William Elliot Griffis Views

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William Elliot Griffis was an American orientalist, congregational minister, lecturer, and prolific author. He attended Rutgers University at New Brunswick, New Jersey, graduating in 1869. In September 1870 Griffis was invited to Japan by the Fukui Lord Matsudaira Shungaku, for the purpose of organizing schools along modern lines, and, in 1871, he was Superintendent of Education in the province of Echizen. Griffis taught chemistry and physics at Kaisei Gakko (forerunner of Tokyo Imperial University). He prepared the New Japan Series of Reading and Spelling Books (1872) and published primers for Japanese students of the English language. He contributed numerous articles of importance on Japanese affairs to the Japanese press and to newspapers and magazines in the United States. Griffis published Hepburn of Japan and his Wife and Helpmates: A Life Story of Toil for Christ in 1913.

William Elliot Griffis (1843-1928), a native of Philadelphia and a veteran of the Civil War, entered Rutgers College in 1865. Preparing himself for the ministry, Griffis was enrolled in the college's new scientific curriculum, was a leading member of the Philoclean Society (a literary club), and a founder of the Targum, Rutgers' student newspaper. He also became personally acquainted with some of the first Japanese students to come to the United States.

Even before the restoration of the Meiji Emperor to power in 1868 ushered in an era of rapid technological change, a few Japanese had ventured abroad to study. Among the first were a group of students who came to New Brunswick, New Jersey. Able and eager to learn, they made a profound impression on many of their American peers. In particular, Kusakabe Taro, a young samurai from the province of Echizen, became the first Japanese to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the first Japanese to graduate from Rutgers College, and along with a Japanese student at Amherst, the first to graduate from an American college. Sadly, Kusakabe's degree was awarded posthumously; he died of tuberculosis only weeks before commencement. William Elliot Griffis was among those who especially felt the loss: he had tutored Kusakabe in English and Latin.

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