On a September afternoon in 1903, Joseph Elkinton stood on the platform of the Broad Street station in Philadelphia waiting for the train to come in, bringing the author Takeo Arishima. Arishima had come to the United States, among other reasons, to earn his master's degree at Haverford College, a Quaker institution outside of Philadelphia. He had roomed with Inazo Nitobe, Joseph Elkington's brother-in-law, while studying in Sapporo, and came to America due to Nitobe's influence.
Born i n1878 in Tokyo, Arishima was educated at a mission school where most of his classmates were foreigners. While studying at Sapporo Agricultural College, he became determined to leave Japan. Arishima took English lessons from Mary Elkinton Nitobe, Inazo Nitobe's wife, and in July of 1903, he obtained a position as a foreign correspondent in the US for the Mainichi newspaper. He recorded his experiences from his journey to America in his diary.
An astute, observant commentator, Arishima wrote of his experience at Haverford: "My first year in America was spent at a Quaker branch of that sect. It is not wrong to say that the religious atmosphere there is very strong. But fortunately the forms of this sect are very free. In the religious meeting that was held every Thursday afternoon, there were no sermons nor hymn singing, nor reading of creeds. Those only whose hearts were moved, knelt and offered prayer, or stood and spoke. I always say alone on the back seat and sank into my own thoughts... the quiet minutes used to be dear to me... However, because my main purpose in going abroad was to think things out for myself, I did not make an effort to approach people."
After graduating, Arishima began working at the Friends Asylum for the Insane (now Friends Hospital) in Frankford, Pennsylvania. He returned to Japan in 1906 or 1907, and after a brief stint as a lecturer at Sapporo Agricultural College in philosophy, he turned to writing. His writing was critical of Christianity and strongly influenced by socialism, emotionally intense, humanistic, and employed ideas from the Bible, Tolstoy, and anarchic socialism. His major works include A Certain Woman, The Descendants of Cain, and A Declaration.
In the end, Arishima felt he could neither be a true socialist nor a true Christian. He fell into a sense of despair and futility and suffered from a loss of creativity, which ended in his suicide in 1923.
Interested in learning more about Takeo Arishima and Philadelphia's unique relationship with Japan? Phila-Nipponica: An Historic Guide to Philadelphia & Japan, a bi-lingual collection of articles on the Japan-Philly connection published by the JASGP, is available for purchase in our online store!
|
