was a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

in Meiji and Taishō period

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. He had a son, Kume Keiichirō, who was a noted

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

Biography

Kume was born in

Saga Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period Tokugawa Shogunate. It encompassed most of what are now Saga and Nagasaki Prefectures and was ruled from Saga Castle in what is now the urban center of the city of Saga. It was ruled through its histo ...

Hizen Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of the Saga Prefecture, Saga and Nagasaki Prefecture, Nagasaki prefectures. It was sometimes called , with Higo Province. Hizen bordered on the provinces of Chikuzen Province, Ch ...

(present-day

Saga Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of roughly 780,000 and has a geographic area of . Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagasaki Prefect ...

), and was active in attempting to assist the administrative reform of Saga domain during the

Bakumatsu period were the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, under foreign diplomatic and military pressure, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunat ...

. After the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

, he was selected to join the

Iwakura Mission The Iwakura Mission or Iwakura Embassy (, ''Iwakura Shisetsudan'') was a Japanese diplomatic voyage to Europe and the United States conducted between 1871 and 1873 by leading statesmen and scholars of the Meiji period. It was not the only such m ...

on its around-the-world voyage in 1871–73 as the private secretary to

Iwakura Tomomi was a Japanese statesman during the Bakumatsu and Meiji period. He was one of the leading figures of the Meiji Restoration, which saw Japan's transition from feudalism to modernism. Born to a noble family, he was adopted by the influential Iw ...

. In 1878, he published the ''Tokumei Zenken Taishi Bei-O Kairan Jikki'' ( 「特命全権大使米欧回覧実記」), a five-volume account of the journey, and of what he observed of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. Kume became a professor at primary

Tokyo Imperial University The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public university, public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several Edo peri ...

in 1888, while contributing to '' Dai Nihon Hennenshi'', an encyclopedic comprehensive history of Japan. In 1889, he was awarded the

Order of the Sacred Treasure The is a Japanese Order (distinction), order, established on 4 January 1888 by Emperor Meiji as the Order of Meiji. Originally awarded in eight classes (from 8th to 1st, in ascending order of importance), since 2003 it has been awarded in six c ...

.Brownlee, John. (1997). ''Japanese historians and the national myths, 1600–1945: the age of the gods and Emperor Jinmu,'' p. 96. However, in 1892, he was forced to resign after publishing a paper named ''Shinto wa saiten no kozoku'' ( 「神道は祭天の古俗」 ) ("Shinto is an outmoded custom deifying nature"), which the government considered to be seditious and highly critical of the

State Shinto was Empire of Japan, Imperial Japan's ideological use of the Japanese folk religion and traditions of Shinto. The state exercised control of shrine finances and training regimes for Kannushi, priests to strongly encourage Shinto practices that ...

system. Kume continued to write and lecture at the ''Tokyo Semmon Gakko'' ( 東京専門学校), the predecessor of

Waseda University Waseda University (Japanese: ), abbreviated as or , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the Tōkyō Professional School by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the fifth Prime Minister of Japan, prime ministe ...

, after his resignation from Tokyo University.

Works

*''Tokumei Zenken Taishi Bei-O Kairan Jikki'' (「特命全権大使米欧回覧実記」), Tokyo, 1878

Available in English

* Kume Kunitake. Healey, Graham and Tsuzuki Chushichi, eds. ''The Iwakura embassy, 1871-73 : a true account of the ambassador extraordinary & plenipotentiary's journey of observation through the United States of America and Europe'' (The Japan Documents, 2002)

Notes

References

* Brownlee, John S. (1997) ''Japanese historians and the national myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jimmu.'' Vancouver:

University of British Columbia Press The University of British Columbia Press (UBC Press) is a university press that is part of the University of British Columbia. It is a mid-sized scholarly publisher, and the largest in Western Canada. The press is based in Vancouver, British Col ...

. Tokyo:

University of Tokyo Press The is a university press affiliated with the University of Tokyo in Japan. It was founded in 1951, following the post-World War II reorganization of the university. The press is currently a member of the Association of University Presses. H ...

. * Nish, Ian. (1998) ''The Iwakura Mission to America and Europe: A New Assessment''. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library. ;
OCLC 40410662

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kume, Kunitake samurai 1839 births 1931 deaths People from Saga Prefecture Kokugaku scholars Japanese_atheists Meiji Restoration 20th-century Japanese historians People of the Meiji era Nabeshima retainers Members of the Iwakura Mission 19th-century Japanese historians Academic staff of Waseda University