DANIEL CROSBY GREENE

Some years ago at a Dartmouth alumni dinner in Boston, shortly after Dr. Eliot and Dr. Tucker had both become praesides emeriti of their respective colleges, both were present and both made felicitous speeches. Dr. Eliot, always a warm friend of the "little college" — which he pointed out wasn't so very "little," by comparison with others, even in Webster's day — devoted a considerable part of his time to relating the instances in which humble graduates of Dartmouth had gone forth into the world and had not only done there a man's, full work, but also had contributed to the world's stock of humanity notable families of sons. And he specified as a typical example of this the career of a Dartmouth alumnus who deserves to be much better known than he is — Rev. Daniel Crosby Greene of the class of 1864, the "father" of religious missionary work in the island empire of Japan.

It happened that one of Dr. Greene's notable sons, Jerome Davis Greene, had been President Eliot's secretary up to the time when the venerable president of Harvard laid down the active presidency of that university; and this intimate relationship had awakened in Dr. Eliot's mind a special interest in the life and work of this unusually gifted missionary, who, in far-away Japan, had brought into the world a family of eight, educated them, and sent them back to America there to become in their respective spheres worthy citizens of a great republic.

Daniel Crosby Greene came of a family which had early identified itself with Massachusetts — colonial stock, which included on the Greene side a collector of the Port of Boston and at least one colonial civil engineer whose chief activity was the building of pioneer roads and bridges throughout New England. and which had later united with the well known line of the Evarts and Sherman families, the history of which, both in colonial times and later, has been of such conspicuous brilliancy.

Heredity and environment played their accustomed role in the shaping of the career of young Greene. Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1843, he was the son of Rev. David Greene, a Congregational minister who also served for 20 years, from 1828 to 1848 as Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions — a circumstance which naturally gave to his mind the missionary bent. It further happened that the Rev. David Greene was settled at Windsor, Vermont, at the time when his son attained high school age, so that he received his preparatory education there — and it was not at all unnatural that, after a subsequent year at Middlebury, he transferred to Dartmouth to complete his collegiate course under the auspices of an institution at once stoutly Congregational in its theological affiliations and abundantly prolific of missionaries. For it was the well formed intention of this young student to become a soldier of the church and to undertake overseas service for it at the earliest opportunity.

He therefore spent three years at Hanover, graduating in 1864, and went thence to Chicago for a year at the theological school there, subsequently removing to the seminary at Andover from which he graduated in 1869. In that same year he married, was duly ordained to preach at Westboro, Massachusetts, and by early November had made his way to San Francisco with his wife and taken ship for Yokohama — little realing, probably, that with this decisive step ended, to all intents and purposes, his personal connection with the United States for what was destined to be the period of a long and useful life. There-after, although he made sabbatical visits at seven-year intervals to the land of his birth, he was never able or willing to remain long absent from the land of his adoption, but continued down to his death in 1913 a vital force in the newly awakened island empire, with the fortunes of which he so thoroughly identified himself as to command the love and respect of all sorts and conditions of men, from the emperor on his throne to the humblest peasant in the rice fields. In May of 1913, a few months before his death, he received from the Mikado the Third Order of the Rising Sun, the highest honorary distinction ever conferred by imperial decree upon civilian foreigners living in the country. It was a fitting recognition of the services rendered by Dr. Greene in promoting cordial international relations between Japan and America, and in introducing a knowledge of Japan to other countries, while primarily engaged in the propagation of Christianity.

Owing to the primitive nature of Pacific navigation the voyage of the Greenes across the ocean in 1869 was slow. They went out in a sailing vessel requiring many weeks for the journey and touching at various islands on their way. But they attained Yokohama in safety and found facing them a problem of unusual delicacy and abundant difficulties. It was a most unpromising moment upon which to embark upon a Christian missionary enterprise in that quarter of the world. It was necessary. first of all to reckon with the rooted antipathy of the Japanese to foreigners in general, and in particular to such, as came professedly as the bearers of a new religious faith to a land with a highly developed religious system of its own. Moreover, to make it still more uncomfortable for the pioneer missionary, it was a period of great political unsettlement due to the recent overthrow of the ancient Shogun system ; and especially was it also a moment of religious unrest among the natives because of the contemporary struggle of the Shintoists to "purify the national faith" after its long admixture with Buddhism — a conflict which amounted in sum to a struggle between liberal and conservative, and which had the surprising result at last of producing a sort of union between unrelated sects against the forces of downright irreligion.

Dr. Greene very wisely concluded that for the time being the best policy, and indeed the only one which promised any success whatever, would be the avoidance of anything that savored of vigorous proselytizing; and he therefore fell back upon a course which in a later day would probably have been described as that of "peaceful penetration." He simply lived among the people of the seaboard districts, first at Yokohama and later at Kobe, as a sort of silent exemplar, offering no attempt to force religious issues or to make those imposing numbers of converts which would no doubt have been very gratifying to the American Board, but fatal to the secure progress of work on the spot. To gain the confidence and esteem of those who looked askance upon this unbidden invasion was the first and great commandment; and to this end he devoted the first years of his ministry, filling in the time profitably by learning Japanese and by translating the Scriptures into that tongue. This was a work of surpassing difficulty, which occupied nearly 10 years - but so thoroughly was it done that from 1879 to 1910 it was not found necessary to make any revision of the text. This is the more surprising because the style adopted, in a literary sense, was one not in common use at the time the translation was made, and further because it was found necessary to invent, or coin, many new expressions. These latter appear to have impressed themselves gradually upon the language and the Greene translation thus had a not unimportant effect upon the literary version of the Japanese tongue which has endured and bids fair to continue enduring.

Uniting as he did the inherited qualities of families notable for their attainments in statecraft, and in material sciences, as well as in the fields of religious activity, Dr. Greene proved admirably suited to the delicate tasks in hand - tasks which often savored quite as strongly of the diplomatic as of the clerical. To the negative virtue of being able to avoid offense such as would have been prejudicial to the whole idea of closer foreign relations, let alone foreign missions, Dr. Greene added the positive virtue of being able to ingratiate himself with an instinctively hostile people. Nevertheless things were by no means smooth. On more than one occasion he relates that he was chased through the narrow streets of Japanese villages by excited Samurai with naked swords simply because, however innocent he might be in person, he was regarded as standing for something quite hostile to the ancient faith and aristocracy of the empire. Until 1875 — which was the date at which Joseph Neesima, a Japanese graduate of Amherst, began his epoch-making educational work—the chief task of the American missionaries headed by Dr. Greene was that of cautious pioneering designed to convince the native population that these foreign Christians were not persons to be feared, but rather men to be trusted and above all men capable of giving instruction in matters which it was well to understand, alike for the material and spiritual progress of Japan. For the material figured very prominently among the avenues to Japanese interest, and it was once remarked that their tolerance toward the Christian doctrine arose partly from the fact that it was "the religion of those who invented the locomotive."

As is usual in such cases, Dr. Greene found it fortunate that nature and early training had made him a fairly competent Jack-at-all-trades. A bit of amateur medical skill, a native talent for architecture, and such smatterings of technical knowledge as an intelligent Yankee of those days would be pretty sure to have, stood him in good stead for his preliminary campaign and made him a vital part of the community almost before his neighbors were aware. The Greene children began to come along and add themselves to the family group — there were eight in all, and all but one were born in Japan. These grew up speaking Japanese before they knew English. There resulted that most effective of all the agencies of what have been called "practical apologetics" — the Christian home. The relation between the Greenes and their children, the helpful interest of the parents in their games and their studies, proved of immense benefit as silent influences upon the surrounding neighborhood. Added to this was Dr. Greene's natural gift as a pleasing conversationalist and as a teller of tales, which made him the centre of any company. Unconsciously others became imbued with his ideals.

Stationed successively in Yokohama, Kobe, Tokio and Kyoto, Dr. Greene designed and helped to build his own houses and incidentally served as the architect of various schools. His designs included several buildings in brick - an unfamiliar construction with the earth-quake-ridden Japanese — for the successful prosecution of which task he was obliged to turn artisan and instructor too, producing a more durable and more adequate form of housing than that to which the neighborhood was accustomed. On one occasion, requiring a stove, he contrived one by making use of some iron cans in which oil had been imported — and so successful was this device that hundreds of other stoves similar in pattern were made and sold by the native artisan whom he had hired and taught. Such things as this did more than any other agency to make Dr. Greene a trusted and acceptable resident of Japanese communities and opened the way to the larger work which had called him over seas.

From what has been said it will be clear that Dr. Greene's mill ground slowly, and to him it must often have been a subject of speculation whether it would ever grind at' all; but when the time came for the actual work of the missionary, it was found to grind exceeding well. Being a man of a broadness of mind not altogether usual in that day, he recognized whatever was of excellence in the established religion of the land and was swift to turn to account the various points of resemblance and of intellectual kinship between the faith that existed in Japan and that which he had come specifically to teach. His policy was also to throw full responsibility upon the newly organized Japanese churches as they came into being — a course which was at first distrusted by many of his associates, but which fully justified itself in the end. As other missionaries came out to assist in the broadening field he and Mrs. Greene — affectionately known as "Father and Mother Greene" — took a sympathetic interest and lent invaluable aid by their kindly advice and direction.

Starting in a small way as teacher of his own and other missionaries' children, Dr. Greene built up an educational system which ripened into a sort of local "university," over which he presided for many years, taking into the student body many Japanese who represented the new and progressive Japan, and doing much to enlighten and direct the natural cleverness and expertness of these aspiring people. In addition he found time for voluminous writing upon the Japanese subjects with which he was familiar, for assisting to direct the operations of the Asiatic Society of which he was long the president, and for keeping himself well informed of what was going on in the general world for the better enlightenment of the natives with whom he was now in full and intimate contact and sympathy.

Undoubtedly the greatest of his hardships as time wore on was that caused by the recurring need for family separations. These were due to the imperative necessity for sending the various children, as they attained the proper age, back to America to complete their education. This involved repeated partings which on both sides partook almost of the solemnity and finality of death. For the children in no case elected to return to Japan as successors to their father in the missionary field, and Dr. Greene himself, although he made four visits home between 1880 and 1909, was never able to persuade himself to abandon his work abroad and retire to an inactive old age in his native country. His life-long career in Japan, his thorough identification with its people, his abiding interest in their affairs and his genuine liking for the life to which he had become accustomed in that quarter of the world conspired to render him restless and unhappy when anywhere else. The visits of his children to Japan were more infrequent still. The last occasion of his return to America was in 1908, when he remained for a year and a half, reembarking from San Francisco September 14, 1909. Four years from that date he died at Hayama, Japan, and both he and Mrs. Greene lie buried in the land which they had made their own.

Speaking at a memorial service in Boston shortly after Dr. Greene's death, the representative of Baron Chinda, then Japanese Ambassador at Washington, bore this message:

"On this solemn occasion of the service in memory of the late Rev. Dr. D. C. Greene, I may be permitted to give expression to my sentiments of intense grief and sorrow over the loss of one who throughout his whole life was a consistent embodiment of true piety; who loved Japan and was dearly loved by the Japanese who was an intelligent and sympathetic; interpreter of Japanese thoughts and ideals to the world; and who worked conscientiously and with marked success in support of truth and international good understanding. The distinction of the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, which was so deservedly conferred upon him by His Majesty the Emperor, my August Master during the present year, is an eloquent testimony to the high esteem and affection in which he was held in Japan. I have no doubt that his genial character and his eminent deeds will be forever remembered, not only by his personal friends, among whom it was my good fortune to count myself, but also by a large number of his sincere admirers on both sides of the Pacific."

DANIEL CROSBY GREENE '64