*What Meiji Japan Learned from America: US International Students and the Era of "Saka no Ue no Kumo"*

2022/02/22

My first time studying abroad in the United States was in 2005. I was writing a biography of Nagamoto Okabe, who studied at Keio University in the early Meiji era before going to the US to study at Yale University, and I worked hard to collect materials on him at Yale.

The opportunity for my second study abroad in the US came in 2013. I was affiliated with Harvard University, but since I was in the US, I aimed to conduct research that could only be done locally. Therefore, I began collecting materials on Japanese people who studied at Harvard, the neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Yale in the early Meiji era.

Regarding Ryoichi Inoue, one of the first Japanese graduates of Harvard University, my mentor, Dr. Yutaka Tezuka, has already written an excellent treatise. Since Inoue graduated from the law school, I looked into the case of Harvard College and found two individuals: Jukichi Kikkawa and Gizaburo Nakahara. University records reveal that Kikkawa maintained a relationship with Harvard even after graduation and contributed to Japan-US academic exchange, such as by helping establish a course on Japanese civilization at the university.

The first Japanese graduate of MIT was a railway engineer named Eiichiro Honma, but the second was Takuma Dan, who would become the head of the Mitsui Zaibatsu. Many materials regarding him remain, and it was discovered that during the Russo-Japanese War, he worked alongside Kentaro Kaneko of Harvard on public diplomacy to foster pro-Japanese sentiment in American public opinion. Shigetoshi Yoshihara, the first Japanese student to enter Yale, became the first Governor of the Bank of Japan.

Based on the results of such archival research in the US, this book examines what Meiji-era Japanese students learned there and how they subsequently influenced Japan-US relations. Starting with Jo Niijima's stowaway voyage at the end of the Edo period and leading up to Yosuke Matsuoka, who served as Foreign Minister in the second Fumimaro Konoe cabinet, many students traveled to the US and were involved in Japan-US relations in various ways, from public diplomacy during the Russo-Japanese War to the outbreak of war between Japan and the US. Kaneko, who occupies a central role in the narrative, shifted from being pro-American to anti-American and passed away during the Pacific War.

I hope that readers interested in America or international students will follow the footsteps of these students who wove together approximately a century of history.

*What Meiji Japan Learned from America: US International Students and the Era of "Saka no Ue no Kumo"*

Masamichi Ogawara

Bunshun Shinsho

256 pages, 968 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.