Key Educational Figures in the Meiji Era

Tanaka Fujimaro and Dr. David Murray

Tanaka Fujimaro was one of the major figure during the Iwakura Mission who played a significant role to the modernization of the Japanese education system. He later became the minister of education in Japan. Most members of the Iwakura mission were selected from the elite upper class and it is still a mystery as to why Tanaka got selected since he was a lower class samurai.

In 1871, Tanaka was assigned to the Iwakura Mission and undertook the day-to-day research of western educational institutions as a representative of the Ministry of Education. He was not a specialist on education nor did he have any foreign language ability but surely had a very “colorful unorthodox” personality. He married a geisha, a traditional Japanese entertainer and took her along to his oversea trip which was unheard of during that time. During official government ceremonies, he would wear western style shoes that did not match with his traditional red hakama coat.

In 1872 at the age of 27, he arrived in San Francisco and began his observation of the American education system. The Iwakura Mission then travelled east to Washington D.C. Tanaka separated from the main group of the mission and did his own independent study.

Tanaka was very much impressed by and convinced that the American system was the best model to follow. The Commissioner of Education John Eaton gave him books written by Henry Barnard and Horace Mann. Tanaka’s Japanese translator was Niijima, a Japanese student who had lived in US for 7 years and got educated at the elite level at Amherst College. Tanaka interviewed James Wickersham, state superintendent of Pennsylvania.

Tanaka pretty much fell in love with the American educational system and that made him clash with the Japanese senior officers who called “American worshiper” and his plan to implement a decentralized model like in U.S. did not realize in Japan.

American Educators to Japan

During his tour of the Amherst College, Tanaka met William Clark, who later was invited to Japan to establish the first Agricultural College in Hokkaido.

Another significant figure was Dr. David Murray, a math professor at Rutgers College. His close relationship with the Japanese students and later meeting with government officials including Tanaka made the Japanese government to invite him as the superintendent of education in Japan.

“Every nation must create a system of education to its own wants. There are national characteristics which ought properly to modify the scheme of education which would be deemed the most suitable…Every successful school system must be a natural outgrowth from the wants of a nation.”

Foreign influence in Educational Reform

For the Navy, Japan looked at Britain. For the army they first took the French model but adopted the German model later. A French legal expert was brought in to draft the civil code of law in 1888. But it was later changed as they borrowed from the German law. In medicine, German doctors were brought in to teach at medical schools.

Work cited

W. Scott Morton and J. Kenneth Olenik Japan Its History and Culture McGraw-Hill 1970

Benjamin C. Duke The History of Modern Japanese Education: Constructing the National School School System 1872-1890 Rutgers University Press 2009