast amounts.18

One of the primary institutions to benefit from this philanthropy was the University of Chicago. University of Chicago along with University of Berkeley, UCLA and Colombia had established themselves as premier places to learn history, philosophy and in that pursuit, languages.19 Language learning in the 20th century became even more important as the archives of European libraries and Universities became more accessible. It was not enough to know the just the English speaking approach to a historical or philosophical topic, but rather all Western sources needed to be consulted to have robust scholarship. In this vein, scholars would learn the language of the area in which they were studying more in depth. This tradition had originated in the British Empire as they expanded their colonial borders. For example, many interpreters and scholars of Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian emerged in the ranks of the British East India company to reap the rewards of civil service in addition to basically having little real barriers to accessing ancient and contemporary works.20 From the transition from the company to the British Raj, their role only became more important. Imperialism was not the only factor in this, but the Industrial revolutions continued the need to exchange information on different technology.

Eastern Elegy 22'

Eastern Eulegy 22'

A day has passed that has rocked the archipelago,

An afterimage has emerged, perhaps of Anpo,

Foreign influence is resisted, but at what cost,

For the youth had their say back then too.

The grandson disappeared on this modern day,

Taken away without much of a say,

A crude attack, aimed at one’s back,

For that day, the 20th century had flashed,

Violence brought back in a time of troubles,

Watch out for the third column,

For the land of the rising sun,

Must not fall into darkness,

Helios Backstory Part 1

When the sunset on July 2nd, 80 FE, the bombings began. The next morning images of the destruction of Satsuma flashed across all residents of Japan's TV sets. A gathering of members of the high government had declared war on the nation of LanxingFang. In Yashiharou, residents were ordered to meet in the Yashiharou Square, an announcer began, “hello citizens; this is a declaration from the government; due to the number of current active soldiers in the imperial army; a draft will be called beginning at 1500 hours.” “During that time, those men between the ages of 16 to 26 will meet here at the central square, those whose surname begins with A to K; for those of you with special skills; a supplemental test shall be administered to determine proper placement; that will be all.” There was chatter among the audience; some were angry at the common enemy while others; primarily women and children worried over their male family members; among the crowd Helios Ata shook his head and looked over to his friend Joji. “Looks like our generation must fight the battles of the older generation, when will humanity learn from its past mistakes?” questioned Helios. “You can’t say that too loud, the wrong person may overhear you,” replied Joji, “I think you are right, come let's head to the mill.” The duo walked over to the mill; “you boys ready for your shift?” asked the foreman, Joji announced “we can only work until 2:30; we need to show up to the draft drawings.” The foreman approached Joji and stated “ah.yes you two are of age; well get to work and i'll speak with the boss”, and so Helios and Joji get started on their work; half way through the shift, Hiro Ushima approaches the duo, “you boys can take a break now, i’d like to have a word with you in my office, please follow me up there”, the boys complied and once they entered his office he shut the door behind them. Once all of them had sat down Hiro began, “I want you two to take the science aptitude tests for this here draft”, after some hesitation Helios spoke, “I don’t know sir, we may not be up to par to be specialists.'' Ushima replied “look here, I’ve spoken to some officials and due to our business dealing with manufacturing; I’m allowed one specialist to help us here to increase production and maintain military standards and I think you two have the best chance of taking that spot; those who are allowed to serve behind the front are more likely to survive this ordeal” told Ushima. “Mr. Ushima, are you suggesting that we should behave like cowards?” questioned Joji. “No!, listen I have been alive three times as long as you have and I’ve seen what war does to people, you can be just as useful to us here as overseas, I will show you the damage to my chest”, he proceeded to unbutton his shirt to show severe scars around his body; “these are bullet wounds and sword wounds; I’ve barely returned alive during my service and a lot of my friends didn’t make it back home; I’m an old man, I need the help and maybe; I can save one of your lives”, after a moment of silence, Hikari stood up from the chair, “alright, I’ll take the test, who knows maybe my habits and work ethic will lead to something”, Joji followed “might as well try it” and then the two thanked Mr Ushima and left his office. Mr. Ushima sat back down in his chair and thought with a smile on his face ‘perhaps the future can change’. At the Plaza, Joji and Hikari waited in line to take the examination. Both of them received an answer sheet and went to work on the examination. After the written portion was complete, there was an oral exam.

A few hours later, the results were sent. Mr. Ushima sent for Joji and Helios, “I will see you one at a time.” Joji went in first, after 15 minutes he left without saying anything. Helios next went into the office. “Please, sit down” told Ushima “I have good news for you, you scored high on the examination and will be continuing to work with us… congratulations,” announced Ushima. Helios’s face changed from a tense uptight disposition to a look of ease. Without saying anything Helios bowed, shook Mr Ushima’s hand and walked out of the office. The Time was 2:50 pm, Joji made his way to the central square when Helios caught up with him. Helios placed his hand on Joji’s shoulder and began speaking. “Joji… listen, I didn’t want things to turn out this way, damn these times of ours” stated Helios. Joji looked over at Helios once he had finished and replied “it’s a man’s duty to serve one’s country, never forget that” and then he walked off into the nearby crowd. Helios would not hear from his friend for the next 2 years.

Goals in due time.

In our modern age, It has become fashionable to follow a rigid pathway of increased performance and productivity in a workplace or to work towards a goal to the sacrifice of everything else. One can speculate that this promoted trend has to do with the COVID-19 Pandemic and its consequences on the job market, that being the increased competitive nature of a job market and finding a job in an international economy while it is under major stress. With that being said, this idea of continual hustle and grind is not a new concept and we can take a look at old concepts as a source for these new age ideas that have manifested themselves in self help videos and articles online.

Some years ago, I read a book called “The Time Paradox” by Philip Zimbardo; essentially, this book could be boiled down to the following central tenants. 1. There are three main time perspectives. These perspectives that exist are the past focus, the present focus and the future focus. The differences between these three perspectives are that a person focuses on either their past, present or future and depending on which course of action they take, it will heavily impact their life and corresponding success. This is because, the past focuser is reminiscing or complaining about what has happened before, and thus this holds them back from continual self improvement. In contrast, the present focuser is attempting to deal with life with the primary issue being what is directly in front of them. According to Zimbardo, these individuals may have some limited success, but because they are so caught up in the here and now, they are limited in which ways they can expand and grow and so, in the long term they will have limited success. The future thinker is thus put on a pedestal and showered with praise for that they don’t worry about the past and instead just keep grinding towards their goals and keep moving in a forward direction. While, grinding forward towards specific goals is all well and good; today, I would like to address how the unconventional individual, that is someone who wants to take a different path than the perpetual grinder, may be on a wise path.

In history, there were individuals who were highly skilled in many topics and made great names for themselves. Such individuals were noted in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and include individuals such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Goethe. The term for these people is called “Polymath”. For those unaware of the words origin, it comes from Greek language roots meaning someone who has high expertise in multiple fields of study.

Many people, assume that if they set a linear pathway of goals and objectives that they must hit these in order to progress; however, I would argue that this is not the only way forward and that divergent pathways can be very positive and even complimentary for pursuing long term goals. A pertinent example is that of NASA Space Program. Many inventions such as space water filtration, improved solar cells and imaging systems now used in cellphones have come about from the spending into the Federal Space programs for the purpose of examining the conditions of space and of landing people on the moon in the 20th century. Such investment has led to many new ideas and progressions on problems in the world despite not seeming applicable in the here and now.

The Corollary of having an open mind while working on different goals is a central point of the many notable books like that of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstader and the Art of Programming by Donald Knuth. They emphasis that different approaches to problems is vital. Why is an open mind necessary, you may ask? I think it is essential for people to understand that a day of thinking about an issue and one hour of actual execution may very well be much better than doing 8 hours of continual work down the wrong path. For where would Classical Physics be if it wasn’t for Isaac Newton sitting under a tree?

In Conclusion, individuals will have to decide for themselves the best use of their time; however, I suspect that if individuals take the time to explore different pathways out there for their goals, then they will be happier in the endgame.