what is VITA BREVIS SCIENTIA LONGA H


this phrase which is used as the frame in the title logo THE HUSKY VOICE is seemingly written in latin. i geuss that means "life is brief but science is long" because i don't know latin. but i'm afraid it may be wrong.

this phrase reminds us of a very sad memorial affair. 1929 was a critical turning point of the world in the modern history. japan also made its own big step toward the militarism after the short term of so-called TAISHO DEMOCRACY. SENJI YAMAMOTO, called YAMASEN, his nick name by the people, was only and the last dietman of a proletarian party. he was assassinated by a right extremist boy on a street near OCHANOMIZU tokyo, on his way back to his inn, on 5th march 1929, soon after he made a speech in the diet opposing to the law-draft of Maintenance of the Public Order which prepared for the imperialistic state's mobilizing the people to the overall war against the whole world.
SENJI YAMAMOTO, YAMASEN, spoke to the farmers about the then politics, the need of birth control and his view of life, in the agricultural and hotspring area of NAGANO pref. japan, just before his assassination. those farmers there who were informed of YAMASEN's death cried and were so sad that they made a mind to put a YAMASEN's stone monument up neibouring to a temple in the hotspring village. the police angrily ordered them to destroy it to pieces. the farmers were too clever to crush it to pieces easely to obey the police order. they pretended to crush it and in fact broke the other stone to pieces. and they presented the police some of them as the evidence of obedience to the police. they, all together at a night, carried the real stone to a pond in front of a hotspring inn where YAMASEN gave the farmers a speech and put it down to the bottom of the pond. after the world war 2, some of the emacipated farmers reminded of the sank stone, dug out and rebuilt it on the former place.

the phrase in latin "VITA BREVIS SCIENTIA LONGA" was engraved on the top of the stone monument. it is said to be YAMASEN's motto. i guess that he talked the latin motto to the illeterate farmers and they followed it closely on some notebooks. the fact itself surprises me.
nowadays, few sightseers visit it and no pulic guidbook informs the pulic of it at all.

why don't you visit the following site if you are interested in the YAMASEN and can read jp?
http://ha2.seikyou.ne.jp/home/yamashiro/yamasen/

if you want to see YAMASEN's tomb in UJI KYOTO jp, click the next album.
http://www5e.biglobe.ne.jp/~shimaoka/kyoto-meeting&traveling17-18nov02.htm

ms YUKIKO TSUTSUMI, reporter, wrote an article about this monument and took a pic on the newspaper "AKA-HATA(red flag)"(published by the central committee of japan communist party) dated 7th november 1996. the following pic was offered by ms TSUTSUMI. i ackowledged her.
in the summer 2001 when i visited the hotspring resort in NAGANO pref again, i found the monument hidden behind a factory so that it becomes harder and harder for the public to visit it. any way, carefully looking at the top of the monument, you can read "VITA BREVIS SCIENTIA LONGA". thank you.