INTRODUCTION

IN THE WORK of the historian, besides systematic research based on sources, chance often plays a role that should not be underestimated. Many years ago, such a coincidence brought a bundle of source materials into my hands, which very quickly proved to be ground-breaking. These are notes and lecture notes, internship reports and diaries of a young Japanese engineer, named Ōhara Junnosuke. Born into a samurai family five years after the opening of the country by Commodore Perry in 1854, Ōhara in many ways represents the group of early engineers whose education was still rooted in the feudal era, who continued their education through different routes, and who belonged to the first generation to end up with a formalized education at a modern, Western educational institution. His personal papers provide invaluable insights into this process, which bridges the seemingly incompatible systems of traditional education in the Edo period and a modern Western-style technical education.

The following reconstruction of his biography during this transitional phase proves his career to be a typical example of the possibilities and problems at the beginning of the introduction of a technical education in Japan.

How his career unfolded, how the gaps and ruptures between the school of a feudal domain and modern technical higher education at the renowned Kōbu-dai-gakkō were filled, and how he achieved the requirements to graduate from the technical college, are quite characteristic of many careers in the technical sciences at that time.

The questions to be considered in a deeper analysis of Ōhara and his work in this transitional period around the Meiji Restoration are: Who was this man? What do we know about him? Was he famous? What did he learn? How did he study? What achievement can be ascribed to him that is significant enough to be the subject of an academic writing?