TOKYO PROFESSOR HEAPS PRAISES ON UNIVERSITY

Professor Tetsuzo Okada, one of the most distinguished professors of Japan and an instructor at the Military Staff College in Tokyo, yesterday paid an informal visit to the University on his brief tour of the United States. He was escorted by a throng of Japanese students, his former pupils, all eager to show him about the University, which he viewed for the first time.

Professor Okada's especial interest lay in the teaching of classes, and he attended Philosophy A and English 11B, a course in Milton. In a special interview to a CRIMSON representative, he expounded his views of the University in the purest of English, albeit with a pronounced foreign accent. At the explanations of the reporter, he constantly interjected, "So-so?" and then took the utmost pains to make his statement clearly understood.

Harvard Best Known College

"I am so glad," declared Professor Okada, "to be able to see at last Harvard which I have known indirectly many, many years. Where I live, there is contact with your University in many ways. Harvard is known all over Japan, more than any other foreign place of learning. We use your books, your ideas, your graduates, in our University life, and each year we urge as many young men to come to Harvard is possible. When our boys come back, they come back men, with great knowledge and experience for teaching."

The system of instruction at the Military Staff College in Tokyo is modeled on that of American colleges to a very great extent. Professor Okada, who is himself a teacher of English literature, was most interested in hearing English lectures.

Milton Not Understood in Japan

Upon emerging from English 11B, in which Dr. F. P. Magoun '16 had been talking on "Paradise Lost", he said, "Do you know, it is very difficult to teach Milton to my students. There is so much mythology and fine detail which is unintelligible to the Japanese, that it is nearly impossible to teach more than a small amount of Milton's works. I was surprised at how quickly the teacher read 'Paradise Lost' and the boys understood it.

"Tennyson is the most appreciated of the English poets. The ear of even one unused to English can catch the beauty of his lines. But we have difficulty in understanding your poets like Browning whose meaning is hidden."

Asked his plans while in Cambridge Professor Okada replied, "I must leave this afternoon by the train at 4 o'clock. But first, I mean to go about more with my boys to see all the things about which they wrote me. Before I go, I wish to say it is one of the best experiences of may life to visit Harvard, which I consider the greatest University in the world."