Inoue Kowashi
Kowashi Inoue (Japanese井上 毅; * 18th day of the twelfth month of the year 1843 (Tempo 14) or on February 6, 1844 in Takebe, Kumamoto han, Higo Province, † March 17, 1895 ) was a Japanese statesman who had been successfully involved in particular in the areas of constitutional customer and the educational policy of the Meiji period.
Life
He comes from a samurai family and was the third son of Iida Kengoei or Gongobei (饭 田 権 兵卫), one of the vassals kenmotsu Nagaoka (长 冈 监 物) in Han ( fief ) Kumamoto. In 1866 he was adopted by Inoue Shigesaburō (井上 茂 三郎).
Inoue showed early high intellectual ability, he should already have been able to recite by heart as a toddler the Hyakunin Isshu. At the age of fourteen he was to inform the Confucian scholar Kinoshita Saitan (木 下 犀 潭; 1805-1867 ) sent the already Yokoi Shonan (横 井 小楠; 1809-1869 ) and Motoda Nagazane (元 田 永 孚, also Motoda Eifu; 1818-1891) had trained. 1862 Inoue began a study on Jishūkan (时 习 馆), the Confucian School of Kumamoto han, where he developed his interest in the relationship between religion and politics.
1867 Inoue was sent by the Han government to Edo to learn French there. Due to the political turmoil of the Meiji Restoration, however, he left Edo and sat from December 1867 to April 1868 his studies at Sankeijuku (三 计 塾) in Yokohama under the anti -Christian Confucians Yasui Sokken (安井 息 轩; 1799-1876 ) continued. He then returned to Kumamoto short back and studied some months in Nagasaki, and finally returned to Tōkyō the completion of his studies.
1871 Inoue began his service in the Justice Department under Eto Shinpei (江 藤 新 平; 1834-1874 ). The following year, Inoue took part in a conference organized by ETO mission in which he studied foreign legal systems in Europe. So he listened for three months lectures by Gustave Emile Boissonade (1825-1910) at the Sorbonne and began to appreciate the Prussian constitution beings. After his return to Japan in November 1873 Inoue translated several European legal texts, including the French Penal Code.
After ETO was forced to resign from his government post, Inoue began to work, he respect the diplomatic concerns of (西 郷 従 道, 1843-1902 ) military -run, Japanese Taiwan Expedition of 1874 helped and together with Boissonade after by Saigō Tsugumichi for Okubo Toshimichi Beijing accompanied.
1875 Inoue joined as a consultant in the service of Itō Hirobumi. In the same year accompanied Inoue Arinori Mori (森 有礼, 1847-1889 ) on a mission to settle the Korean issue to China.
From the late 1870s helped Inoue as the author of two significant commemorative writings, which he wrote together with Hermann Roesler, Iwakura Tomomi in its efforts to align the planned Meiji Constitution of content on the Prussian system. Inoue argued herein so that the Prussian constitution rather than the Japanese Kokutai correspond to the English, and that the full sovereignty of the Japanese state must lie in the person of Tennō. Between 1886 and 1888, Inoue was actively involved in concrete designs to the Constitution, where his designs were more liberal than those actually finally announced Meiji Constitution in essential points.
Inoue was active from 1878 also active in the Japanese education policy, in which he also strongly oriented towards the Kokutai - ideal. In the sense of a strong Japanese nation, he argued in a speech written for Yamagata Aritomo for a funded by state education patriotism. Mid- 1890, Inoue involved under the new Education Minister Yoshikawa Akimasa (芳 川 顕 正; 1842-1920 ) in the drafting of the Imperial Edict education. Inoue involving Yamagata Aritomo and Motoda Eifu materialize Come draft was finally adopted mainly for in October of the same year edict.
1893 Inoue was appointed Education Minister in the second cabinet of Itō Hirobumi. In his short tenure, he strengthened himself, for moral education in the Confucian sense, the provision of equal educational opportunities for all Japanese subjects and the strengthening of practical training, especially in the technical- industrial sector. For health reasons, had to withdraw Inoue on August 29, 1894 and retired to a residence, but not to recover again until his death. In January 1895 he was honored with the title Shishaku. On March 17, the same year he died.