Keiogijuku, or Keio Private School, better known as Keio University, will celebrate its centennial this year. The school was established in 1858 for the purpose of studying Western sciences through the Dutch language. The foreign language which was studied in the school was later shifted to English from Dutch. This alteration was a result of the foresight of the late Mr. Fukuzawa, founder of Keiogijuku. When Keiogijuku established by its great founder, Great Britain, was in the Victorian Age and was active in her expansion. In 1887 at the time of Golden Jubilee, those colonial representatives who assembled in London to celebrate the ceremony, held a colonial conference which developed into the Imperial Conferences, the predecessor of the present Meetings of Prime Ministers. During the period from the beginning of the conference up to the present, Great Britain recognized the self-government of Canada, and as a result of this policy the number of British Dominions gradually increased and those colonies which had obtained the Dominion Status were bound together into the loose federation of the British Commonwealth of Nations. This federation of the colonies, as is often said of the British Constitution, was not artificially made, but naturally "become". Each of the dominions under the Commonwealth was recognized legally as an independent country in accordance with the Statute of Westminster of 1931, and the spirit of the Dominion Nationalism has developed in these independent countries on the two World Wars. Among them there were some, like Eire, that became perfectly independent countries separated from the Commonwealth, while others, such as India and Pakistan remained in the Commonwealth as newly established republics. Accordingly, the Common-wealth changed its chracteristics, and Queen Elizabeth II, at the time of her coronation in 1953, obtained respective titles concerning the countries that were members of the Commonwealth. However, the word "Common-wealth" was applied in common to her titles of Queen of respective countries. Thus the Commonwealth was formally recognized and completed. As compared with the case of the union of republics under the Soviets, in the British Commonwealth each country, though a member of a loose federation, maintains its complete independence. This federal character is something peculiar to the Anglo-Saxons. The writer has attempted to explain the foregoing points in his article classifying the contents as below :
1. What is the Commonwealth ?
2. Transformation from the British Empire to the Commonwealth.
3. Development in Britain of the Titles of King or Queen.
4. Origin of the term Commonwealth.
5. Development of Commonwealth including Empire.
6. Dominions in the making.
7. Relations of the Imperial Conferences and the Commonwealth.
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