Essays on the Modern Japanese Church

Front matter

Introductory Essays by Graham Squires and A. Hamish lon

ESSAYS ON THE MODERN JAPANESE CHURCH

MiCHIGAN MONOGRAPH SERIES IN JAPANESE S'TUDIES NUMBER 27

Contents

Preface Introductory Essays

Yamaji Aizan and Essays on the History of the Modern Japanese Ghurch Graham Squires

Essays and Meiji Protestant Christian History A. Hamish Ion

Preface

Yamaji Aizan's Essays on the History of the Modern Japanese Church was first published in 1906. It is significant for two reasons. First, Yamaji was one of the most influential historians of the mid-Meiji period, and it is one of his most important works. This is reflected in the fact that, of all his books and essays, it is the one which has been most often reprinted in Japanese. Second, it was the first history of the Protestant Church in Meiji Japan, and as such it has done much to set the tone for subsequent studies of this subject. The objective of this translation is to make this work available to a wider audience and thereby to enhance understanding of both Yamaji's life and thought and the history of Meiji Christianity.

In order to render a historical work from one language into another, it is insufficient merely to translate the text word by word, sentence by sentence, page by page. The audience for which the original text was written and the audience for which the translation is written are clearly quite different. For a historical text to have meaning for a modern audience it 1s necessary for that text to be located within an appropriate "context." In the case of Essays, it can be located within two distinct contexts—one is the life and thought of Yamaji Aizan and the other is the historiography of Meiji Christianity. The objective of the first introductory essay is to give an overview of Yamaji Aizan's life and thought and to relate this to some of the key elements in his Essays. In the second introductory essay, Professor A. Hamish Ion of the Royal Military College of Canada, Ontario, Canada, examines Yamaji’s position within Meiji Christianity and locates Essays within the historiography of Meiji Protestantism.

viii PREFACE

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Yushi Ito, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, for the help he so kindly provided as supervisor during my doctoral candidacy; Professor Fred G. Notehelfer, University of California, Los Angeles, for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of the manuscript; and the staff at the Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, for the effort they made in preparing the final version of this book. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Peggy and Russell Squires, for their support and encouragement over many years.

Graham Squires June 1999

Introductory Essays

YAMAJI AIZAN AND ESSAYS ON THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN JAPANESE CHURCH

Graham Squires

Yamaji Yakichi—Aizan was a pen name adopted when he was around twenty years old—was born in 1864 in the mansion of the Astronomical Institute of the Tokugawa shogunate located in Edo.’ The Yamaji were one of the four families that held the hereditary post of official astronomers to the shogunate. Following the abolition of the institute after the Meiji Restoration, however, Yamaji moved to Shizuoka together with his grandparents in the spring of 1869. This move involved not only the Yamaji family but many other former retainers of the Tokugawa, who moved there as a part of the political settlement following the Restoration. As a young child Yamaji was educated by his grandparents, but in 1874 he began to attend a local school. By 1878, however, the family was no longer able to afford the tuition fees, so he changed from being a student to working as a teacher at the same school. In 1881 he became a clerk in the police department and in 1882

1. The most detailed studies of Yamaji's life and thought have been undertaken by Oka Toshiro and Sakamoto Takao. A collection of Oka's most important essays has recently been published under the title, Oka Toshiro, Yamaji Aizan, shironka to seijironka no aida (Tokyo: Kenbun Shuppan, 1998). Sakamoto’s works include “Yamaji Aizan no shisó—toku ni zenhanki no katsudo o chushin to shite,” Gakushuin Daigaku högakubu kenkyit nenpo 20 (1985): 105-311; "Yamaji Aizan no seiji shiso." Gakushuin Daigaku högakubu kenkyi nenpo 21 (1986): 103-309; and Yamaji Aizan (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1988). In Western languages Margaret Neuss has published "On the Political Thinking of Yamaji Aizan" in Tradition and Modern Japan, ed. P. G. O'Neill (Kent: Paul Norbury, 1981), 93-101, and "Zur Rolle de Heldenbiographien im Geschichtsbild Miyake Setsureis und Yamaji Aizans," Oriens Extremus 25.1 (1978): 1-44.

started to attend a local English school part-time, where he studied the work of John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. In 1884, with a group of friends, he began to study English conversation at the local Methodist Church, and in 1885 the entire group converted to Christianity. Yamaji himself was baptized in March 1886.

In February 1887, Yamaji read, and was greatly impressed by, the first edition of the Kokumin no tomo. As is well known, this journal was published by the Min'yüsha, a publishing company established by Tokutomi Soho. In 1889 Yamaji moved to Tokyo to study at the school of the Methodist Church, the Toyo Eiwa Gakko, and while in Tokyo he had the opportunity to visit the office of the Min'yüsha and meet Tokutomi. In July 1890 Yamaji moved to Fukuroi in Shizuoka to work as an "assistant pastor." While there, at the recommendation of 'Tokutomi, he began to read the work of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was also at this time that he began contributing articles to journals such as Iwamoto Yoshiharu's journal, Joga£u zasshi (Journal of Women's Study). While in Fukuroi, Yamaji's writing came to the attention of leaders of the church, and in July 1891 he returned to Tokyo to become editor of the Methodist journal Go£yo (Defender of the Faith).

In August 1891 'Tokutomi invited Yamaji to become a writer for the Min'yüsha. This appointment established Yamaji as a writer of national significance at a time when journalism was developing as a cultural phenomenon of great importance. Following the Meiji Restoration and the introduction to Japan of printing technology using movable type, there was a boom in the publishing industry. Initially newspapers and journals tended to be of one of two types. On the one hand, there were popular newspapers that were rather salacious and that aimed at making a profit. On the other hand, there were elitist papers that focused on politics and were not so much concerned with making money. As the establishment of a constitutional system approached in the late 1880s, there appeared a new kind of publication that sought to deal with important issues but that also attempted to establish a wide circulation. The publishing activity of the Min'yüsha can be seen as being representative of this trend. The Kokumin no tomo was not only concerned with politics; it also sought to attract a broad readership through featuring articles on all aspects of society, culture, and literature.” In a political sense the Ko£umin no tomo was one of the first so-called “independent” journals.? Here the word “independent" means a journal that espoused a coherent set of principles and participated in the intellectual world as an advocate of those beliefs. T'hey differed from modern journals or newspapers in that they did not claim to be impartial or to merely represent public opinion. They self-consciously tried to lead public opinion on the basis of the principles they espoused. These principles, however, did not mean simply the private opinions of the editor. On the contrary, these journals claimed to transcend factional or sectional interests, and they based their role in the intellectual world in the idea of the people. By addressing themselves directly to the people and by justifying their existence in terms of their relationship to the people, such independent publications sought to legitimize their opposition to and criticism of the Meiji government. Moreover, at the time, the world of newspapers and magazines offered young intellectuals a new freedom and a chance for success and fame outside the restrictive social system because it had few connections with the established academic, bureaucratic, business, and military cliques. In the late 1880s and the 1890s journalists and writers formed a semi-independent community that exerted a certain type of cultural influence and came to be one of the main features of the Meiji intellectual scene.*

In January 1893 Yamaji published a short biography of Rai San'yo in Kokumin no tomo entitled "San'yo o ronzu” (On Rai San'yo). This essay sparked a debate with Kitamura Tokoku who had just established a new literary magazine entitled Bungakukai (Literary World) with Shimazaki Toson and others. The theme of this debate was encapsulated in the title of one of Kitamura’s essays,

2. For a description of the Ko£umin no tomo, see John D. Pierson, Tokutomi Soho 1863- 1957: A Journalist for Modern Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 164-77.

3. Ariyama Teruo, Meiji£i ni okeru “Kokumin shinbun” to Tokutomi Sohé (Tokyo: Nihon Zusho Sentaa, 1988), 3-6.

4. Irene Powell, Writers and Society in Modern Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1983), 8.

“Jinsei ni aiwataru to wa nan no ii zo” (What Does it Means to Benefit the World?). It is in connection with this debate that Yamaji’s name is principally remembered today.

After six years, in 1897, Yamaji left the Min'yüsha, and after working for a short time in the archives of the Mori family, he joined the staff of che Shinano mainichi shinbun (The Shinano Daily News) based in Nagano Prefecture. While in Nagano, Yamaji continued to contribute to national journals, and the content of his writing reflects his increasing concern about social inequality within Japan and about the increasing foreign threat to Japan caused by Western imperialism. In January 1903 he began publishing his own journal, Do£uritsu hyoron (Independent Review). He continued to publish this journal, in one form or another, until his death in 1917. While Yamaji was publishing Dokuritsu hydron, he also wrote a large number of monographs. These included works such as SAa£aishugi kanken (A Personal View of Socialism, 1906) and Gendai kinken shi (The Power of Money in Modern Japanese History, 1908). An outstanding feature of Yamaji's work was the large number of biographies he produced. These included biographies of Ogyü Sorai (1893), Arai Hakuseki (1894), Takayama Hikokuro (1900), Confucius (1905), Ashikaga Takauji (1909), Minamoto Yoritomo (1909), Katayama Kiyomasa (1909), Saigó Takamori (1910), Katsu Kaishu (1911), Minamoto Tametomo (1913), Iwasaki Yataro (1913), and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1915). In addition to writing, Yamaji also gave lectures on Japanese intellectual and social history at private colleges such as Doshisha, Keio and Waseda. Toward the end of his life he began writing Nihon Jinmin shi (A History of the Japanese People), which he intended to be the culmination of his life's work, but this was left unfinished at the time of his death. Yamaji died at the relatively young age of fifty-two in March 1917 of complications brought on by dysentery.

In his twenty-six-year career as a writer, Yamaji produced a huge number of books and essays on a great variety of subjects. One problem in trying to understand his thought is that he did not write a single work in which he summarized his world view. Rather his ideas are scattered in many places. Despite the diversity in Yamaji’s writings, however, it is possible to identify a coherent world view that influenced his approach to the individual topics he took up. In order to understand any one of Yamaji’s works, itis necessary to locate that work within the context of his overall oeuvre. Failure to do this will lead to a distortion or misunderstanding of his position. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the way Yamaji has been treated in regard to his well-known debate with Kitamura Tokoku. This debate began in 1893 when Kitamura took exception to a statement in the opening paragraph of Yamaji's biography of Rai San'yo in which he asserted that “writing is an enterprise." Kitamura criticized Yamaji for what he took to be his utilitarian interpretation of the role of literature. The debate continued for several months in the pages of a number of different journals and inspired some of Kitamura's most important essays. As a consequence, in subsequent studies of this controversy attention has focused largely on Kitamura's perspective since he is regarded as being one of the most important figures in the development of literature in the Meiji period.® Until recently there has been a tendency to neglect Yamaji’s position and accept Kitamura’s criticism at face value. From the very beginning, however, Yamaji insisted that Kitamura had misunderstood what he was trying to say.°

One of the key elements in Yamaji’s thought was the clear distinction he made between the spiritual and the material worlds. Yamaji belonged to the so-called bunmeishi or “history of civilization” style of historical writing, whose best-known exponent was ‘Taguchi Ukichi. Yamaji greatly admired Taguchi and like him analyzed history in terms of very broad, long-term trends focusing on the material aspects of human civilization. Here, “material” means not simply economic factors but also inherited social, intellectual, literary, and religious customs and traditions. For example, in one of Yamaji’s early works entitled “Kinsei busshitsuteki no shinpo" (Material Progress in the Early Modern Period), Yamaji took up two of Taguchi's themes, the role of ordinary people

5. For an English language account of this debate, see Francis Mathy, “Kitamura Tokoku: Essays on the Inner Life," Monumenta Nipponica 19 (1964): 66-110. 6. “Meiji bungakushi," Ko£umin shinbun, 1 March-11 June 1893.

8 YAMAJI AIZAN AND ASSAYS in history and the advance in material wealth. In this work he describes the importance that contact with foreign countries had on the development of Japan. He lists forty-nine examples between 1541 and 1849 of the way in which the introduction of foreign products influenced the lives of the Japanese people. One of these examples was the introduction of cotton, about which he wrote: "If the reader can understand that the struggle between cotton and silk was more important to the Japanese people than the struggle between the two armies at Sekigahara, then he can understand the importance of foreign commerce for the ordinary people."?

Yamaji believed, however, that above and beyond the material aspects of human existence there was a spiritual realm. He felt that because individuals had a spiritual dimension and had free will, they had the power to change the material world and hence the power to change history. He wrote that historical facts could be arrived at in two ways: facts could be deduced from laws, and laws could be induced from facts. In the final analysis, however, both methods rest on the assumption that "all human hearts are but one." Further, "for the historian, the first principle must be that all people, in the same circumstances and with the same disposition, act in the same way." With regard to the problem of how free will could act in a world governed by fixed laws, he argued that this was something that could not be known: "This is a secret. This is mysterious. This, according to the mystics, is something hidden behind the veil." Yamaji argued that history was a science because it was concerned with cause and effect, it contained premises and conclusions, and it taught laws and principles. "History is a science," he wrote, "but itis also a religion. It teaches the secret relationship between God's will and human affairs."*

Yamaji brought together his 1deas about the role of materialism and spiritualism in history through his concept of the individual. On the one hand, he recognized the power of the material world to control individuals. On the other hand, Yamaji also recognized the power of individuals to change the material world.

7. Kokumin no tomo, 23 October-13 December 1892. 8. "Shigaku-ron," Ko£umin shinbun, 20 July 1900.

Individuals could do this because they possessed free will or "spirit," which could not ultimately be suppressed by external factors. It was through actions, such as wielding a sword or pen, that individuals could transform human spirit into a form that could change the material world. It was this belief that lay behind his assertion that "writing is an enterprise." Although this passage has often been quoted, Yamaji's real meaning has largely been overlooked. In making this assertion Yamaji was not primarily concerned with how to evaluate literature but with how to understand historical individuals. He argued that, in evaluating an individual in history, attention must be paid to the way that person influenced the world. The subject of the particular essay was Rai San'yo, a writer, and so Yamaji argued that it was necessary to evaluate the way his writing influenced the world. Yamaji wrote a great many biographies, and it was his belief in the individual's ability to fight against society and to change history that lay behind his interest in biography as an analytical tool.

Yamaji also held a cyclical view of history in which societies went through successive periods of innovation and vitality followed by periods in which they gradually stagnated and became increasingly rigid. When this process of *mummification" reached such a stage that societies were no longer able to respond to people's needs, some great individual would arise and overthrow the existing order. This great individual would rejuvenate society and establish a new way of doing things. After their death, however, society would once again begin to stagnate. In an essay on the development of human rights in Japan he wrote that "It is always the case... that what in the beginning is a merit at the end becomes an obstacle to the advance of civilization."? Yamaji argued that this cycle had repeated itself a number of times in Japanese history. The end of the Heian period was a period of stagnation, which had lead to the rise of Minamoto Yoritomo. The decline of the Muromachi bakufu had led to the rise of Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finally Tokugawa Ieyasu. The decline and stagnation of the Tokugawa system had led to the

9. “Nihon no rekishi ni okeru jinken hattatsu no konseki,” Kokumin no tomo, 9-23 January 1897, rise of Saigo Takamori and the other figures who brought about the Meiji Restoration.!?

With regard to contemporary society also, Yamaji was concerned about the increasing degree of social inflexibility. Yamaji himself had grown up at a time immediately following the Meiji Restoration, when society was extremely open and fluid. 'T his was a time when gifted people could make a good position for themselves simply through their own ability. As che government put in place those institutions necessary for the functioning of a modern state, however, the opportunities for advancement became increasingly limited and more dependent on formal qualifications. In 1897 the Higher Civil Service Examination was established as the principal mode of entry into the bureaucracy. On the one hand, this system ensured that those employed by the government had the administrative ability necessary for their work. On the other hand, it meant that entry into the social elite became increasingly restricted. To pass the Higher Civil Service Examination it was necessary to have a specialist knowledge of law and administration. To acquire such knowledge it was necessary to study in the Law Faculty of Tokyo University. Yamaji argued, however, that the number of people who could enter the university and become part of the elite was obviously restricted. He believed that talented people could be found at all levels of society, but the number of people who had the financial assets necessary to attain higher education was limited. Thus, some young people, even though they work in a law court, “have unfortunately never passed through the gate of the university and cannot enter the Ministry of Justice because they cannot brandish some legal treatise they have written full of secondhand knowledge and boast of their erudition" and in no time "sink into the obscurity of petty officialdom." In contrast to this, students who have graduated from the university and who are so inexperienced that "they cannot tell when a potato is boiled” are picked out quickly and given important work. This situation threw a dark shadow over the future of those young

10. “Senrei sensei no fukkatsu,” Kofumin no tomo, 10 October 1897. 11. “Gakko hekigai no seinen,” Shinano mainichi shinbun, 2 May 1899.

people "outside the school gate" who were trying to make their way in the world through their own efforts. If a gap developed in the quality of life between those who had the family resources to procure higher education and those who did not, it would mean that society had once again become elitist. Such elitism stood in direct opposition to the kind of egalitarian society Yamaji took to be the ideal.

For Yamaji this problem went beyond the personal unhappiness of those young people who were denied access to higher education, for he was also concerned with the intellectual quality of the administrative elite. He felt that the kind of study carried out at the university simply encouraged the memorization of examination answers for the sake of graduation. In other words, what was instilled in the students was mechanical learning, and, as a result, knowledge acquired in such a way was regarded as a kind of all-embracing principle. This in turn led to a narrow outlook on life and a lack of flexibility. Put another way, the kind of education acquired at the university stunted the intellectual development of those who were to become the administrative elite.

What was true of education was also true of other aspects of society. Increased social inequality especially had been brought about by the process of industrialization that Japan had recently undergone. Yamaji believed that it was necessary for the state to intervene to counter this trend. For this reason he came to believe in what he termed oka shakaishugi or “state socialism." In works such as Shakaishugi no kanken (A Personal View of Socialism) published in 1906, he argued that many people were frightened of the word "socialism" and thought it something new and dangerous. According to Yamaji, however, a form of socialism had existed in ancient Japan. "The state was not simply a tool that one class used to oppress another," he wrote of that time, because the "fundamental belief of this age was that the state was like a large family." Members of the imperial family were like the parents in this family, and the people were like the children. Members of the family shared a "communal life." As a result of this familial relationship, human relations within the state were not based simply on law or expediency but also had an emotional and moral aspect. Members of the family were not free simply to exploit each other but had a moral responsibility to care for one another. In practical terms, the socialist nature of these beliefs had led to policies such as the freeing of the people, the communal ownership of land and wealth, and even the implementation of some social welfare policies.

As far as contemporary society was.concerned, Yamaji did not see a contradiction between the active role of the state and his emphasis on the freedom of the individual. On the one hand "the state exists for the individual and on the other hand the individual exists for the state." Speaking from the perspective of the state, Yamaji wrote, it “came into existence for the people.” The power of the state should be used to preserve public peace and advance the happiness of the people. The state, which is “the mother and father of the people," cannot take "the life of even one person lightly and throw it away." Speaking from the point of view of the people, however, “They were born to support the prosperity of the state and strengthen the state for eternity." For this reason, *when it reaches the point where the existence of the state is in danger, it is natural to fight and even die for the state without hesitation."?

It was as a result of such beliefs chat Yamaji gradually became a believer in "imperialism." As is well known, as early as 1894 ‘Tokutomi Soho had come to support an aggressive foreign policy and the adoption of policies necessary to make Japan a strong military power. Although Yamaji supported the government's policy at the time of the Sino-Japanese War, he had reservations about territorial expansion and Japan becoming a world power. He regarded these policies as those of the despotic Satsuma-Choshu clique, which dominated the government. As the 1890s progressed, however, he began to feel that Japan's position was being threatened by the encroachment of Western nations. As a consequence, in the early editions of Dokuritsu hyóron Yamaji argued that "people have the right to exist" and that imperialism was nothing more than the form of social organization best suited

12. “Kokkashugi to kojinshugi,” Shinano mainichi shinbun, 4-6 July 1900. 13. Ibid.

to ensure the survival of the individual. Yamaji wrote that he still believed in the freedom of the individual but that in order to maintain that freedom it was necessary to have a strong state because "there is only one institution that can defend the freedom of the individual, and that is the state." For the state to continue to exist, it was necessary for it to have the structure and resources necessary to be able to compete with the other powers. Internally, this meant putting in place the institutional framework that would allow the state to efficiently exploit Japan's resources, and, externally, it meant the acquisition of more resources through territorial expansion. For Yamaji the only way to protect the freedom of the individual was through the maintenance of a strong state, and for this reason individuals must be prepared to sacrifice themselves to protect the state. Yamaji thus strongly supported an aggressive policy toward Russia at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.

It was about the time of the Russo-Japanese War that Yamaji wrote Essays on the History of the Modern Japanese Church. In terms of research on the life and thought of Yamaji Aizan, this work is very significant because it provides valuable information on the way Yamaji perceived the social and intellectual world in which he lived. Although it cannot be described as an autobiographical work, itis an account of an intellectual movement in which Yamaji himself was involved, and for this reason it is very personal. Although Essays was first published as a book in 1906, the first half had previously appeared in serial form in Dokuritsu hydron in 1904.5 This early version was published under the title *Gendai shisoshi ni okeru Kirisutokyo no ichi” (The Place of Christianity in Modern Intellectual History) or “Nihon shisoshi ni okeru Kirisutokyo no ichi" (The Place of Christianity in the Japanese Intellectual World). As the title suggests, Essays is a history of the Protestant Church in Meiji Japan, but, as the alternative title also indicates, it is also an intellectual history of the Meiji period written from

14. “Yo wa naze ni teikokushugi no shinja taru ya," DoZurirsu kydron, 1 January 1903 and “Yo ga iwayuru teikokushugi," Do£uritsu hydron, 1 February and 3 March 1903.

15. This translation is based on the version contained in Tokutomi Soho, Yamaji Aizan, Nikon no meicho 40, ed. Sumiya Mikio (Tokyo: Chüo Koronsha, 1971).

the perspective of Christianity.!5 The first half, from the introduction to chapter twenty-six, covers the period from just before the Meiji Restoration up until the late 1880s, when the journals Ko£umin no tomo and Jogaku zasshi were first published. In other words, the first half of the book covers the period from around the time Yamaji was born until about the time when he first went to Tokyo in 1889. This was the formative period in Yamaji’s intellectual development. The second half of the work was added when Essays appeared in book form some two years later. This latter half deals with the period from around 1890 until around 1905, when Yamaji was active as a writer and participant in the events he describes. In many ways, the first half of Essays can be seen as an account of the intellectual forces that shaped Yamaji’s development as a thinker, while the second half is a description of the social and intellectual world in which Yamaji functioned as an adult. Kenneth Pyle has argued that young intellectuals of the mid-Meiji period experienced an identity crisis. They wanted to accept the new culture of the West, but such acceptance seemed to require them to abandon their own Japanese culture." Reading through the early part of Essays, however, we can see that Yamaji's principal concern was not with polarities between Japan and the West but with conflicting spiritual and material values. This conflict took three distinct forms. Within the Sino-Japanese intellectual tradition there was the spiritualism of the Wang Yang-ming. school and the materialist strand of thought represented by Yasui Sokken. Within the newly introduced forms of Western thought there was the spiritualism of Christianity and the materialism of Spencer and Darwin as interpreted by Kato Hiroyuki, Toyama Masakazu, and Edward Morse at Tokyo University. Finally, there was Yamaji's interpretation of the social consequences of the Meiji Restoration. It is this aspect of Essays that is of most interest because it most clearly reflects Yamaji's own personal experience. In Essays Yamaji described the Meiji Restoration as a “general revolution" and as “a fundamental revolution that passed

16. Imanaka Kanshi, “Yamaji Aizan no shisó to Kirisutokyó: Nihon shiso ue ni okeru Kirisutoky6 no ichi,” Kirisutokyd shakai mondai kenkyii 11 (1967): 169-96.

17. The New Generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of Cultural Identity 1885-95 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969), 4.

through both the spiritual and material aspects of society." He believed that the Meiji Restoration occurred because Tokugawa society had become moribund, and in this regard, the leaders of the Restoration had achieved a great task. He wrote that “the men of Satsuma and Choshu had a great mission in Japanese history. Now they have accomplished that mission.” Although the leaders of the Restoration had provided a great service in bringing about the end of the shogunate, their role in post-Restoration society was not so positive.