many aspects of the mission, and wherever possible, undermined Cabral's authority as Superior of the Jesuit mission to Japan. Language study Language study had always been one of the core problems for the mission. Before the Visitor arrived in Japan, seventeen of Valignano's personally appointed missionaries wrote to him complaining that language training was totally nonexistent. Cabral had protested that it was impossible for Europeans to learn Japanese and that even after fifteen years of study the padres could hardly preach a sermon, even to Christian converts. It was Valignano's first official act upon arriving in Japan that all new missionaries in the province spend two years in a language course, separating these newcomers by leaps and bounds from the first enthusiastic but stilted efforts of Francis Xavier. By 1595, Valignano could boast in a letter that not only had the Jesuits printed a Japanese grammar and dictionary, but also several books (mostly the lives of saints and martyrs) entirely in Japanese. The main body of the grammar and dictionary was compiled from 1590–1603; when finished, it was a truly comprehensive volume with the dictionary alone containing some 32,798 entries. Where Cabral had worked to exclude Japanese men from rising beyond brothers in the Society, Valignano insisted that they be treated equally in every way to Europeans and while the Japanese seminarians would learn Latin for sacramental use, the Visitor remarks that it is Europeans who must learn Japanese customs, and not the other way around. This, it must be added, was the complete opposite of Cabral's stated opinion that the Japanese must be adapted to Western ideas and modes of thought. Establishment of the Seminaries The need for a trained native clergy was obvious to Valignano, and so, in 1580, a recently emptied Buddhist monastery in Arima province was converted into a nascent seminary. There twenty-two young Japanese converts began receiving instructions towards holy orders. The process was repeated two years later at Azuchi, where the seminarians numbered thirty-three. The first order of business in the seminaries would be language training. Valignano made clear that all seminarians, whatever their background, would receive education in both Latin and Japanese. After the foundations were laid, the students were educated in moral theology, philosophy and Christian doctrine. This was typical of Jesuit education, and reflects the state of Jesuit schooling in Europe. But there were some significant differences. For one, as the