Amity Yokohama Open seminar No. 3

Title ; “ Japonisme, Japanese influence on Europe and a Personal History ”
Lecturer ; Professor Phillip Dennis Cate, Rutgers University , NJ, USA
Date ; 14th May, 2004
Place ; Yokohama Port Opening Memorial Hall

Summary
1) The history of Rutgers University as the British Place in the United
States of Japanese American Relations ;
In 1866-67, the first Japanese students coming to the U.S. to study and to complete their studies came to Rutgers College which, at that time, was a Dodge Reform Church College in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Kusakabe Taro was the first Japanese student to receive a Phi Beta Kappa honorary key. In 1870, Kusakabe’s teacher at Rutgers, William Elliot Griffis traveled to Echizen to be the first American Professor in Japan, and to help establish a Western system of science education. After one year, Griffis went to Tokyo where he taught for four years at the future Tokyo University. Whereas, well-known in Japan and ever learned students at Rutgers were Matsukata Kojiro, famous for his Matsukata-Collection, Komura Jyutaro, well-known for a signer of Japan-Russo Peace Treaty at Portsmouth, and many others.

2) My own family’s relationship with Meiji Japan:
In 1890, my grandfather Isaac Wallace Cate came to Tokyo to help establish the Universalist Church in Japan. Within two years, my grandmother Ella Stimson Cate also arrived in Japan. They had five children in Japan, and taught at Waseda and Meiji Universities. My father lived in Japan until he was 17 years old. After my grandfather died in 1908, my grandmother remained in Japan for fourteen years teaching English and directing Shakespeare plays.

3) The Artistic influence of Japan on French nineteenth-century-art by such artists as Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Dega, Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many other artists.

[eig*deh**akko]

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