Hatakeyama Yoshinari

• Other Names: 杉浦弘蔵 (Sugiura Kôzô)
• Japanese: 畠山義成 (Hatakeyama Yoshinari)

Hatakeyama Yoshinari was the first head of the Tokyo Kaisei Academy (today, the University of Tokyo).

Hatakeyama traveled to Europe in 1865, at the age of 23, as one of a group of nineteen young men from Satsuma han, who snuck out of the country in that year to go study in the West. For the duration of the journey, he went by the name Sugiura Kôzô. While in Europe, he studied military science. In 1867/7, he relocated to the United States, where he studied law, politics, and social sciences at Rutgers College in New Jersey.

Hatakeyama returned to Japan in 1871, and played a role in shaping Meiji period educational reforms. He later became head of the Tokyo Kaisei Academy (Tôkyô kaisei gakkô).

References

• Plaque at the monument to the Satsuma students at Kagoshima Chûô train station, Kagoshima.[1]