The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 14 | Issue 16 | Number 4 | Aug 15, 2016

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Selections from Nurtured by Love

Suzuki Shin'ichi

Translated by Kyoko Selden with Lili Selden and introduced by Lili Selden

Suzuki Shin’ichi Leads a Children’s ViolinG r o u p . S u z u k i A s s o c i a t i o n(https://suzukiassociation.org/media/dr-shinichi-suzuki-leads-student-violin-group/)

For more than three decades, Kyoko Seldenwas deeply involved in the Talent Education(Sainō kyōiku) movement, as a parent of threestring-playing children and the translator ofmajor books and articles on the Suzuki Method.Developed in the thirties and forties by theviolinist Suzuki Shin’ichi (1898-1998), theSuzuki Method teaches children classical musicas a means to enrich their lives while alsoenhancing their motor skills, concentration,memory, and self-discipline. Suzuki, who hadstudied the violin in Germany in the twenties,was one day struck by the capacity of childrento master their native languages. Against theconventional wisdom that only certain peoplewere graced with the talent to master musicalinstruments, Suzuki declared that anyone whocould speak a language with facility had the

p o t e n t i a l t o b e c o m e a r e f i n e dp e r f o r m e r — w h e t h e r a m a t e u r o rprofessional—of music.

Book Cover of Where Love is Deep: TheWritings of Suzuki Shin’ichi. Translated byKyoko Selden (New Albany, IN: World-W i d e P r e s s , 1 9 8 2 )(http://www.amazon.com/Where-Love-Is-De

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ep-Writings/dp/9995273195)

The Suzuki Method, having attracted hundredsof instructors and tens of thousands of studentsthroughout Japan in the postwar years, arrivedon the North American music education sceneto great acclaim in the early sixties. Shortlythereafter, Waltraud Suzuki’s translation intoEnglish of Suzuki’s autobiography, Nurtured byLove (Ai ni ikiru), appeared, providing a clearstatement of its philosophy and its leader’spersona. Other books and articles about theMethod’s tenets and their application followed.

In 1976, a Suzuki violin program, directed byRose Martin, was inaugurated at the St. LouisConservatory and School for the Arts (CASA).Kyoko, as a high school and university student,had loved music enough to defy her parents bysecretly taking piano lessons. She enrolled herchildren in the violin program, excited aboutthe resonance between the method and herown educational philosophy, honed as a teacherof Japanese language and literature atWashington University and later Cornell. Thesecommonalities included a commitment: (1) touse authentic materials (rather than artificialexercises) to challenge and inspire students, (2)to set high standards but encourage andmot ivate s tudents through pos i t ivereinforcement, and (3) to refrain from makingjudgments about a student’s capacity toexcel—someday in some particular field—basedon the student’s initial attempts to masterspecific material or skills.

Kyoko soon met Eiko and Masayoshi Kataoka,members of the St. Louis Symphony, whotaught Suzuki violin and cello at their home. In1980, the Kataokas launched Talent EducationJournal, a quarterly providing English-languagetranslations of the work of Suzuki and otherinstructors, not to mention their students andstudents’ parents. Kyoko translated nearlyevery article published in the journal for over adecade, in addition to creating paper cuts andsketches to illustrate it.

She a lso translated other books andinstructional materials by Suzuki and his innercircle. Eventually, at the request of theInternational Suzuki Association, an umbrellaorganization with representatives from many ofthe regional Suzuki programs worldwide, sheundertook a complete translation of Nurturedby Love for the new millennium. This newtranslation, published in spring 2013, has sincebecome the basis for forthcoming translationsinto other languages.

Below are excerpts from that translation,chosen by her co-translator, Lili Selden,illustrated with Kyoko Selden’s original papercuts.

Foreword: A Day of Marveling

Children Throughout Japan Speak Japanese!

“Ohh! Children everywhere in Japan arespeaking Japanese!”

I leaped up in astonishment. Each and everychild speaks Japanese freely, and they do so

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without any difficulty whatsoever. Isn’t this amarvelous ability? Why is this? How has thiscome to pass? I could barely suppress myimpulse to run into the streets, shouting.

For about a week following this revelation, Ispoke to everyone I met.

“All children throughout Japan speak Japanesemagnificently. Children from Osaka speak thatdifficult Osaka dialect, and children from theNortheast speak that Northeastern dialect wecould never even hope to reproduce. Isn’t thisimpressive?”

But nobody was impressed. It’s a matter ofcourse, everyone said. Instead of beingsurprised by the fact that every childdemonstrates such ability, people were halfsurprised and half appalled by the fuss I wasmaking about something that is common sense.

However, this discovery held enormoussignificance for me. It happened one day overthirty years ago, when I was thirty-three orfour. And this discovery not only solved aproblem I was confronting at the time but cameto form the basis that determined my lifethereafter.

I believe it was around 1931. I was onlyteaching youths at the Teikoku and KunitachiMusic Academies, but a four-year old boyappeared at my office door, accompanied by hisfather. It was Etō Toshiya, now a fine violinist.1

Whence this Marvelous Phenomenon?

Having brought along the four-year oldToshiya, his father said, “I’d like to entrust mychild to you.” He was asking me to teach hisson the violin. I was at a complete loss as tohow I ought to nurture such a young child, orwhat I might teach him. I had never had suchan experience.

What kind of approach would serve me best inteaching a four-year old? — I pondered this

question day and night.

That became the starting point leading to mydiscovery. At the time, my brothers and I hadformed a quartet, and one day while we wererehearsing at my younger brother’s place, itflashed into my head: every child throughoutJapan speaks Japanese.

For me, that realization was the proverbiallight on a moonless night.

Children freely speak Japanese, I realized,because they are, in effect, given theopportunity to do so. There is the fact oftraining and education behind their capacity tospeak. Therein lay a proper educationalmethod. Every child, without question, isdeveloping appropriately. This was preciselythat perfect educational method I was seeking.An educational method that ensured thedevelopment of Japanese children alreadyexisted everywhere in Japan.

Awakening to this fact left me astonished.

Children who are called dull because they arepoor at math, too, speak Japanese with absolutefreedom. This is strange, is it not? The reasonfor their ineptitude at math, then, is not thatthey are dull. What is at fault is the methods bywhich they are being taught. It is not that thesechildren have no talent, but rather that theirtalent has not been cultivated.

Yet another surprise for me was that nobodyelse was aware of this fact despite its beingclearly visible before human eyes since ancienttimes. Nevertheless, what made me leap up inastonishment was another fact even prior tothat one. When I tried organizing my thoughts,I came up with the following.

Herein Lie the Keys to Developing Ability

(1) As far as mother-tongue education goes,children who earn low marks at school and arecalled dull by birth have acquired superior

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ability to speak Japanese.

(2) In other words, an educational method forsuccessful development has been applied toevery child. Contained among the pedagogicalconditions of first-language acquisition that arein effect from the day a child is born, I found,was a method to overshadow every otherpainstakingly thought-out method.

(3) All children, without exception, flourish inresponse to skillful teaching. They are bornequipped with that potential.

I thought here was the key to humandevelopment, or more precisely, abilitydevelopment. I had unexpectedly run into awall upon being requested to teach the four-year old Etō Toshiya, and having thought everywhich way through the challenge, I now awokewith tremendous excitement to this “mother-tongue educational method.”

Fueled by my certain belief that every childthrives, I have worked continuously for thirty-odd years within an educational movement thatcreates no dropouts, and that I have named“Talent Education.” That day of wondermentbecame the start of my inquiry into humanity.As to where that path has led me, I would liketo discuss it as enjoyably and concretely aspossible, while reflecting on the past andhoping for the future.

My Encounter with Tolstoy

Bitter Chagrin at Having Deceived Myself

I believe that the foundation of my adult lifecame into being in the year that I turnedseventeen. In a sense, I think I can say that Iwas born then. For this reason, although I havespoken to many people and have also writtenabout what happened in that year before Igraduated from commercial school, I am unableto convey my approach to life without referringto the events in question. I therefore will repeatmyself at the risk of boring some readers.

One day I went into the office of my father’sfactory, where a thousand employees were atwork. I caught sight of an English languagetypewriter, a novelty for me, and casually hitsome keys. The head of the shipping sectioncame by and cautioned me: “Shin’ichi, youdon’t want to strike the keys when it’s notloaded with paper.”

“I’m just pretend-typing.” Caught on the spot, Ifibbed.

“Oh, I see.” Without ado, the section head leftthe room. He was no sooner out of sight than Iwas seized by intense anger and regret. “Whata coward!” I berated myself. “Why did you liewhen you should have humbly apologized?”

Unable to bear it, I went home right away but Icould not remain still. I went out to Nagoya’s

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broadest street. Perhaps wishing to forget thediscomfort that obsessed me, I found myselfentering a bookstore and arbitrarily began topick up random books from the shelves. It wasin the process of flipping through them that Iencountered Tolstoy, wholly by chance—or, as Iprefer to think of it, in accordance with mydestiny.

“The Voice of One’s Conscience Is the Voice ofGod”

The book in question was a small one, titledThe Diaries of Tolstoy. Without forethought, Itook it from the shelf and distractedly opened apage. Right then and there, my eyes alightedon the following sentence: “To deceive oneselfis worse than to deceive another.”

The stern words pierced my heart and shookme to the core. I barely managed to fight thetrembling in my entire body. I bought the littlebook, ran home, and pored over it. Startingthat day, I read and re-read the volume until itliterally fell apart.

Tolstoy—what an exemplary human being. Thisfeeling of awe led me to avidly read his entireoeuvre. My self-formation thus proceeded withTolstoy as my sustenance. The Diaries ofTolstoy never, under any circumstances, left myside. No matter where I went, I brought thevolume with me. When I went to Germany tostudy several years later, at age twenty-three,this book was in my chest pocket.

Tolstoy warned against self-deception andequated the voice of conscience with the voiceof God. I was firmly convinced of the need tolead my life in accordance with this Tolstoyanphilosophy.

Work, Reading, and Playing with Children

At the same time, I began to occupy myself lesswith schoolwork, studying only enough to avoidfailing my examinations. Capturing myattention, instead, were books that explored

how to leading a meaningful life; for example,the essays of Francis Bacon and other Westernphilosophical writings. Probably this interest,too, reflects how my mind worked underTolstoy’s influence.

Around the same time, I eagerly devoured theanalects of the thirteenth-century Priest Dōgen(1200-53). His On Training and Enlightenment(Shūshōgi, compiled in 1890) begins with thephrase, “To clarify l i fe and to clarifydeath—this is a matter of the greatestimportance for every Buddhist. If there is theBuddha in life and death, there is neither lifenor death. . . .” I began adopting a lifestyle inwhich I found the greatest pleasure in readingsuch books, perspiring amidst the factoryworkers at my father’s plant, and befriendingand playing with the chi ldren in ourneighborhood.

Later, my study and appreciation of Mozart’smusic led me away from the notion of Tolstoy’s“conscience” toward an understanding of theworkings of the “life force” itself as the sourceof every aspect of human existence; but Ibe l i eve tha t the foundat ion o f th i sconceptualization, too, was formed when I wasaround seventeen.

The existence of young children, which isnothing less than the joy of burgeoning life,came alive in my heart. Eastern philosophy,which pronounces us all to be endowed withlife through the grace of nature, took rootwithin me. This, I would say, was the processthat informed my late teens.

Here Was the Source of Talent Education

Back then, I often played with neighborhoodchildren. Whenever they spotted me cominghome from elsewhere, they all came runningdown the street to me. Taking their hands inmine, I led them to the Suzuki home for hoursof fun with them and my younger sister andbrothers. I was simply fond of children.Presumably due to having been baptized by

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Tolstoy, I had come to discern such a quality ofpreciousness in four- and five-year olds that attimes I nearly felt like joining my palms inveneration.

Young children never deceive themselves.

They believe in others without the slightest hintof doubt.

They know only how to love, not how to hate.

They love justice, and zealously adhere to rules.

Seeking joy, they live vibrantly and cheerfully.

Unfamiliar with anxiety, they live in a constantstate of blissful assurance.

Before long, I discovered that playtime with theneighborhood children was actually a usefullearning opportunity for me. I longed to keepalive within me the unself-conscious humanposture I observed in those children. Arevolution had swept through me. I feel thatTalent Education, which was eventually to bemy life’s work, began then.

Many of the world’s beautiful children turn outto be adults who harbor suspicion, distrust,injustice, hatred, strife, unhappiness, anddarkness. Why is that? Is it simply impossible tohelp them retain their beautiful hearts as theymature into adulthood? This was the source ofmy belief that our educational strategies mustcertainly be flawed.

What Is the Use of Merely Knowing?

Sound Breathes Life—Without Form It Lives.

One morning in 1953, I received a phone callfrom a newspaper informing me of the death ofJacques Thibaud (1880-1953). The airplanecarrying him had crashed in the Alps. I wasasked to comment on the news, but such wasmy shock that I could scarcely respond. I stoodmotionless with the phone in my hand; it wasthe kind of shock one feels when notified of theloss of an immeasurably close, dear friend.

After the fierce shock subsided, I reflected onmy sorrow with quiet tears. I had never metThibaud. But before I even realized it, he hadcome to live within me. I loved and admired hisviolin playing, and from listening to hisperformances on record albums for over twentyyears, I had sensed his character and studiedhis methods of musical expression and violintechnique. Through music . . . through tone,Thibaud had, at some point unbeknownst tome, begun to live within me, and I was sooncultivating an unforgettable love and respectfor him. Music . . . tone. What miraculouspower it has!

It was on this occasion of Thibaud’s passingthat I awoke to a fact: humans do not livethrough wisdom; they l ive within themagnificent workings of l i fe.

“Sound breathes life—

without form it lives.”

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That moment of awakening was when thesewords became my motto. Fifty years ago, I hadencountered Tolstoy’s counsel: “The voice ofconscience is the voice of God.” To live withconscience had since been my inviolable creed,but from that moment forward “conscience”was replaced for me by “life.”

Music—The Words of Life

If we are to submit to that which our livesseek—but what is this thing called life? Thelives that we endeavor to live always facetoward joy. If we allow wisdom to lead us, theresults obtained are unnatural. If we adopt theinnocent heart of a child, our lives—based on afoundation of love—will try to move toward thetrue, the good, and the beautiful. I believe thatthe Buddha’s pronouncement, “Humanspossess an intrinsic nature,” expresses thesame idea. I feel likewise about Mozart’s heart,which has taught me that spontaneous love andjoy transcend human sorrow. It was Thibaudwho made me realize that this function of lifewas precisely what I most cherish.

At the same time that humankind created theculture of the oral and written word, it alsocreated the superlative culture we call music.Music is a language of life that transcends theoral and written word, a living art that shouldalso be acknowledged for its mysteriousness,and therein lies its capacity to enthrall. Bach,Mozart, Beethoven . . . all of these composersare vividly alive within their music, powerfullyspeaking to our life forces, purifying us,elevating us, and offering us supreme joy andemotional depth.

He is as young as a boy and wise as an oldman—never old-fashioned, never modern,carried to the grave and always alive. Hissmile, which was so human, still shines on ustransfigured. . . .2

This is a passage from the pianist FerruccioBusoni (1866-1924) extolling Mozart forexpressing in sound a grand, formless being

comprised of his character and philosophy, aswell as his sorrow, love, and exquisite heart.

Talent Education is Education Directed TowardLife

Nature imbues every creature with life. Theworkings of that life, or the force with which itendeavors to live, is far beyond human wisdom.Each and every person who becomes aware ofthis is compelled to esteem and value children,adults, and even himself more highly.

We are profoundly moved by Maestro Casals’performances. In turn, the performances ofchildren have the capacity to make that verysame Maestro cry and move large numbers ofpeople to tears. These all constitute beautifulsymphonies of pure human life. The hearts,senses, wisdom, and conduct of humans, not tomention the functioning of their internal organsand nerves—each of these comprises no morethan a portion of the vigor with which we striveto live. Regardless of what it is that humanwisdom gropes for or discovers, we must notforget to understand human beings as a unitaryforce—that is to say, as all-inclusive entitiesthat revolve around the workings of life.

Accordingly, my Talent Education had to beeducation directed toward life; or stateddifferently, a pedagogy for life-forcesendeavoring to live.

Not to Teach but Foster

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Why is it that every Japanese child developswith ease the superior ability to speakJapanese? That is where the secret of fosteringhuman ability lies. When one does one’s utmostto teach and motivate children, yet somehowthe results are less than fruitful, then surely theapproach used must be misdirected somehow.This feel ing of mine derives from theexperiences I have personally undergone, andthe experimentation I have undertaken, in thelast thirty years.

Educators everywhere have become overlyabsorbed with the idea that they are teaching;they have forgotten the reality that a child’s lifedevelops of its own accord. Moreover, suchteachers have failed to inquire deeply into theprocess by which ability develops. In otherwords, they have made the mistake ofconcentrating only on the kyō (teaching) part ofkyōiku (education), forgetting about the iku(fostering) aspect, even though the latter is thevery aim of education.

At the level of elementary education, too,teachers are guilty of educating in ways thatneglect to foster their students. Instead, theyeducate so as to teach, after which they inflicttest after test on their pupils, who are thenevaluated solely on the basis of their testresults: this child is outstanding, this child is

middling, and this child was born slow-witted.

Tests, by nature, should not exist to rankstudents. Rather, I believe they should beconceived as surveys to ascertain the degree towhich students have understood a given bodyof material, and to discover if any of them didnot understand something. I submit that thefunction of any survey chart based on studentanswers should be to identify which questionsmight be throwing off children who areconfused or unable to execute particular tasks.

Depending upon how you view them, children’sreport cards are teachers’ report cards as well.In schools today, however, they have becomenothing more than “children’s report cards.”

What is Accomplished Simply in Knowing WhatOne Ought to Do?

Parents do not send a child to elementaryschool in order to have the child’s innatequalit ies be evaluated through tests.Nonetheless, in actuality, these days it hascome to seem as if human assessment, or theassessment of children through repeated tests,has become the job of the school, the resultbeing that everyone is obsessed with rankings.I find this unacceptable.

I would like to see schools help each child,during her nine years of compulsory education,to cultivate and solidify her abilities, even if itshould so happen that these are confined to asingle subject or skill. Nine years should beadequate for fostering in every child, atminimum, the splendor of having acquired atleast one notable ability.

This ability does not even have to be in anacademic subject. If, for example, educationdesigned to foster a mindset and behaviorbased on “kindness to others” was carried outin everyday life at school, amidst friends, and athome, what a pleasant society Japan couldcreate. However, the educational system todaymerely teaches children that they should “be

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kind to others.” It therefore producesintellectuals who know full well that they“should be kind to others”—but who are, inreality, fostered to become nothing more thanunfortunate egoists. The current state ofsociety is borne of this sort of education.

I hope that we are able, in one way or another,through recognizing life as the source ofchildren’s development, to shift from educationthat teaches to education that fosters. This is

why I have thrown my entire being into TalentEducation. Stated differently, children have thecapacity to develop in any way whatsoever,depending upon how they are fostered. Mayevery child born on this earth develop into adecent and happy person, a human being withsought-after talents. I live always with thisprayer, and stake my life on realizing it. Ibelieve, moreover, that all children are bornwith the potential to respond to and fulfill thisprayer.

Suzuki Shin’ichi, Ai ni ikiru (Nurtured by Love)(Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1966). This translation isexcerpted from Suzuki Shin’ichi, Nurtured byLove, revised edition, trans. Kyoko Selden withLili Selden (Van Nuys, CA: Alfred MusicP u b l i s h i n g , 2 0 1 3 )(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0739090445/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

SPECIAL FEATURE

Japan in Translation IIIIn Honor of Kyoko Selden

Edited by Alisa Freedman

Artistic Legacy of the Fifteenth Century Selections from Japan: The Shaping of DaimyoCulture, 1185-1868, translated by Kyoko Selden (https://apjjf.org/2016/16/Selden-1.html)

Nagai Kafū, Selections from “Ukiyo-e Landscapes and Edo Scenic Places,” translated byKyoko Selden and Alisa Freedman (https://apjjf.org/2016/16/Kafu.html)

Cho Kyo, Selections from The Search for the Beautiful Woman: A Cultural History of Japaneseand Chinese Beauty, translated by Kyoko Selden (https://apjjf.org/2016/16/Cho.html)

Osaki Midori, Wanderings in the Realm of the Seventh Sense, translated by Kyoko Selden and

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Alisa Freedman (https://apjjf.org/2016/16/Osaki.html)

Three Heian Poems, translated with calligraphy by Kyoko Selden(https://apjjf.org/2016/16/Selden-2.html)

Suzuki Shin’ichi (1898-1998) was the violinist, educator, philosopher and author whodeveloped the Suzuki Method to teach children classical music as a means to enrich theirlives while enhancing their motor skills, concentration, memory, and self-discipline.

Kyoko Selden (1936-2013) taught Japanese language and literature as a senior lecturer atCornell University until her retirement in 2008. Author, translator, artist and calligrapher, shewas the translation coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Journal. Her major works as translatorcentered on Japanese women writers, the atomic bomb, the Ainu and the Okinawans. Hermajor translations included Japanese Women Writers: Twentieth Century Short Fiction(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U90M16M/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), More Stories ByJapanese Women Writers, An Anthology(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0765627345/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), Kayano Shigeru’s OurLand Was a Forest (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813318807/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), HondaKatsuichi’s Harukor: Ainu Woman’s Tale(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520210204/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), The Atomic Bomb: VoicesFrom Hiroshima and Nagasaki(https://www.amazon.com/dp/087332773X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), Shin’ichi Suzuki'sNurtured by Love (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0739090445/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20), andCho Kyo’s The Search for the Beautiful Woman, A Cultural History of Japanese and ChineseBeauty (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AWJOQ7W/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20).

Lili Selden is a freelance translator and editor.

Notes1 Teikoku Music Academy was founded in 1931 with Suzuki Shin’ichi as co-founder. The wordteikoku means “the imperial state,” but Teikoku Music Academy was a private school. Theschool was closed in 1944 because of war damage. Kunitachi Music Academy, now KunitachiCollege of Music, was founded in 1926 as Tokyo Higher Academy of Music.2 From “Mozart: Aphorisms,” a 1906 publication to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Mozart’sbirth. Ferruccio Busoni, The Essence of Music and Other Papers, trans. Rosamond Ley (NewYork: Philosophical Library, 1957).