Two kinds of new materials concerning Thomas Clay Winn, the first Protestant missionary to the Hokuriku district, have been obtained from America. One of them, found among alumni records files in the Amherst College Archives, Winn's Alma Mater, mainly tells us his career in detail. These facts in the records are thought to be most reliable since they were written in his own handwriting.
And the other is the fifty microfilmed copies of Winn's letters kept by Philadelphia Historical Society, which were originally sent from Winn in Kanazawa to the Presbyterian Mission Board in New York.
We can know Thomas Winn, the man, from
Nihon no Shito, Tomasu Uin Den or A Biography of Thomas Winn, An Apostle to Japan published by Nakazawa Shoshichi in 1938. Since then most of the articles about Thomas Winn have been written from this book. It seems to the present writer that little effort to find new materials has been made. The tabular comparision on pages 107-109 will show us more detailed information and some differences from those of Nakazawa's.
Winn's letters to the Mission Board (Sept. 8, 1891-June 1, 1899) are literally missionary reports. The contents of these letters include materials such as personnel records, church development, missionary work and news of his family. The present writer, however, noticed that Winn often wrote about Kanazawa Boys' School. He seemed to have concentrated his effort on managing this school.
Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko, which Winn called only Kanazawa Boys' School, in his letters started in April, 1822 and was closed in 1899. We now have few ways of knowing what kind of school it was because few records are left. Studying these letters will fill up an unknown part of Christian school history in Japan as well as tell us about Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko.
Many mission schools were established during the westernization of the country in the 1880s'. A strong nationalism followed. Winn's letters fell in the age of reaction, the period of sufferings of Christian Schools. The history of Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko may be called very typical of the time in which mission schools had to be closed. They were faced with two alternatives; continuing the Bible teaching but sacrificing the Government's recognition or giving up the Christian studies. The Government with extreme nationalism began to interfere with the mission school curriculums, fearing the Christian influence on Japanese people.
As the improvement of public schools took away students from mission schools. Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko also met these difficulties. It was the ordinance, article XII issued from the Ministry of Education in 1899 that the deadly blow to Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko and it was forced to close down.
The aims of this paper are to correct and add some new facts about Thomas Winn's career from the first source and also study Hokuriku Eiwa Gakko from the view point of Japan Christian school history, from the second source.
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