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A HANDBOOK OF MODERN JAPAN

doing work worthy to be compared with that of Occidental universities. One of the most unique phases of university work in Japan is the fact that the Imperial University in Tōkyō maintains a chair of seismology, or, in other words, supports a most important "professor of earthquakes"!

Common normal schools number over fifty; there must be at least one in each prefecture, and in four cases there are two or three each. Besides these and above these is a "higher normal school," or normal college, in Tōkyō, with an elementary school and a middle school for practice work. There is also in Tōkyō a "higher female normal school," with a kindergarten, an elementary school, and a high school for practice work. But these provisions are inadequate to supply the increasing demand for teachers in public schools.

Inasmuch as Japan is an agricultural country and is rich in forests, agricultural and dendrological schools are a necessity, in order that the people may be able to make the most out of their resources. The Sapporo Agricultural College, founded by Americans in 1872, is the best of its kind, and furnishes a broader course of study than its name implies.

And, in order that the industrial life of New Japan may be elevated, and both capital and labor may profit by the latest inventions and improvements, manual training and other technical schools have been started and are very popular.