Education: Leaders for the 21st Century?

A gentleman of Japan builds a school with a sublime object

Amid the studiously reserved company men who usually head Japan's big corporations, Konosuke Matsushita, 85, has long been an outspoken exception. The son of a poor rice dealer, he founded the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. as a three-person shop in 1918, built it into one of the world's largest producers of consumer electronic goods, and used his prestige to expound opinions on everything from nuclear power (he favors it) to the businessman's role as the servant of society. In 1973 he retired, but only to become more active in other fields. His earnest, upbeat magazine PHP—Peace and Happiness through Prosperity—is Japan's largest-selling monthly. He is the most sought-after lecturer in Japan. This month the octogenarian opened the Matsushita School of Government and Management in the seaside city of Chigasaki, 30 miles southwest of Tokyo. Its unabashed purpose: to train the leaders Japan needs for the 21st century.

Matsushita has preached for years that the 21st century belongs to Japan, but has been afraid that his country was not developing enough leaders to succeed the U.S. as the "center of human prosperity." The new school, into which Matsushita has already put $28 million of his "spending money," attacks the problem head on. Students are given free tuition, room and full board and a $600-a-month stipend. "I was determined to open this school even if there was but one applicant," said Matsushita in the inaugural address. There were, in fact, 907 applicants, but just 24 passed the grueling written and oral entrance exam. Says new Principal Yasushi Hisakado: "We looked for those exuding ambition."

The scholars, all college graduates, will study under a total of 44 visiting lecturers, including Economist John Kenneth Galbraith (the only foreigner scheduled), Science Fiction Writer Sakyo Komatsu, Tea Ceremonies Master Soshitsu Sen and Matsushita's electronics competitor Masaru Ibuka, founder of the Sony Corp. After three years of this lecture blizzard, students will be dispatched "to grasp some of the realities of life" in offices and factories and will be sent for six months to a foreign country of their own choosing.

The curriculum emphasizes foreign languages and physical conditioning, including swordsmanship. But "nearly everything that could be taught at a regular college is out," says Hisakado. The dominant lecture themes attempt to define the essential qualities of human beings and the disciplines that help a society endure. Most students in the entering class share one sentiment. Kenji Yoshida, 24, a graduate of Osaka University Law School, observes that many question "the existing Japanese value system, and entered this school in search of an answer."

Eventually, most want to go into politics, but Masato Degawa, 24, who studied at Oxford's Worcester College, wants to work in international cultural exchange. Matsushita makes no demands of his graduates. "They can do what they please, in whatever field they might choose," he told TIME Correspondent S. Chang. "All I want to see is good leadership material come out of our school."