Doshisha is a huge private educational system, based here in Kyoto, comprised of a university with dozens of undergraduate and graduate schools, a women's college and graduate college of liberal arts, four high schools, four middle schools, an elementary school, and the kindergarten/preschool that Anthony goes to.

The system was founded in 1875 by Jou Niijima (新島襄, A.K.A. Joseph Hardy Niisima) who had, twenty years earlier, abandoned his status as a samurai, snuck out of Japan, and made his way to Massachusetts where he eventually obtained a degree (Amherst College, 1870) and became a Protestant minister.

At the time Niijima left Japan, Japan had a severe isolationist policy, with Japan's foreign relations being limited to trade at a few specified ports. Japanese citizens were not allowed to leave Japan (the punishment was death), but Niijima was able to sneak out with the help of an American ship captain, William Savory, who was heading to Shanghai. From there, Savory arranged passage for Niijima to America. (Savory returned to America himself soon after, when his shipping company fired him for having risked the impound of the entire ship and cargo to help Niijima's illegal departure.)

Niijima and Savory remained close friends during Niijima's 20 years in America. During that time, on the other side of the world, Japan underwent the dramatic socio-political change known as the Meiji Revolution, during which Japan made a stunningly-quick change from a dark feudal system to, for the most part, a modern democratic government. That change made possible Niijima's return, and his founding of a university based on “Western ideals and Christian moral teaching.”

Today, 144 years after Captain Savory helped Niijima leave Japan, two of Savory's great-great-great-granddaughters attend the educational system Niijima later founded. I've actually written about those two great-great-great-granddaughters many times, because they're Anthony's classmates Monet and May, and their daddy (one of Savory's great-great-grandsons) is my friend Arthur.

Arthur had moved to Japan and gotten a job teaching English at Doshisha without having known this part of his family history. However, at his wedding to a Japanese woman, one of his distant relatives mentioned something about there being a Japan connection in the family history, and upon investigation, Arthur learned the details. During this investigation, he found that Niijima had been considered such a close friend to Captain Savory that he was actually entered on the “Births” page of Savory's family bible (back then, bibles had pages to record births, deaths, and marriages).

It's written that he was born in Yedo (the spelling for “Edo” commonly used then, for the area now called Tokyo) on Jan 14th, 1844, although he was actually born on Feb 12th, 1843. I believe that the discrepancy is due to a shift in how Japan kept track of time before and after 1872 (shifting from a lunar to a solar calendar), and the date was written here prior to understanding the need for adjustment prior to the shift.

In any case, Niijima himself signed the bible in Japanese, and last month, Arthur and his brother gifted that bible to Doshisha. They conducted a little ceremony, and I went along to snap some shots.

The room they did it in, a small meeting room near the Archives department of the university, was wholly unphotogenic save for a picture of the founder on the wall....

Everyone then moved upstairs to the “Niijima Room” where Arthur and the archivist placed the bible into a climate-controlled case, to be displayed alongside such artifacts as Niijima's samurai-era swords. Unfortunately, they did it so quickly – before I even got into the room – that I asked them to do it again for the cameras. (In addition to me, there were two photographers from Doshisha and one from a newspaper.)

They'll do some restoration work on the bible before the display becomes permanent.

Here's the English writeup...

(The text mistakingly omits one generation between Captain Savory and Arthur.)

An aside here for a bit about the founder's name...

These days, the founder's family name (新島) would normally be transliterated to “English” as “Niijima”. Perhaps conventions were different back then, or perhaps because he found Americans couldn't pronounce “Niijima”, he first went by “Nee-Sima”, and then by “Neesima”.

According to the Wikipedia entry on him, his given name at birth was “Shimeta”, but as a student in America, he adopted the name “Joseph” for a while, both in English and Japanese. It's at this time he wrote his name in the bible, the only surviving reference to his Japanese version of “Joseph”.

Later in life, for Japanese, he settled on “Jou” (which sounds like the English name “Joe”), so in Japanese, he's referred to as niijima jou (新島襄).

He adopted “Hardy” as his middle name in English, in honor of his main benefactor in America, Alpheus Hardy (who came to know of Niijima because Hardy owned the ship that brought Niijima from Shanghai to America). Thus, he's often referred to in English as “Joseph Hardy Neesima”, as was done in the book Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy Neesima published the year after his death, by Alpheus Hardy's son, Arthur Hardy. (It's interesting to see this book discussed in this New York Times article from November 1891.)

In common Japanese-language conversation around the school, he's referred to as (新島先生) niijima sensei (“Sensei” is commonly translated as “teacher”, but in this case, it's closer to “Professor Niijima”).

Anyway, back to the display case, for completeness, here's the description in Japanese:

Arthur has two brothers, one of which happened to be visiting at the time (to remodel Arthur's kitchen!), and being a great-great-grandson of Captain Savory and donating the bible as well, he attended the ceremony. I commented how it was nice of them to donate it, to which he replied that he felt it was the right and proper thing to do. The phrase “right and proper” stuck with me.

After this, we moved to the university's private climate-controlled fireproof archive vault, a small building separate from others on campus, with no windows and very thick walls, and a true vault-like door. It was filled with well-cataloged physical artifacts of Niijima's life, such as this shelf of parchment scrolls...

This was not at all a public place, and I felt really lucky to be allowed inside. Of interest at the moment were letters to and from Captain Savory, that have survived to this day...

I didn't dare actually touch these letters myself, but in looking at the handwriting on them, it seems that Niijima himself wrote his name in Japanese in the bible, but that Captain Savory wrote the English. At least, that's my guess.

As best as I can tell, this first page of the letter reads:

The letter mentions the impending marriage of Captain Savory's daughter. In inspecrting the “Marriages” page of the bible, I see that a Laura Sorris Savory married Frank L. Wing on April 25, 1883. One of the bible's “Births” pages lists eight children, including a Helen Wing born December 11th, 1886. She married Arthur Harmout Graves in 1925, and although not listed, their daughter is Arthur's grandmother. Arthur's full name is “Arthur Graves Brigham”.

Arthur, who has seen these letters before, noted that the letter above, written in 1883 – after Niijima had been back in Japan for many years – is addressed “Dear Sir”, while one from three years later is addressed with the more familiar “My dear Joseph”...

I found the envelope of the 1886 letter to be really interesting. Captain Savory addressed the envelope with simply “Rev. Joseph H. Neesima, Kyoto, Japan” and yet it clearly was sufficient for it to reach him.

Niijima was famous by then, so I suppose it makes sense. (For the record, I once received a letter addressed only with “Jeffrey Friedl, Kyoto”, so the Japanese post office is still amazing.)

The envelope carries on the front five cents of postage and an Oct 18, 1886 postmark from New York. On the back, it carries postmarks from New York (Oct 18, 12:30PM), San Francisco California (Oct 24th), Yokohama Japan (Nov 20th), and in Japanese, Kyoto (Nov 24th). The year on the Kyoto postmark is simply “19”, reflecting that it was Year 19 of the reign of the Meiji Emperor.

The whole experience was a real treat for me.

A couple of days later, a little article appeared in the main Kyoto daily newspaper, the Kyoto Shinbun...