'Cliffe And Japan's Kobe College May Renew 'Sister' Relationship

On a plateau in Nishinomiya, Japan, in the social center of Kobe College, is a room dedicated to Radcliffe in commemoration of the pre-war sister-college relationship between the two schools. A plaque in the room reads, "Veritas: In Knowledge and Love of Truth," words suggested by Radcliffe's affiliation with Harvard, and chosen by ex-Radcliffe President Ada L. Comstock during her visit to Kobe in 1931.

This week the Annex played hostess to Miss Tomo Tambe, head of the English Department at Kobe. Miss Tambe has been studying the organization and administration of American women's colleges as a guest of Wellesley College since September and will return to Kobe this summer to help reorganize the senior college under the new education plan set forth by the occupation authorities.

During her short visit in Cambridge, Miss Tambe expressed hopes that Radcliffe might renew its sister-college tie with Kobe, which lapsed over the war years.

Sister Colleges Since 1925

Kobe College, which will celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary next year, was founded in 1875 by American Board Missionaries from Boston. It became Radcliffe's sister college in 1925, by vote of the Annex Student Government association upon the recommendation of Mrs. Frank Gaylord Cook, a 'Cliffe alumna interested in the American Board who had visited Japan with her husband the previous year.

At Radcliffe, a Kobe College Committee was appointed annually to make the sister-college contacts, and a "Cherry Blossom Song" in honor of the relationship was written. Annual gifts, sent to Kobe from Radcliffe's Community Chest, built up the "Radcliffe Room." An additional gift came from an Idler production of Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man," which netted $60.48.

The Radcliffe Room is a large room in the social center, with windows on three sides which overlook the Rokko hills. After the room was ready and in use, Radcliffe added to its equipment a gift of two dozen cups, saucers, and plates bearing Radcliffe designs.

Gifts came from the opposite direction as well. In 1929, Radcliffe's fiftieth jubilee anniversary, the girls at Kobe remembered the occasion with a delicate set of Japanese bells. An exchange of letters and student publications went back and forth across the Pacific. At Kobe, the English-Speaking Society kept up the student end of the sister-college relationship.

Student Exchange Program

Exchanges in cultural matters eventually evolved into an actual exchange of students in the late 30's. Miss Alice M. Maginnis, a Radcliffe graduate and an instructor in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, won the first fellowship to Kobe from Radcliffe. She was spending the summer of 1937 in Japan and China as a member of the study group under Robert K. Reischauer of Princeton University and was to study in Kobe that September.

When fighting broke out in Shanghai and Reischauer was killed in a bombing, Miss Maginnis fled to Manila, where she shared the city's worst earthquake in 30 years. When she reached Kobe, she decided the year was not a propitious one for her art study and relinquished the fellowship.

To Radcliffe came Kei Yoshida, who taught in the Music Department at Kobe on her return home.

On Par With U. S. Colleges

Formerly Kobe College compared in rank with American junior colleges, but during the war the senior college department was entirely dropped. Now, in accordance with the plans for a new educational system, Japanese institutions of higher learning for women will be raised to the full standards of American women's colleges. Kobe is one of the five women's schools in Japan eligible for such a charter.

Social Life Limited

Student activities at Kobe are based somewhat on the American system. There is a student government association, and various clubs including a drama group, photography, political economy, French, and German clubs, and a group for the study of the Tea Ceremony.

Social life for young women in Japan remains extremely limited. College girls would never be permitted to attend a dance. When a group of American G. I's from the occupation forces attempted to get the president of Kobe to hold a dance in the gymnasium last year, Miss Tambe related, the president put an unconditional "no" on the proposal. There's a limit to progress.