Nakamura Keiu

Keiu Nakamura

Nakamura Keiu ( Japanese 中 村 敬宇 , civil Nakamura Masanao ( 中 村 正直 ); * May 26, 1832 , † June 1, 1891 ) was a Japanese educator and translator.

Life

Nakamura, who came from a family from the samurai class, studied from 1848 to 1853 at the Shōheikō , the official academy of the shogunate, and became a teacher of Confucianism here in 1862. In 1866 he was sent to England to supervise Japanese students. After returning to Japan immediately after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, he settled in Shizuoka, where he lived and taught until 1872.

During this time his translations of Samuel Smiles Self-Help (Saikoku risshi hen) and John Stewart Mills On Liberty (Jiyū no ri) were created. Both works saw numerous new editions and conveyed in Japan an idea of ​​the Western European ideas of individuality, self-realization and freedom.

In 1873 Nakamura became a member of the first Japanese society for teachers trained in Western Europe, Meirokusha . In the same year he founded the private school Dōjinsha , which was devoted to political and moral education, and the magazine Dōjinsha bungaku zasshi , which was located in this school . On Christmas Day 1874 he was baptized by Pastor George L. Cochran (Methodist Church of Canada).

From 1875 to 1880 Nakamura headed the women's school in Tokyo, in 1881 he was appointed professor of Chinese studies at the University of Tokyo . After his admission to the Japanese Academy of Sciences in 1879 he was accepted into the Genrōin in 1886 and the Kizokuin in 1890 .

swell

• Douglas Howland, "Personal Liberty and Public Good: The Introduction of John Stuart Mill to Japan and China," University of Toronto Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8020-9005-8 , pp. 61-81.
• Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures - Nakamura, Masanao

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Nakamura is the family name, Keiu the first name.