THROUGH CATHOLIC CULTURE

East Meets West
All these difficulties circumvented the University can now be proud of the highest number it has ever reached. The two faculties (Letters and Economics) register 751 students, and another 226 attended the summer school of last year. Hardly 10 per cent, of these are Catholics, but the rate of conversions is higher than at most similar institutions in the missions.
Besides instruction of its students the aim of the University is also to influence the Japanese public. The Thursday evenings at the " Cultural Club," where topical lectures are given and eagerly discussed, have become a feature in Tokyo's intellectual life, nor is the gratis cup of " honourable tea " alone responsible for their popularity. There is the Catholic Information Bureau, with its large library and its unique collection of relics from the Christian times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the recently established department for Social Research which enjoys special government protection. This year will see the publication of the first volume of a Catholic Encyclopaedia which the University is issuing at the special request of his Holiness.
The Japanese student is a charming fellow, studious and earnest, childlike in his fervent zeal for knowledge. touchingly attached to the " elder born." the master. Unlike his European brother, he is liable to overdo studying, and cases of breakdown from undernourishment and overwork are unfortunately too frequent,