Nishi is a most reputable family of Japanese-Dutch interpreter at Nagasaki. Kichibe Nishi, the 1st, began his career as interpreter in Portuguese in 1616 and then in Dutch in 1641.
Kichibe Nishi (1811-1854), the 11th, was a chief compiler of Egeresugo Jisho Wage, the second English-Japanese dictionary compiled in Japan, and his son Kichijuro (1835-1891) was also one of the compilers. The dictionary, compiled from 1851 through 1854 but unfinished, was a fruit of the government order in 1850 to study English and Russian languages and to compile an EnglishJapanese dictionary, which was the second in history after the first similar government order in 1809.
In 1853 Japan faced with one of the biggest events in history, the visits of Commodore M. C. Perry and also Admiral E. V. Putyatin with their squadrons, requesting the opening of Japan, and the interpreters were forced to be involved in those events. Major compilers of the dictionary, Kichibe Nishi, Einosuke Moriyama, Eishichiro Narabayashi and Gohachiro Namura, played important parts in them as well. Kichibe Nishi was the chief of the interpreter corps to Admiral E. V. Putyatin. He was used to be assigned tasks to facilitate confidential Dutch-Japanese talks between J. H. Donker Curtius, Superintendent of the Dutch Deshima Factory, and the Governor of Nagasaki over ways to deal with the foreign powers.
Although it was unfortunate that the dictionary was left unfinished under those circumstances, the efforts of the interpreters directed to their study of English were to be highly valued, since many of them made the most of their knowledge of English in their work and in teaching English. Kichibe Nishi, who took charge of their studies of English, was also an excellent teacher of Dutch to many of those interpreters in their childhood. His life, which has little been known, is described in this paper.

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In most libraries in Japan, you can find a voluminous dictionary of loan-words, compiled by &Mei Arakawa. This dictionary is characterized by its rich records, including the first written record of each of the loan-words. Every record tells us about the cultural history concerning the loan-word.
In this paper, the writer will examine the process by which S. Arakawa compiled the dictionary, as said to be the definitive work among dictionaries of loan-words, though he was a mere English teacher at a local junior high school under the old education system.
And the author will also examine the scholars by whom he was greatly influenced. S.Arakawa was quite unknown when he published Japanized English (at his own expense), yet the famous novelist and scholar Shôyo Tsubouchi was the first person to order a copy.
S. Arakawa decided to specialize in loan words after being inspired by a treatise on loan-words by Yoshisaburo Okakura. Okakura remained Arakawa's most important mentor throughout the remainder of his life.
Arakawa decided to compile Japanized English after being inspired by Sanki Ichikawa's book, English Influence on Japanese (sic). After receiving a letter from S. Ichikawa, saying that the dictionary would be of no value if it had no examples, Arakawa devoted himself to searching for these examples. In the end, he spent more than 60 years of his life searching records of loan-words.
This report is based on the paper read by the writer at the monthly meeting on November 3, 2001.

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Many foreign teachers were employed either by the Japanese Government or by local governments, and played important roles in modernizing Meiji Japan. Only a little has been known, however, about their lives and careers, especially about those who worked in the provinces. This paper tries to throw light on De Tronquois, an unfamiliar figure to Japanese people in general, making the most of the official documents and historical materials at hand.
De Tronquois worked for two private schools in the provinces : at Meishinkan in Hyogo and O-gakusha in O-gaki, during the very early period of Meiji, from March 1872 to September 1875. He was a Frenchman, but taught the English languages and probably English studies at both schools, and endeavored to meet local expectations that they wanted him to educate the new generation of useful young men.
De Tronquois was invited to Meishinkan after Yukichi Hukuzawa had criticized the conservative educational policies of the school. The founders of Meishinkan were inspired by Hukuzawa's critical remarks and made efforts to modernize their school. The school was financially supported by some influential persons and many local inhabitants. It was also positively patronised by the Hyogo Prefectural authorities. However, the details of De Tronquois's teaching have been unknown.
He was then invited to O-gakusha, but he did not receive the same enthusiasm in O-gaki. He taught English to forty-one students at O-gakusha. A Japanese interpreter was appointed to work for him, though he had already been familiar with the Japanese language. So the students must have benefited much from his teaching. At one time, he contributed an English recommendation to a book on medicine; Iji-Mondou (Questions and Answers on Medical Problems). It was followed by its Japanese version, which added, to our interest, that De Tronquois was from a medical family in France.

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The main purpose of this paper is to find out the character of Isao Matsuda's thoughts on teaching language. The paper is divided into three parts. The aim of the first part is to describe Matsuda's personal history and his experience with teaching Japanese language to foreigners. The second part is related to his experience of teaching English to Japanese students, and the third part is about his experience of teaching Japanese to foreigners in Japan.
In his early childhood, Matsuda was brought under Christian influence. Then he came to the capital to pursue his studies. At nineteen, he entered the Tokyo Eiwa Gakko. He became Miss Pierson's teacher of Japanese shortly after she came to Japan in 1890. He taught her zokugo. He learned Lange's Grammar of Japanese and Gouin system seriously and had six years of experience in the comparative language study of various methods. In 1898, Matsuda was convinced that Gouin system was the most successful method of teaching language. In 1902, Matsuda and Swan published a textbook of teaching English to Japanese students. The book consisted of distinctively Japanese scenes expressed in good English idioms of every day life. Matsuda founded the Japanese language school for foreigners in 1905 and published the Japanese version of the text in 1906. He taught Japanese as a foreign language to many foreigners, most of whom belonged to the missionary ranks.

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Hon Tatsunosuke (1823-94) was the first interpreter of Dutch whotaught English at the School of European Languages of Tokugawa Government (Bansho Shirabesho). Tatsunosuke was the chief editor of the English-Japanese Dictionary (Eiwa Taiyaku Schuchin Jisho), published in 1862.
His colleague Ichikawa Kanenori (Itsuki) kept a diary named “Futensai Nikki” every day from 1851 to 1883. This diary provides a very important inside look into the Tokugawa Government, including friendly discourse with Hori. One may suppose that he consulted with Ichikawa on printing technology for the English-Japanese Dictionary.
Kusaka Genzui was influenced by Yoshida Shoin, a famous patriots in the closing days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Kusaka was a pupil at Hori's English school from May 1860 to Mar. 1861, but he left the school and died in civil war 1864, at only 25 years of age.

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