type:Article

Taro Kawaji was born on 21 December of the first year of Koka (i.e. 28 January,1845) as the eldest son of Akitsune Kawaji, who died at the early age of twenty-one.As a child Taro was brought up by his uncle, Kionao Inoue (1809-1867), the Gaikoku-bugyo, or chief of the Foreign Affairs Agency, till he was eight.Then he returned to the Kawajis, where his grandfather, Toshiakira Kawaji (1801-1868), the Machi-bugyo(Governor) of Osaka and Nara city and later the Kanjo-bugyo or Chief of the Treasury Bureau, took care of him.Taro, when young, studied under the Confucian scholars, Isaji Kusakabe and Gonsai Asaka, and later entered the Shoheiko, the educational institution of the Bakufu.He first studied Dutch at the Bansho-shirabe-dokoro (the place for the study of Barbarian's books), and then learned English under Manjiro Nakahama (also known as John Mung) and Takichiro Moriyama, a famous Dutch interpreter.Taro also, was a student of the Yokohama Gogaku Denshujo (Ecole Franco-japonais in Yokohama). At the age of thirteen, Taro celebrated his coming of age and waited on Iyemochi Tokugawa (1846-1866), the fourteenth Shogun.In the first month of the third year of Bunkyu (1863), he was promoted to Konando-shu, young samurai that served in the Shogun's palace (Edo Castle) and became Yoriai, a high official beloging to the Council of the Shogun, in the 6th month of the first year of Genji (i.e. July l864).In the 8th month of the second year of Keio (i.e. September l866), Taro became Hoheigashira-nami (commanding officer of the Bakufu's infantry or lieutenant colonel) and in the October of this year, he was ordered to study in Great Britain with thirteen other students.The students, however, were forced to return home after staying in England only about a year and a half because of the Meiji revolution.They finally arrived in Yokohama on the 25th of the 6th month of the fourth year of Keio (i.e. 13 August, 1868). The sudden collapse of the Tokugawa government threw the vassals of the Shogun into great misery, each having to seek a new livelihood in different ways.Taro assumed the new name of Kanda after the Meiji Restoration and moved to Yokohama where he sought to make his fortune by being a raw-silk merchant.But he failed in this speculation and incurred many debts.In the 11th month of the fourth year of Meiji (i.e. December 1871), when the Iwakura mission started on their tour of inspection in America and Europe, Kando was, on the recommendation of Eiichi Shibusawa and Yasukazu Tanabe, requested to go along with the mission as their secretary.Among the party he found many of his old acquaintances from the Shogunate era.It was in the September of the sixth year of Meiji (1873) that the Iwakura mission returned home after touring through various countries in Europe and America for about two years. Kanda, returning home, entered the service of the Finance Ministry as a lower grade officer of the new government but there was no bope of his promotion for many years.In the first month of the tenth year of Meiji (i.e. January l877) he left the official world and bore a part in establishing the Rice Exchange and also acted as a legal advisor for the English and the Americans for a while.He was in the meantime recommended for a post as director of the Yokohama Customhouse, however, this was a remote possibility.In the eighteenth year of Meiji (1885) Kanda was forty one years old of age.He abandoned everything and established a private institute called "the Tsukiyama Gakusha" for the study of English at Mita in Tokyo.He taught English here till the summer of the twenty-sixth year of Meiji (1893) for about nine years, when he was invited to teach English at "Seishikan" (Fukuyama Junjo Chugaku), a middle school in Fukuyama, Hiroshima prefecture.He taught English from the summer of l893 till July l899 (the thirty-second year of Meiji) at the school, but he retired at his own request soon afterward. Shortly after his retirement Kanda proceeded to Sumoto in Awaji-shima island to be a teacher of English at Sumoto middle school, bringing his wife and a son with him.It is said that the symptoms of tuberculosis in his wife, Hanako, who was a daughter of Nagayoshi Asano, a direct high vassal of the Shogun, made Kando decide to move to Awaji-shima island for a change of air for her health.The change of air, however, was ineffectual for her incurable disease.She died on 22 May l903 (the thirty-sixth year of Meiji) in Sumoto at the age of fifty four.She lies in her tomb erected by Kanda at Anryu-in (temple), Yanaka, Tokyo. In January l903 (the thirty-sixth year of Meiji) Kando was appointed the first headmaster of the newly-established girls' high school called "Tsuna Miharagun Kumiairitsu Awaji Koto Jogakko".He was fifty-nine years old then.Kando served in this school for about ten years but in April l914 (the third year of Taisho) he resigned and was welcomed as a deputy principal of the "Shoin girls' highschool run by the Anglican Church in Kobe city.He taught ethics and history till l922 (the eleventh year of Taisho) when he resighed on the ground of advanced age.He was seventy years old then.On 5 February l927 (the Second year of Showa) he ended his days at the age of eighty-four and his ashes were laid in the grave of Kawajis in the Tamabochi cemetery.Kanda, in his closing years, wrote a voluminous book titled "A life of Toshiakira Kawaji" (Kawaji Toshiakira no shogai) which had a high reputation. The author of this article has tried to describe his life in detail and to convey his personality as a school teacher on the basis of a newly-discovered personal history written by him as well as a firsthand account by his former student at Shoin girls' highschool.This paper is dedicated to Kawaji Kanda sensei who lived in obscurity all his life as an unknown but learned secondary school teacher.