Monday, Aug. 15, 1949

International Christian

Hachiro Yuasa of Tokyo came to the U.S. when he was 18, hoping to find "a land where one could lead a real Christian life." He was not disappointed. For the 15 years of his U.S. career, he studied entomology, practiced Christianity, and learned to call the U.S. "the motherland of my dreams."

The attack at Pearl Harbor found Hachiro Yuasa again on a visit to the U.S.--a thin, spidery little man of 51 who had become one of Japan's top scholars and educators. But before anything else, Yuasa was still a Christian; he decided to stay on in America in protest against the war. From 1942 to 1946 he worked as consultant for a New York interdenomination committee to help U.S. Japanese. "I am 100% Japanese," Yuasa explained, "but I am a Christian Japanese ... I wish to be a symbol of the Church Universal . . ."

Dr. Yuasa's wish has at last been amply realized; he has just been appointed president of Japan's new International Christian University. Long a dream of Christians on both sides of the Pacific, the I.C.U. will open in 1951, specializing in graduate courses. To finance the university, Japanese businessmen have raised 150 million yen (about half a million dollars); next month, a $10 million fund-raising drive will be launched in the U.S.

Congregationalist Yuasa's new Christian college can be counted on to absorb more of the U.S. than dollars. Last week, while he worked at his desk at Japan's Doshisha University, which he now heads, Yuasa received a call from the U.S. Military Government asking the loan of some of his professors to give Japanese tax collectors a few pointers in bookkeeping. Said Hachiro Yuasa, smiling: "They realize that we ... know the American way of doing things."

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