Guido Verbeck

Infobox Person
name = Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck


caption = Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck
birth_date = 28 January 1830
birth_place = Zeist, Netherlands
death_date = 10 May 1898
death_place = Tokyo, Japan
other_names = Verbeek
known_for = foreign advisor to Meiji Japan
occupation = missionary, educator, foreign advisor to Japan
nationality = Netherlands

Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck (or Verbeek) (28 January 1830 – 10 May 1898) was a Dutch political advisor, educator, and missionary active in "Bakumatsu" and Meiji period Japan. He was one of the most important "o-yatoi gaikokujin" (foreign advisors) serving the Meiji government and contributed to many major government decisions during the early years of the reign of Emperor Meiji.

Early years

Verbeck was born in Zeist, Netherlands as the 6th of eighth children in a Moravian family. As a young man, he studied at the Polytechnic Institute of Utrecht in hopes of becoming an engineer. At Zeist he grew up speaking Dutch, German, French and English.

Life in the United States

At the age of twenty-two, on the invitation of his brother-in-law, Verbeck traveled to the United States to work at a foundry located outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, which had been developed by Moravian missionaries to build machinery for steamboats. Verbeck stayed in Wisconsin for almost a year, during which time he changed the spelling of his name from "Verbeek" to "Verbeck" in the hope that Americans could better pronounce it. However he wanted to see more of America and moved to Brooklyn, New York where his sister had previously lived. He then decided to work as a civil engineer in Arkansas, and designed bridges, structures and machines. However, in Arkansas he was deeply moved by the lives of slaves in the southern plantations, and the teachings of H.W. Beecher, a preacher whose sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, writer of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." After almost dying from cholera, he swore that he would become a missionary if he recovered. In 1855 he entered a seminary in Auburn, New York, where many Dutch had immigrated.

Life in Japan

Verbeck graduated in 1859, and moved to Nagasaki, Japan as a missionary for the Dutch Reformed Church. His first dwelling was at the temple of Sofukuji, where Ranald MacDonald had previously stayed.

In 1862 Wakasa Murata, retainer of Nabeshima Kanso, "daimyo" of the Saga domain sent three young men to study Christianity to Verbeck, beginning a deep relation between Verbeck and the Saga domain.

Verbeck also taught foreign languages, politics, and science at the "Yougakusho" (School for Western Studies) in Nagasaki, from August 1853. In 1864, the school was renamed "Seibikan" and had more than one hundred students. Verbeck's pupils included Ōkuma Shigenobu, Itō Hirobumi Ōkubo Toshimichi and Soejima Taneomi. He taught the students the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution besides English.

Verbeck cooperated with Takahashi Shinkichi to publish the "Satsuma Dictionary", the first English-Japanese Dictionary printed in Japan.

In 1869, recommended by Ōkubo, Verbeck received an appointment as teacher at the Kaisei School (later Tokyo Imperial University). At one point, future Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo was a boarder at Verbeck's house.

Verbeck also served as a counselor of the Meiji government under Sanjō Sanetomi. Verbeck recommended that the Japanese government adopt the use of German language for medical studies, and was often consulted about the establishment of the prefectural system of local administration. He was also influential in encouraging the dispatch of the Iwakura mission, the first Japanese diplomatic mission to the United States and Europe

In 1871 Verbeck assisted in bringing William Elliot Griffis of Rutgers University to Japan to teach at the Fukui Domain academy "Meishinkan" per the invitation of "daimyo" Matsudaira Norinaga.

In September 1871 the Ministry of Education was established and Verbeck became an advisor, providing inspiration for the Education Order of 1872 and the Conscription Ordinance of 1873.

As the ban of Christianity in Japan was lifted in February 1873, Verbeck was permitted to resume his missionary efforts.

Verbeck made a trip to Europe on 6 months' leave given by the Japanese government and traveled to meet up with the Iwakura Mission. On his return to Japan, he resigned from the university, and spent the next few years as a translator of English legal documents into Japanese for a few years.

In 1877, he taught at the "Gakushuin," and was appointed the first trustee of Meiji Gakuin University in 1886.

In 1887, Verbeck translated the Old Testament Psalms and Book of Isaiah into Japanese, which had a future influence on Japanese literature.

Verbeck attempted to return to the United States in 1890 with his daughter, but was refused by the American government, as he could not prove his Dutch nationality and his application for American nationality based on his previous stay in the United States was denied. The Japanese government responded by granting Verbeck permanent residency and issuing him a passport.

Verbeck died in Tokyo of a heart attack in 1898 and was buried in the foreign section of the Aoyama Reien cemetery in central Tokyo, which is now under threat from the city's bureaucracy.

His son Gustave emigrated to the United States and gained some fame as a cartoonist. Another son, William, was Adjudant General of the State of New York, and head of the Manlius Military School, near Syracuse, New York.

External sources

* [http://www.uwosh.edu/home_pages/faculty_staff/earns/verbeck.html A Miner in the Deep and Dark Places] : Guido Verbeck in Nagasaki, 1859–1869 by Lane R. Earns.

References

* Griffis, William Elliot. " [Guido Verbeck|Verbeck] of Japan: A citizen of no country; a life story of foundation work inaugurated by Guido Fridolin Verbeck". Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co (1900). [reprinted by Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrire, London, 1901.]
* Hane, Mikiso. "Modern Japan: A Historical Survey". Westview Press (2001). ISBN: 0813337569
* Jansen, Marius B. "Emergence of Meiji Japan, The" (Cambridge History of Japan). Cambridge University Press (2006). ISBN: 0521484057
* Keene, Donald. "Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912". Columbia University Press (2005). ISBN 0231123418