(1) In the Kurume clan, the progressives that knew the current of the times and the world did their best for absorbing and spreading English studies as a part of their policy. For example, they made Genpo Matsushita study English under Yukichi Fukuzawa, and sent Zengo Tsuge to America as the first student sent abroad. Several clansmen seeking for naval knowledge at the naval school of the Shogunate studied English at Keio-Gijuku and at the same time a few clansmen dispatched to Sakuzaemon Furuya to receive military training, too, studied English from Furuya. Buhei Aso made English studies at Keio-Gijuku as a citizen. This was the start of English studies of the Kurume clan in the last days of the Tokugawa Government.
(2) In 1868 - the first year of Meiji - a group of Royalist and anti-alienists effected a kind of coup d'etat, defeated the progressives, and severely rejected English studies. Afterwards English studies were barely kept on existing. For example, a few students at the Koseikan Medical School were taught English by order of the lord of the clan, and only two or three students were sent to Tokyo University as students studying at home from the Kurume clan by order of the Meiji government. It was for a special reason that Masanosuke Yamada was sent to America as the second student studying abroad in the midst of confusion just after the coup d'etat.
(3) In 1871 a trouble happened again in the Kurume clan. It was a plot of anti-government. This plot was suppressed by the Meiji government, and the hardheaded anti-alienists were severely punished, so young men who were enthusiastic for Western learning became able to make English studies. For example, Miyamoto School for Western learning was established. There many students studied English and other branches of Western learning under Tsuge, the principal, and an Englishman, a head teacher, and other teachers. The students who came up to Tokyo to study at the Tokyo University and Keio Gijuku increased year by year. Two young men went to America for study. One of them was Sakunoshin Motoda, who later became president of St. Paul's University and another Kinji Ushijima who was called “Potato King.”
(4) To sum up, it may be said that English studies of the Kurume clan were greatly influenced by two political changes.
(5) Lastly, I added the Arima School established in Tokyo by Yorishige Arima, the last lord of the Kurume clan.
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