An unlikely gimcrack that for years has been the hottest-selling art object in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost big island, is the small plaster bust (price: $1) of a stern-faced New England schoolmaster who died in 1887. William Smith Clark stayed only eight months on Hokkaido, but the visit, in 1876, was long enough for him to be enshrined by the islanders as something between seer and saint. On leave from his job as president of Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts), Clark helped found the school that was to become the outpost island's pride, its own first-rank university. Last week,...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
