富山のお雇い外国人教師 (その2)

抄録

Andrew Foster was the third American teacher to teach English at the Toyama Middle School from 1892 to 1895. He had been working for the Japan Gazette in Yokohama before coming to Toyama and so he contributed an account of his journey to Toyama to this paper. His article - we can no longer see except for its Japanese translation - tells us something about his competence as a journalist and his way of thinking.
In Toyama, Foster seemed to be an able, kind and sincere teacher and colleague. Though every foreign teacher did not enjoy a good reputation as a teacher of English at that time, he was well spoken of. Among his colleagues, he found a good friend in Tsunetarou Nannichi, a teacher of Chinese classics. Later Nannichi passed Bunken (“the English teachers' certificate examination”) to climb the first step of the ladder of success as a teacher of English. He owed much of his command of English to Foster, because he learned English from Foster as a student and a colleague.
In September of 1895 Foster suddenly gave up teaching and left for Yokohama. Six months later he hanged himself, leaving his wife and three little children. During these six months, he worked for a trading firm in Yokohama, and his superior said he had not appeared quite right mentally for the last few weeks of his life. The Japan Weekly Mail reported that Andrew Foster, a citizen of the United States, aged about 40 years, died in Yokohama, while suffering from temporary insanity.
Nobody knows why he left Toyama or what drove him to suicide. All we can tell now is that this once-good teacher had been worried, so worried that he could no longer go on teaching. He was laid to rest with his wife and his youngest son in the foreigners cemetery in Yokohama.