The speech of Abe Yoshishige that changed history
It is said that his speech saved the country.
This story alone did not prevent the romanization of Japanese, but the story goes that this greeting struck a chord with the educators of the occupying forces. Regarding the issue of the national language and national script, the first American educational mission, which was the core of the occupying forces, was made up of quite decent people, and it seems that many of them thought that even during the occupation, English should not be forced on the people. However, the prevailing view was that Japanese should be used, but the writing should be written in romanized characters so that even people with low levels of education could read and write it.
The Minister of Education at that time was Abe Yoshinari. Before the end of the war, he was the principal of First Higher School (now the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Tokyo), an educator, philosopher, and staunch liberal. He gave a speech to welcome the mission. In his speech, he said, “Japan has made many mistakes in its past occupation policies. This is because it ignored the traditions and realities of the country and forced its selfish policies by force. I hope that the United States will not repeat the same mistakes that Japan made.” The audience erupted in applause, and the leader of the mission asked Abe to shake hands.
There are liberals in Japan too, and one of them is the Minister of Education. It is said that the movement to respect culture also drove the Education Mission. Apart from this, GHQ was promoting a plan to remove kanji and kana from the writing of Japanese and unify it into the Roman alphabet. The leader of this plan was Major Robert K. Hall of CI&E (Civil Intelligence and Education Bureau). He tried to push through this Romanization strongly, but in his notes he wrote that after the incident at the Education Mission, many people in CI&E, who were supposed to be his family, opposed the plan, and he was forced to give up. I think this speech saved the wonderful culture of being able to freely read and write kanji, hiragana, and katakana from being ruined.
Abe Yoshishige
After the war, in 1946 (Showa 21), he became the Minister of Education in the Shidehara Reshuffle Cabinet, but resigned after serving for a few months. During his term in office, in his welcoming address to the first American educational mission to Japan, he requested that America approach Japan with “justice and truth” rather than force.
Philosopher and educator. Born in Matsuyama. Graduated from the University of Tokyo. After serving as a professor at Keijo University and the principal of Ichi High School, he became the Minister of Education and president of Gakushuin after World War II. A disciple of Natsume Soseki. Author of “Kant’s Practical Philosophy,” “History of Western Moral Thought,” “Biography of Iwanami Shigeo,” etc. (1883-1966)