A Merry Archdeacon

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

A Merry Archdeacon

"POUTY years ago a missionary named John Batchelor picked six walnuts from a tree in Hertford and took them back to Hokkaido in Japan to plant. Now they are fine trees. The missionary presented one of them to the Imperial Botanical Gardens at Sapporo, where he lives, and so greatly do the » people appreciate the work he has been doing among them that a portrait of him in relief is being set up under that tree to honour him. Japan's chief poet, Sasaki, has written the inscription for it. This John Batchelor is now 83 years old, a fine, upstanding old archdeacon with a long white beard and a merry twinkle in his eye. He has been a missionary in Japan for 60 years, and he was recently home in England on furlough for the first time for nearly 30 years. His chief work has lain among the Drimitive and oppressed Ainu people of Hokkaido Island. He first reduced their language to 'writing, and then translated the New Testament for them and

Wonderful Work in Japan

taught them to read it. He is the only man who really knows tho Ainu language, and for 60 years he has been engaged in his spare time in making an Ainu-Japanese-English dictionary. It is just finished and ready for printing. Meanwhile the Ainu language has gone out of use, for the people now speak Japanese; but this does not worry the archdeacon, who says his dictionary will be of great value and interest to philologists—those who study the science of languages. And it is true that but for him tho ancient Ainu language would have died out without record. The only traces of it would have been in the names of Japanese rivers and towns. Just before he sailed for England Archdeacon Batchelor had the honour to dine with the Emperor of Japan, and after dinner he was allowed to give the Emperor a lecture on the Ainu people. The Emperor is very much interested in the missionary's work among the most primitive and oppressed of his subjects, and the Japanese Government has shown its appreciation by honouring Dr. Batchelor with the Third Order of the Sacred Treasure.