Usually, when we speak of "education", we think of school, primary, secondary and possibly tertiary school, we think of students sitting at desks and being taught by teachers on various subjects. But for human beings, as opposed to animals, the whole of life is an ongoing education. Even little babies are always learning new things at home, especially from their mothers, and later from their brothers and sisters. Even old men and women have much to learn both from the changing world outside them and about their own changing selves. "Who am I?" is a question that we should never cease asking ourselves, and discovering new answers. Even Shakespeare's King Lear, at the old age of eighty, found himself forced to ask that question, "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" To this we may well answer, "God only knows!"
Peter Milward was born in London on October 12, 1925, and educated at Wimbledon College (a Jesuit high school). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1943, and after various studies he went on to specialize in the Classics and English at Oxford University. He came to Japan in 1954 and after further studies was ordained priest in 1960. From 1962 onwards he has taught English literature at Sophia University in Tokyo. In addition to founding the Renaissance Institute, the Hopkins Society of Japan and the Chesterton Society of Japan, he has published some 400 books, mostly as textbooks for Japanese students, many of them translated into Japanese, but now most of them out of print. Several of his books, especially those on the drama of Shakespeare and the poetry of Hopkins, have been published in England and America. Even in retirement he is still teaching and writing, as he enters his 88th year (or beiju).
