August Karl Reischauer (; born September 4, 1879; died July 10, 1971) was an American

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their na ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

, best known for his work in Japan.

Life and work

August Karl Reischauer was born in Jonesboro,

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. He graduated from

Hanover College Hanover College is a private college in Hanover, Indiana, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Founded in 1827 by Reverend John Finley Crowe, it is Indiana's oldest private college. The Hanover athletic teams participate in the He ...

in 1902 and from McCormick Theological Seminary in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

in 1905 before going to Japan. His interest in the relationship of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...

to the other religions led to the publication "Studies in Japanese Buddhism" in 1917. He also worked on eliminating duplication of missionary activities and consolidating the church seminaries. In 1918 he founded the Tōkyō Woman’s Christian University and in 1920, together with his wife, the school for the deaf and mute “Nihon Rōwa Gakkō” (日本聾話学校). Reischauer left Japan in 1941 and taught for a number of years

Comparative Religious Studies general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...

Union Theological Seminary Union Theological Seminary may refer to: * Albright College, formerly known as Union Seminary, a college in Reading, Pennsylvania * Union Presbyterian Seminary or Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and Presbyterian School of Christian Education ...

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. His second son,

Edwin O. Reischauer Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (; October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990) was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and cul ...

, was a well-known

Japanologist Japanese studies ( Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japane ...

and from 1961 to 1966

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of the

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in Japan.

Published monographs

* Studies in Japanese Buddhism (1917) * The Task in Japan: A Study of Modern Missionary Imperatives (1926) * Ōjō yōshū - Collected Essays on Birth into Paradise (1930) (translation) Ōjōyōshū (往生要集) was written in 985 by the Buddhist monk Genshin (源信; 942-1017).

Notes

Literature

* S. Noma (Ed.): ''Reischauer, August Karl''. In: Japan. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Kodansha, 1993, , p. 1250. {{DEFAULTSORT:Reischauer, August 1879 births 1971 deaths American Presbyterian missionaries