312 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications
REMARKS ON ADDRESS OF DR. SPARKS
BY DR. T. C.
MENDENHALL
Mr. President and Members of the
Society:
I had a story to tell this afternoon but
in view of the late
hour I have begged the Chairman to let me off. As he
insists
on not doing so I will put off my story
for a future day and
speak very briefly of a thought that has
been in my mind while
listening to the extremely interesting
paper of Dr. Sparks and
the very impressive address of General
Keifer.
Dr. Sparks has emphasized and
illustrated the irresistible
march of civilization towards the west,
a sometimes temporarily
halted, but never completely arrested
movement, which crossed
the continent of Europe, then the
Atlantic Ocean, and in our
own time has reached our western border,
the shores of the
Pacific.
The thought which came to me grew out of
a personal
incident which threatened to prevent my
hearing these two most
interesting addresses because of an
expected visit (now post-
poned for a day) from Dr. R. Fujisawa,
retired professor of
the Imperial University of Japan, in
which institution he was
my pupil more than forty years ago. He
has just completed
a course of lectures at the
International Political Institute which
has been in session at Williams College,
Williamstown. Massa-
chusetts.
As many of you know, the Institute is of
recent founda-
tion. holding its meetings annually for
a few weeks, for the
study of important international
questions. Distinguished men
are called from foreign countries to
give courses of lectures,
each upon some phase of the political
institutions of his own
land which may just now be of special
interest.
Dr. Fujisawa very kindly sent me
typewritten copies of
his lectures as given from day to day
and the leading note
which he has sounded rang in my ears
this afternoon as I heard
it repeated in the notable addresses to
which we have listened.
I recalled the fact that when I first
saw him he was a
typical youth of high rank in a nation
which at that time was
practically unknown among the people of
the, so-called, civilized
world. He belonged to the
"sword-bearing" caste of a people
ruled by what we would consider the most
autocratic govern-
ment known to man.
But a few years earlier this mighty
westerly movement of
democratic civilization had crossed the
broadest of the oceans
and planted its seed in this land, which
for centuries had neither
given to nor received from the other
nations of the earth.