Ito Hirobumi

By Yasuda Minori

Ito Hirobumi

In Japan, the first Prime Minister was a man who was born as a low class samurai, and the man is Ito Hirobumi. I presented about him in the class before, but I’m still interested in him. The reason why I think he is interesting is because he lived from Edo period to Meiji period. The lifestyle had changed a lot comparing both eras, but he adapted to it, and also he became one of the people who changed Japan at that time. Therefore I’d love to focus on what he did in his life.

Ito Hirobumi was born in 1841 and named Risuke at first. His family was very poor, and his father was a common foot soldier, so his father was adopted to help their family budget. Since they were adopted by Mr. Ito, who was a member of Choshu domain, the family changed their last name from Hayashi to Ito. At the same time, Risuke also changed his name to Hirobumi.

When he was 16 years old, after the arrival of Perry, who tried to push Japan open the country, Hirobumi began to work as a member of Uraga security because Japan’s feudal government ordered Choshu domain to do so, and his boss was Kurihara Ryozo. He introduced Yoshida Shoin’s cram school to Hirobumi, and he worked for the principle of advocating reverence for the Emperor and the expulsion of foreigners with Katsura Kogoro and Takasugi Shinsaku. Hirobumi was influenced by Shoin a lot, but after his trip to England in 1863, he changed his thought to be in favour of opening the country and overthrowing the government.

Ito Hirobumi was thought to be the great person in Japanese history and you may think in the same way. However, he is also known as an emboldened young man joined to the movement of overthrowing a government. One of the most well-known cases he was involved in was attacking with fire the England legation being built in Shinagawa in 1863. In those days, he was still a teenager of low birth. In addition to this, Mr. Ito is said to have assassinated a waka poet, Kato Kojiro, and the fourth son of a Japanese classical scholar, Hanawa Hokiichi.

As seen above, it seems that Ito Hirobumi would be called a terrorist if he was alive now because his movement was too revolutionary, but he certainly did the very important job for Japan. And one of the biggest jobs is making Meiji Constitution. Ito left Japan in March 14, 1882 to search the constitutions in foreign countries. Additionally, he searched about imperial courts, parliaments, the Cabinets, laws, and local government systems. His studied them in Germany, Austria, Britain, and Belgium, and his visit to Europe lasted for a year and 2 months.

His actions should be seen as dangerous and strange. He was assassinated in Korea because he was the leader of Japan which had occupied and invaded Korea. These days, I heard about the news that a memorial hall was being built for the man who killed Ito, An Jung-geun. In Korea, he is thought to be a hero, but in Japan, he was just a killer. So Japanese governors said that building the memorial hall made them angry because An Jung-geun was a criminal. Responding to these comments, Korean governor got angry. However, for me, neither side should care about such actions or comments. That’s because the hero of a battle between two groups must be a criminal or an enemy for the other group, a loser. The most important thing here is how a movement a person did has influenced and changed one country. Thinking of that helps people not to be angry and to look back on a part of their history.


References

(2010). そのとき伊藤博文は、どうしたか. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from J-Net21: http://j-net21.smrj.go.jp/watch/sanpo/entry/20100712.html

(2010). 伊藤博文. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from 日本歴史巡り: http://www.jphistoryrd.com/mei/ito.html

(2013). 日韓、今度は安重根と伊藤博文で波紋？. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from HUFF POST WORLD －国際－: http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/the-new-classic/post_6205_b_4306017.html

立憲政治を確立した初代首相　伊藤博文. Retrieved January 14, 2014, from 小・中学生のための学習教材の部屋　知識の泉 from: http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~gakusyuu/rekisizinbutu/itouhirobumi.htm

Mori Arinori

Mori Arinori

By Eri Yamashita

Mori Arinori is well known in Japan for his achievements of setting education system and his radically westernized way of thinking. 

First of all I’m going to describe how his life was going along timeline. He was born in Satsuma domain (now Kagoshima) to a high-ranking samurai family. He was the fifth boy. Because his family was wealthy, he got educated well. When he was 13 years old, which is now the age of enrollment of junior high school, he started studying kanngaku (Chinese ancient study) and 4 years later, he enrolled at Kaiseizyo where students studied Western learning. It is said that this school is the basis of the Tokyo University. There, he took a class about studies of British literature. When he turned 18 years old, he went to London to study. Later, he also studied in Washington. During these stays, he got interested in Christianity.

After the Meiji restoration, he went back to Japan and he set up a group named Meirokusha with other historical important men, such as Fukuzawa Yukichi or Saishu. This group was meant to do enlightenment activities. He became the first leader of this group and published many literatures. In 1875, he founded a private school called Syouhou Kousyuuzyo (which is now known as Hitotsubashi University). In this year, he married a Japanese woman, Hirose Tsune. It is said that this was the very first contract marriage in Japan. 

While he worked in London as an ambassador to Great Britain, Ito Hirobumi visited him and they had discussions about Japan’s future. Mori insisted that education is the first thing that Japanese government should work on first to build a strong country. Ito was impressed by his passion and he accredited Mori as a first minister of education as he got a Cabinet in a place. Even after Ito’s Cabinet ended, he stayed on his post of the education minister. While he worked for Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka, he set an academic degree system. This is still a basis of present education system. 

In 1899, at the age of 43, on the day of promulgation of the constitution, he was changing his clothes for the ceremony, he was attacked and stabbed by an ultranationalist and he died the next day. 

Now, I want to give a little focus on the education area, starting off with his idea of education. His idea was basically education is ultimately to enrich the country, known as Fukoku Kyouhei (rich country, strong army), by giving appropriate knowledge evenly to boys and girls. Some researchers have pointed out that he thought that school is a place to choose good students to become soldiers for the policy. 

Because of his extremely westernized thoughts, he once even suggested that we should stop using Japanese and change the public language to English. 

Now about the assassination, there are some rumors about the cause of this incident that he was regarded as extremely westernized so that he didn’t take off his shoes when he entered a famous shrine in Ise and he pushed aside a curtain with his walking stick which only the emperor can touch. However many reseachers deny all these rumors. The guy who attacked him also got killed at the time he killed Mori so truth will never come to light.

Needless to say, his thoughts were not same as most other Japanese people. Only a few wealthy Japanese people learned Western studies and most of Japanese didn’t agree on his radical Westernized ideas. That might have been caused him many difficulties. However he still contributed to make Japan modernized and distribute education evenly to boys and girls.