It is a reflection of the fact that most Western scholarship, most Western education, has become highly specialized, and everybody wants to be at what is called the cutting edge of knowledge. But the cutting edge is way out: it is very far removed from the central concerns of human life. So that is why it does not serve very well, for the kind of thing that Tsunoda sensei just naturally did, because he combined many different aspects of Japanese tradition in his own person. In other words, he had a good knowledge of Buddhism, he had a good knowledge of Confucianism, he - I think - had a good knowledge of Shinto, although Shinto is not primarily a text-based religion. He was also a very serious student, since he came here to study with John Dewey. I do not know whether you are aware of that. His initial interest here was in study: strong interest in American history. As an avocation he devoted a great deal of time to the study of American history. So he was very broadly educated. Very few people like that. But he served the purpose of what I had to do in developing the Asian counterpart for a core curriculum that is focused on central human issues, perennial human issues. Not just on the current issues, or the current interests of people in different disciplines, but what are the long-term concerns of human life and human civilization.
So that is his contribution to the work I went on to do. Now, when I started back in the 1950s, there was almost nothing like this in American education. So, these texts that we are talking about were the first to establish this as a kind of standard for American education in Asian things, and inclusion in the core curriculum. But I used that development and that educational need as a means of expanding Asian Studies, including Japanese Studies. So that has to do with your next question.
