Word: hepburn
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Here is a footnote to your article on Doctor-Missionary Curtis Hepburn [TIME, Oct. 31]. He was my great-grandfather's brother. I saw him once when...
...turned up in Tokyo, an itinerant free-lance writer, broke and badly in need of a job. By chance I met a member of the faculty of the University of Tokyo. When my professor-acquaintance heard my name, he asked if I were related to the "great" Doctor Hepburn. I explained the relationship. The next day I was offered a position as "Professor of English Conversation" at the Imperial University . . . Wherever I went in Japan doors were opened wide for me because I was a descendant of the great Doctor...
...Copy. When Commodore Matthew Perry and his "black boats" opened up Japan to the Western world in 1854, Dr. Hepburn heard a special call for his services which he could not refuse. The Presbyterians wanted to send a missionary, but the Japanese forbade conversion to Christianity on pain of death. A medical missionary was the answer; Dr.Hepburn set sail with his wife in 1859, to become one of the first Protestant missionaries to Japan...
Though they feared and hated all foreigners, the Japanese called grave, spectacled Dr. Hepburn "Kunshi" (Honored Sir). For 32 years he worked among them as doctor and minister of Christ, but for many years his work as a missionary had to be carefully hidden. While working long hours at his dispensary, he found time to compile the first Japanese-English dictionary, which was so much in demand that three years after its publication copies were selling for as much as $62. The system of transliteration which he invented is still used to convert Japanese characters into Roman letters...
...Right Direction. Meanwhile, as the Japanese government became increasingly lenient toward Christianity, Dr. Hepburn was able to preach the Gospel openly. When he returned at last to the U.S. in 1892 to spend the remaining 19 years of his life, the Japanese showered Kunshi with honors, as they did again last week in newspaper articles and at the unveiling of Yokohama's monument. Said Monument Committee Chairman Kumakichi Nakajima: "Lately we Japanese have made a great mistake in the direction of progress. We sincerely desire that this monument, although very small, may be a milestone for modern Japan...