Joshi Gakuin began as Presbyterian Mission Female Seminary, which was founded in 1870 by Julia Dodge Carrothers. Julia was born in the United States in 1845 as the daughter of Richard Dodge, a Presbyterian pastor. Pastor Dodge was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s in his days as a lawyer in Illinois and served as a military chaplain after Lincoln became president.

In April 1869, Julia married Christopher Carrothers in West Virginia. He was scheduled to come to Japan as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church's Board of Missions. In June of that year, right after the opening of the transcontinental railroad, they traveled across country to the West Coast and departed from San Francisco at the beginning of July. They arrived in Yokohama three weeks later on July 27.

In fact, it seems that Julia herself had a strong desire to do mission work in Japan. In The Sunrise Kingdom, published in 1879 after her return to the U.S., she wrote: “The people on shipboard were not favorable to [the] missionary enterprise in Japan. They said that it was contrary to the treaty, and that missionaries had no right to go, as such, to Japan at all. We thought differently, and looked above the treaty to One who has commanded his disciples to go into all the world.”

From Yokohama, they moved to Tokyo in mid-October. The following year, in June 1870, Christopher Carrothers and David Thompson jointly rented land at number six in the Tsukiji foreign settlement in Tokyo, and in October a missionary house was completed. It was in this house that Julia began teaching English to female students, and this was the start of Joshi Gakuin. Julia was a well-educated person, also proficient in Greek and German, and it is said that with very little assistance, save for the aid of an interpreter, she also taught natural science, history, biology, moral education, grammar, arithmetic, geography, English conversation, and English composition.

However, because Presbyterian Mission Female Seminary was not an officially approved mission board school, in 1873 two women missionaries, Kate M. Youngman and Mary Parke, came to Japan for the purpose of educating females and founded The Girls Boarding School in a different building on the same property. After that, relations between Julia’s husband and other missionaries became strained, and in the end he resigned his missionary post in 1876 and headed for Hiroshima to be an English teacher. As a result, Julia had to close her school. Finding this an unfortunate development, a follower of Julia’s husband, Hara Taneaki, invited Maria T. Pitcher True to Hara Jogakko in the Ginza area of Tokyo, and the students moved to this school.

After teaching at Hara Jogakko for four months, Julia went to Hiroshima but in 1877 returned to her family in the U.S. There she published two books as well as one other in Japan. She died in 1914.

Kate M. Youngman, The Girls Boarding School teacher, founded the volunteer group “Kozensha” within the school, taking as her challenge “How can we practice the spirit of Christ in society?” The group remains active to this day. The Girls Boarding School moved and changed its name to Shinsakae Jogakko (Graham Seminary), and in 1878 teachers and students from the already closed Hara Jogakko joined them. Later, Shinsakae Jogakko merged with Sakurai Jogakko, which had been founded in Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku in 1876, and became Joshi Gakuin in 1890. It is said that the name “Joshi Gakuin” was decided on at a meeting of missionaries in Tokyo who felt that the merger of the two girls' schools would allow them to invest more money in the new school, and this led to the creation of the current university-level courses.

A number of small streams came together into one big river called “Joshi Gakuin.” And at the center of it all was Maria Pitcher True. True came to Japan in 1874. With the belief that Japanese education for women should be in the hands of the Japanese, True became the architect of the foundation of Joshi Gakuin, standing in the shadow of Japanese teachers from Hara Jogakko, Shinsakae Jogakko, Sakurai Jogakko, and then Joshi Gakuin. In addition, True was searching for the kind of education that was needed for Japanese women, and within the school for girls, she set up a training program for nurses and a department of early childhood education as well as a school that allowed women to study while they were working. In addition, she helped start girls' schools outside Tokyo, similar to extension campuses, and sent graduates there to be teachers.

In 2013, a plaque was put up at True’s grave in Aoyama Cemetery. Together with the faded English epitaph on her tombstone were engraved True’s dates (1840-1896), biographical information, and a portion of a talk True gave in 1887. “Be women who feel the pain of neglecting to do your duty and help others as though you have the power to do so.” These words are still the goal of education at Joshi Gakuin. (Tr. DB)

—Kajiwara Eriko, Joshi Gakuin Archives

主の約束を信じて─James Curtis Hepburn

明治学院 学院長

　小暮 修也

明治学院は　年に創立された。

明治学院の創立者の一人であるJ.C.ヘボン博士がアメリカのペンシルベ ニア州ミルトンで誕生したのが1815年、今年は生誕200周年になります。

ヘボンの母は外国伝道に関心を抱いて『ミッショナリー・ヘラルド』という宣教師向けの雑誌を購読し、ヘボンも小さい頃からそ の雑誌をよく読んでいたとのことです。16歳でプリンストン 大学の3年に編入し、そこでラ テン語、ギリシャ語、ヘブル語を習得しましたが、これが日本語訳聖書をつくる際に、役立つことになるのです。ヘボンは、さらにペンシ ルバニア大学医学科に入り、1836年には医学博士の学位を授与されました。卒業後、開業医をしていたヘボンは、生 涯の伴侶であるクララ・メリー・リートと出会い、東洋に福音を伝える使命感を確かめ合って結婚いたします。そして、1841年、米国海外伝道協会の要請を受け、新婚旅行を兼ねてシンガポールに旅立ちま す。シンガポール、アモイ、マカオに滞在しますが、クララが健康を害したため、ニューヨークに帰国します。1846年にニューヨークで再び開業しますが、人柄と治療の確かさで4つの病院が繁盛し、当時、ニューヨークで五本の指に入るほどの大金持ちであったと言われています。

そのヘボンは、1883(明治16)年、68歳の時に、次のような手紙を記しています。

　「かつてわたしが、 この未知の国に向かって行こうとして、ニューヨークでの富と楽しみと栄達のあらゆる望みを振り捨てたときに、多くの人々は、私を愚か 者だとあざ笑いました。けれどもわたしは一時たりとも、そのことを後悔したことはありません。これに対してのわれらの主の約束は、わ たしの場合には、満たされてなお余りあります。主は実に私に対して恵み深く、親切であり、またいつくしみ深くありました。ですから、 わたしは主の助けによって死ぬまで主に仕えてきたのです。こうした奉仕のうちに年老いていくことは、何と嬉しいことではありません か。」(た かや高谷みちお道男編訳『ヘボン書簡集』岩波書店、1959年)

　1859(あんせい安政6)年に宣教医として来日したヘボンは、庶民の使う日本語に関心を持ちました。ラテン語、ギリシャ語、ヘブル語、マレー語、中国 語をすでに習得していましたが、日本語は難しかったようです。特に、英米人の参考となる辞書がなく、まず辞書作りを目ざしました。ヘ ボンは散歩に手帳を持ち、いつも「コレハ、ナンデスカ?」と聞き、手帳に書き留めていたと言います。このようにして日本語を編集し、1867(けいおう慶応3)年に『和英語林集成』(A JAPANESE AND ENGLISH DICTIONARY 1867 )という本格的な和英・英和辞典が完成します。この『和英語林集成』は版を重ねますが、 (三版の)表記がヘボン式ローマ字として世界各国の人の発音可能なものになるのです。

1886(明治19)年に三版の版権をまるぜん丸善に譲り、その代金 二千ドルをヘボン塾から発展した明治学院に寄付し、これにより明治学院に初代ヘボン館が建てられます。

また、「何とかして一日でも早く日本人の手に聖書を持たせたい」と願い、ヘボン、S.R.ブラウン、ジェームズ・バラ夫妻、タムソン、D.C.グリーン、おくの奥野まさ昌つな綱、高橋五郎らが協力して聖書の翻訳作業を進めます。そして、1880(明治13)年に新約聖書、1887(明治20)年に旧約聖書の翻訳が 完成します。さらに、1873(明治6)年の「キリシタン禁制 高札撤去」後の1874(明治7)年、晴れて18名で横浜長老公会を設立します。これが現在の横浜し

ろ路教会で、シロとは「救い主」の意味があり、ヘボン夫妻の母教会Shiloh Churchから取られた名前と言われています。

このような目覚しい働きをしたヘボンですが、弟にあてた手紙で「自分はただ普通の能力と学識をもった一個の人間にすぎない。 他の人がなし得ないようなことは何もやっていないのです」と謙虚に記しています。