44 the capital city], it would bring together those monks that have been seeking to educate themselves internally and externally, it the truths of the Buddhist religion, and it would set the stand-ard for the Buddhist world in Japan. For Enryō, the scholarship and knowledge that developed in the West were things he could not ignore. He saw the common challenge of the second generation of Meiji youth as integrating these devel-opments with historical Japanese knowledge and culture. At the time there were six Higashi Honganji students studying in Tokyo, including Enryō as the leader of the group. And, here we see Enryō appealing to Higashi Honganji for the establishment of a school that would respond to a new age. Rather than returning to the head temple, Enryō, who was in his twenties, was campaigning for the establishment of a school in Tokyo and expressing a sense of urgency. It is quite possible that those inside the organization saw this request as ignoring tradition and structure, which surely would have been surprising for them. In October 1885 a ceremony for conferment of degrees was held at the University of Tokyo. Enryō acted as the chief representative of the forty-eight graduating students and addressed the following speech of thanks to university superintendent KATŌ Hiroyuki. In the future if we become public servants we will do our ut-vate sector we will cooperate thoroughly with national policy The school would be established in the seat of the emperor [i.e. would become the center of clerical learning by deeply studying most for the nation and the people, and if we work in the pri-
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