Tsuda Umeko (津田梅子)
Umeko TSUDA (December 31, 1864 - August 16, 1929) was an educator in the Meiji Period. She is known as a pioneer in women's education in Japan. Her original name was Ume (written as 'Mume') and changed to Umeko in 1902 by using Chinese characters.
Brief Personal History
Ume TSUDA was born as the second daughter of Sen TSUDA (a former shogunate retainer and present menber of the samurai class of Tokyo Prefecture) and Hatsuko TSUDA in Minami Okachimachi-cho, Ushigome, Edo. Although her father Sen lost his job as a direct retainer after the collapse of the Shogunate, he began working at a hotel in Tsukiji in 1869, and the family moved to Mukojima. Sen grew some Western vegetables with a little help from Umeko while she practiced writing and dancing in her childhood.
Studying in the United States of America
Sen became a Hokkaido Development Commissioner under the Meiji Government in 1871, and the family moved to Azabu. The vice-Hokkaido Development Commissioner Kiyotaka KURODA had a strong interest in women's education, and when he came up with a plan of sending female students overseas, Umeko volunteered to go encouraged by her father Sen and traveled to the United States of America with the Iwakura mission. At six she was the youngest of the five members. They left Yokohama in November and arrived in Washington, D.C. via San Francisco in December of the same year.
She lived in Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) with the secretary of Japanese legation Charles LANMAN and his family. Although Arinori MORI moved the female students to Washington City in May, and two members went back to Japan in October, she spent a little over 10 years with the Lanmans after that. Umeko began learning English as well as piano and entered the Collegiate Institute. She began writing letters to Japan in English. Although the Lanmans did not push their religious beliefs on her, she developed faith in Christianity and was baptized at a nonsectarian church in Philadelphia in July, 1873. After graduating from the Collegiate Institute in 1878, she entered the Archer Institute, a private school for girls. She studied languages including Latin, and French, English literature, natural sciences, psychology, and art. The Lanmans took Umeko to various places during their vacations. Although they received a returning order from the commissioner, Sutematsu YAMAKAWA and Ume requested an extension as they were still in school and graduated in July, 1882. She returned to Japan in November.
After Returning to Japan
Since there was a lack of job opportunities for women like Ume who studied abroad, due to a strong influence of Confucianism, Sutematsu YAMAKAWA and Shigeko URYU married to the military officers after they returned. Moreover, Umeko had almost forgotten her Japanese language and needed an interpreter and also had difficulties with Japanese customs. In 1883, when she was invited to an evening party held in the house of Foreign Minister Kaoru INOUE and met Hirobumi ITO, he introduced her to Utako SHIMODA who had established a private school, the Toyo Girls' School, which offered education to the daughters of the peerage.
Since she had a conflict with her father, Sen TSUDA around this time, she stayed at Ito's house to work as his English teacher and an interpreter where she learned Japanese from Utako and began teaching English at 'Toyo Girls' School.'
In 1885, with a recomenadtion from Ito, she began teaching English at Kazoku (the peerage) Girls' School which was diverged from Gakushuin School for Girls. In 1889, she became a part-time employee due to the reorganization of the office.
Although Umeko taught English at Kazoku Girls' School for a little over three years, it is said that she could not fit into upper class society and turned down a few offers of marriage by then. In 1888, when her friend, Alice BACON, came to Japan from the United States to visit her, Alice helped her make a decision to go back to the United States and study once again. She was able to receive a tuition exemption with help from Clara, a daughter of Sen's acquaintance, William Cogswell Whitney, who was in the Japanese commercial education business, and also got permission from the principle Shigeki NISHIMURA to study in the United States for two years. In July, 1889, she moved to the United States for the second time.
Second Stay in the United States
Umeko majored in biology at Bryn Mawr College in the suburb of Philadelphia since the evolutionary theory known as Neo-Lamarckism became widely espoused. Although the assignment was normally given in the third year to complete one's study, she wrote a thesis on the orientation of frogs' eggs in her second year. Her mission to study teaching methods was conducted at Oswego Teachers College. Alice BACON who recommended Umeko to return to the United States developed an interest in Japanese culture and did research on Japanese women. She helped Alice when she published a book called "Japanese Girls and Women" after returning to the United States. It is said that it helped Umeko to develop an interest in education for Japanese women, and when she extended her stay in the United States for another one year, in order to establish a scholarship which would give Japanese women opportunities to study abroad, she gave numerous public speeches about Japanese women's education and raised funds in her last year in the United States.
As an educator
Although the college tried to convince her to stay and pursue an academic career, she returned to Japan in August, 1892. She began working at Kazoku Girls' School once again. While working as a teacher, she continued supporting female students by fostering them in her house, and in 1894, she began teaching at Meiji Girls' School. With the movement for the establishment of women's colleges in Japan by Jinzo NARUSE, and the promulgation of Girl's Higher Education Law and Order of Private Schools in 1899, the public interest in Japanese women's education developed, and she resigned from the government post in 1900. In July, she applied for the Tokyo governor's approval to establish a Women's Institute for English Studies (present Tsuda College) with help from her father Sen, Alice BACON, Sutematsu OYAMA, Shigeko URYU, and Hikoichiro SAKURAI. After receiving the permission, she opened the school in Kojimachi, Tokyo and became principal.
She started teaching commoners' daughters, aiming at giving equal education to women regardless of their parentage. Her school received a high reputation for providing a progressive, liberal and high-quality education unlike the traditional notion which was to teach manners to women. In order to carry out their original school policy without any intervention, they only accepted funds from limited places. Although Umeko, Alice Bacon, and their friends worked for free at the beginning, it is said that the school experienced a shortfall of funds due to the increased number of students and teachers as well as the cost to purchase the land and buildings in order to expand the school. After the Vocational School Order was promulgated in 1903 and school financing was stabilized, the school became a corporate juridical unit.
She retired from the position of school president in January, 1919 due to the deterioration of her health condition since the establishment of the school. After the long battle against disease at her summer cottage in Kamakura, she died at the age of sixty-four. She stayed single all her life.
In 1915, she received the Sixth Order of the Precious Crown for contributions to education for Japanese women.
Her grave is at the Tsuda College in Kodaira City, Tokyo.