The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-04-29

advertiser Correspondence, Copyright
by Frederic j. Haskin.)
TOXIC, April 5--The visitor to
Japan is Immediately struck by the
universal ambition of the people to
learn the English language. The Jap
anese recognize the fact that English
has become the universal concurrent
of conversation, and they are deter
mined to possess it. Taking a walk
through a public park in Toxic, an
American s ears are greeted by the IA
miliar Strike one! Ball three! y
"Safe!" The umpire is clad in the
kimono of MS people, one nine dresses
in uniforms from an American sport
ing goods house, the other in native
costume, but the game is good Ameri-
can baseball, and it is always conducted
in the English language.
The study of English is compulsory
in the high schools, and is being grad
nally introduced in the elementary
schools also. A few years from now
English will be spoken in every part
of Japan, and it will be the national
business language. The zeal of the
high school boys is remarkable. Ameri-
cans or Britishers who have lived here
for some time become impatient with
the students, but the newcomer is al
ways interested. The boys have learn
ed to be on the lookout for the rub
ber-necked stranger. Let him stop to
watch game or look in a shop window
in some section of the city remote from
the foreign settlement, and he will be
surrounded by a group of high school
boys dressed in white-dotted blue XII
monos. If he will so much as glance
at one of them encouragingly the con-
versation begins, and the boys yolun-
teer themselves as guides or interpre-
tiers. They know that practice is re-
quired to learn to speak a language,
and they never overlook an opportun-
ity. An American on a trolley car will
have the services of two or three boys
to aid him in finding his destination,
while the other passengers who do not
know English look upon their young
compatriots with proud and approving
smiles.
Even those bows who are too poor
to go to shoot and must work for their
living are possessed by the same ambi-
tion. Such books as "English Learned
at Home" have an enormous sale, and
Z. foreigner who is shopping is often
asked by a working boy. how to pro-
nounce some especially difficult word.
Shopkeepers nut up English signs, some
of them ludicrously funny, and the I'M
perial and municipal governments re-
cognize English as the other Ian
guage' by placing English signs over
the doors of all public institutions The
money of Japan also bears English in
scriptions, as well as native characters.
Tt has been within the memory of
young men now living that the greatest
of Japanese scholars declared that Eng
people were inherently
wicked because of. the outrageous Ian
guage they used. He said that an Eng
lishman or an American would say
g see the NOON in stead of Hmoon
see, - which was absolutely idiotic, be- |
cause if the moon was not there how
could anyone see it! Now knowledge |
of English is required as a standard of
to many positions, and with |
out it no one is reckoned an accom- !
plished scholar.
The men educated in the universities |
of America and England speak excel |
lent English, but there are many JAP I