Titles beginning with D from Daniel / Oliver Gallery (1 items)

26 manuscript sheets Sheets each 8 x 10 inchesEach sheet embossed with congressional watermark.
Manuscript draft of a seminally-important letter written by Mori Arinori to Yale professor William Dwight Whitney, asking for his advice on adopting English as Japan's national language. The letter was penned in Washington D.C. in 1872, during Arinori's tenure as Japan's first ambassador to the U.S. Also included is a second draft marked "copy" and a copy of Whitney's reply.A complicated and fascinating figure, one of Arinori's most memorable causes was his attempt to replace Japanese with English as the national language. In 1872, when he was the ambassador to the United States, he wrote this letter to the linguist William D. Whitney, proposing the change and asking for Whitney's assistance in the endeavor. In the letter, Arinori argues that Japanese is insufficient to handle the growing needs of the Japanese Empire because it is not considered an international language. Japanese, he believes, is limited… Read more