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(★)(1.´Windows for the Crown Prince´is a fascinating inside account of the formative years of Akihito, the reigning Emperor of Japan, written by his trusted tutor, the late Elizabeth Vining. Upon the recommendation of the director of the U.S. educational advisory mission to Japan, Mrs. Vining was engaged to´open windows onto a wider world for the Crown Prince´-- then a shy and highly sheltered twelve-year-old possessed of an irrepressible curiosity about man and nature. First published in 1952 and still a vibrant insight into the cloistered lives of the Imperial Family,´Windows for the Crown Prince´is the poignant story of her efforts and her successes. The Japan Times quoted Emperor Hirohito as saying´If ever anything I´ve done has been a success, it was asking Mrs. Vining to come here.´ 2.Elizabeth Gray Vining was born into an old Quaker family in Philadelphia in 1902. A graduate of Drexel University, with a degree in library science, she taught at the University of North Carolina, where she married Morgan Vining, a university administrator. Her husband was killed in an automobile accident less than five years later, and she never remarried. In 1946, she was selected by Emperor Hirohito to be a tutor for the Crown Prince, the future Emperor Akihito, a position she held for four years. She was eventually to be a tutor to most of the Imperial Family, including Empress Nagako. Even after returning to the United States, she maintained a close, life-long relationship with the family and was the only foreign guest at the wedding of Akihito to Empress Michiko. She died in 1999. 3.The Japanese Emperor is basically a symbolic figure but still one of great significance. In response to the personal invitation of the Emperor, Mrs. Elizabeth Vining served from 1946 to 1950 as the private tutor in English to Akihito, then the Crown Prince. No other non-Japanese has ever had so close a relationship to Akihito or has played so large a role in shaping his basically democratic personality. In her delightfully written book,´Windows for the Crown Prince´, she provides a fuller picture of him than any one else could and has given us in addition a revealing glimpse of how different Japanese-American relations were four decades ago. With Akihito himself now on the throne, the reprinting of this charming and valuable book is indeed welcome.[Edwin O. Reischauer]) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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