The company has articles. It still needs a president.

The person behind the document

師出以律: the army sets out in good order. That is the opening of Shi’s first line. Takashima accepted that the articles showed an orderly beginning. He still wanted to see who would direct the work.

Shi has one solid line among five broken lines. Takashima treated that solid second line as a commander, then gave the commander a company title: president. He wanted a capable person in that position before he would judge the venture.

He has opinions about machines, too

In the middle of the reading, Takashima talks about companies in Europe and America. He admires their transport, pooled capital and machinery. Then he returns to the difficulty of gathering money and finding suitable people to run a company in Japan.

You can hear the businessman at work in that passage. Those observations come from Takashima’s view of industrial enterprise. The short line about an army gives him a starting point; he supplies the discussion of companies himself.

He leaves the answer unfinished

The account ends with a condition: choose the president first. Takashima says the first line places the matter at its beginning, too early to settle the question from the articles alone. We never learn whom the organisers chose or how the company did.

That makes an unusual case to linger over. The visitor asks for an answer about success, and leaves with a piece of the proposed company still to decide. Go back to the first line and the single solid line above it; that small arrangement was enough to change the conversation.

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