however, grew even stronger and finally spread to the schoolhouse. It went on to spread to the dormitory, and although the students had managed to collect up their personal belongings in time they could only watch in shock as the school burned down. When the fire was extinguished about an hour later the school building and the dormi-tory had both been reduced to ashes. Most of the books and docu-ments had also been lost. When the school met with this disaster, Ikubunkan’s director Tanahashi was extremely upset, but Enryō did not panic at all. When one of the students expressed his sympathy, saying, “This is so un-thinkable. You must be devastated,” Enryō remained calm as he sat on the porch of his house and simply replied, “We got most of the important things out.” It is said that Enryō was always a rational, calm, and collected person, and this episode was a clear demonstra-tion of that. The Philosophy Academy was in a crisis for the second time. However, they say Enryō kept looking toward the future. Since the fire occurred in the middle of December, the school was immediately closed and temporary classes for January were held in a rental space at a temple. The school was then to be shifted from Horaichō to newly purchased land in Haramachi, Koishikawa ward, an area colloquially known as Keiseigakubo, “Rooster’s-Cry Hollow,” and construction began in April 1897. Enryō did not give up on the idea of establishing a university. He opened the specialist department of Chinese classics studies in Jan-uary and that of Buddhism in April. After pushing forward in this way something unexpected happened. One month after moving to the new location in Haramachi, the Department of the Imperial 114
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