Baron Joji Sakurai

Abstract

ON January 28 of this year there passed away from this world, at the ripe age of eighty years, Prof. Baron Joji Sakurai, the great promoter of scientific research in Japan, ardent lover of peace and friendship among men, and one of the finest spirits and greatest gentlemen of this or any age. Proud indeed must be his homeland to have produced one who was honoured, respected, and beloved by men of science of many nations, and proud are we in England to have had him in our care during his formative years of study at University College, London (1876–1881). No one who had the privilege of meeting him ever failed to be deeply impressed and strongly attracted by his quiot dignity, his gentle and endearing modesty, and the warm glow of friendliness and high intelligence that shone from his eyes and suffused his every word. Throughout a long and laborious life he strove with a total disregard of self to make his fellow-countrymen strong and healthy in mind and body by the light of reason and science, to promote their peaceful, cultural relations with men of other lands, and to build up an amity of nations, founded on mutual co-operation directed to the high goal of a civilization, purified from ignorance and prejudice and illumined by a great hope. So lived and died this great and good man that came from the East, and was the friend of all men of goodwill throughout the world.