2017 Volume 82 Issue 739 Pages 2401-2410
In 1871, Meiji Japanese government founded Ministry of Public Works, which consisted of 11 departments including Kogaku-Ryo or the Engineering Institution. This department aimed at training young Japanese as engineer to be hired by the ministry. Main establishment was the technical school, which would open in August 1872 soon after teaching staffs arrived according to initial scheme. Construction of the school buildings started in the end of 1871 by two British civil engineers. However, the initial scheme failed, and Hirobumi Ito and Yozo Yamao had to find new advisor for foundation of the school. Yamao reopen correspondence with Hugh Matheson in the end of 1871, and Ito officially commissioned Matheson to provide convenience for foundation of the school in 1872. Matheson asked W. Rankine of Glasgow University to draft the school regulation, and to arrange a list of the teaching staffs. When Rankine tried to found complete professional engineering college for Indian Public Works in 1870 through his sandwich programme, Henry Dyer was studying new technical education for the Britain under Rankine. After Rankine’s attempt failed, Dyer was appointed as principal for Japan’s technical school in 1873, and fully realized the most complete technical college in Japan. The college buildings and fittings were also elaborately designed and furnished by architect de Boinville in cooperation with Dyer and other staffs. This Imperial College of Engineering was regarded as the most complete engineering college in term of educational system and technical school building ever the British founded till 1880.
