Bertrand Russell at Keio University, July 1921, by William Snell, n.1

Introduction

Bertrand Russell Quotes 366

In the summer of 1921 the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell spent twelve days in Japan, "hectic days which far from pleasant, though very interesting.*1" Surprisingly, the visit is virtually ignored by Caroline Moorehead in her 1992 biography*2, and it received scant attention in Ronald Clark's earlier The Life of Bertrand Russell (1975). Indeed in Russell's own Autobiography (1967-69) the episode merits only five paragraphs. During those twelve days he met among other prominent Japanese thinkers and writers the radical left-wing anarchist Osugi Sakae (1885-1923) and his common-law wife Ito Noe (1895-1923) as well as a number of university professors. Although initially committed to a lecture tour, due to ill health he was obliged to cut this down to one lecture and some meetings with various socialists and academics. It is a little-recognized fact that Russell's single lecture was delivered at Kejo University, on the evening of July 28th, 1921, in front of an audience of over three thousand; an event that has even been overlooked by the university itself.