Lafcadio Hearn is highly evaluated as novelist, essayist, literary critic, folklorist and interpreter of Japanese culture. He is, however, to be remembered as a good English teacher for his contribution to the Japanese local education in the Meiji era.
He came to Japan in 1890 to learn more about Japanese people and their culture. He had agreed to send some articles on Japan to
Harper's Magazine for which he had previously written some travel sketches on the West Indies and a well-received novel “Chita : A Memory of Last Island.” But no sooner had he reached Japan than he had to seek employment. The problem of earning a living had suddenly surfaced.
On his arrival at Yokohama he had intended to break with Harper Publishing Company. On his way to Japan, in the company of an illustrator called Weldon, Hearn had discovered that
Harper's Magazine was paying Weldon a lot more than they were paying him. His pride stung, he resolved to find a way of earning a living, independent from the magazine.
With the support of Basil H. Chamberlain, a professor at Tokyo University, Hearn was offered the post of English teacher at Matsue Junior High School in Shimane prefecture. Hearn had already made up his mind to stay in Japan, not as a journalist but as a student of Japan and its culture.
Hearn began teaching in September of the year 1890. A short man, blind in one eye, at first he made a poor impression on his pupils, but in due course they recognised him as a sincere and able teacher. He seems to have based his teaching methods on the ideas of Herbert Spencer, particularly his work “Education : Intellectual, Moral, and Physical” published in 1861, and already in use as a textbook in Waseda University in 1886. On October 26, 1890, Hearn addressed the general meeting of the Teaching Association of Shimane prefecture on education. In his speech he stressed the importance of encouraging children's imagination and creativity. In his view the simple memorisation of facts by rote did not constitute education. These ideas are similar to the notions of education expounded in Spencer's essay.
In this essay I have described the arrival of Lafcadio Hearn in Japan, the influence of Herbert Spencer's philosophy on his new career as an English teacher, and his way of teaching.
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