Arinori Mori

Arinori Mori was born in Kagoshima in 1847 and studied at the domain’s traditional and Western schools. Sent to Britain in 1865, he also spent time in the United States before returning in 1868. He entered the new Meiji government and later became its first resident chargé d’affaires in Washington, serving from 1871 to 1873. ^{1, 2}

Mori assisted the Iwakura Mission during its American visit and advocated turning preliminary treaty discussions into formal negotiations. Together with Ito Hirobumi, he pressed the need to obtain full negotiating powers from Tokyo. The effort prolonged the delegation’s American stay but failed to produce a revised treaty. Mori also used his posting to investigate education, asking American public figures how schooling affected national wealth, industry, civic life, and government. He published thirteen replies as Education in Japan in New York in 1873. ^{3, 4}

On his return, Mori helped establish the Meirokusha society to debate and circulate ideas about modern institutions. He also supported the commercial training school founded in 1875, later part of Hitotsubashi University’s institutional ancestry. Further appointments took him to Qing China and Britain and into senior Foreign Ministry service. Ito Hirobumi brought him into educational policymaking in 1884 and appointed him education minister in the first cabinet in December 1885. ^{1, 4}

Mori’s reforms placed education at the service of the state. The 1886 elementary school order established four years of compulsory ordinary schooling, while retaining tuition charges and allowing postponement for poverty or illness. He promoted military discipline in teacher training and physical education, strengthened inspection, and treated women’s education chiefly as preparation for mothers’ influence on the nation. ^{5, 6}

An assailant attacked Mori at his home on February 11, 1889, the day the Meiji Constitution was promulgated. He died the next morning. American minister Richard B. Hubbard reported that the killer claimed to be avenging an insult to a Shinto shrine. ^{1, 7}