【新潟初の外国人英語教師】
久しぶりのBrian’s コラムは新潟に関するHistory Notesです。
たくさんの「新潟初」が紹介されていておもしろいですよ。ぜひ英文和訳にチャレンジしてみてください。
初の外国人英語教師、初の女性外国人訪問者、初のクリスチャンスクール、初めて海外留学した女性…
みなさんはいくつ知っていましたか？
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History Notes
Note 1- Niigata’s First English Teacher
The Christian missionary, educator, and translator Samuel Robbins Brown arrived in Niigata in 1869 with his wife and a young female missionary, Mary Kidder, the two women thought to be the first western females to visit the town. Brown, Niigata’s first professional native-speaking English instructor, taught classes for male pupils- with Ms. Kidder teaching the girls- at Fudoin, a temple located near soon-to-be-history Mitsukoshi. (Brown’s three-year contract stipulated a monthly salary of $250, a magnificent sum of nearly $93,000 annually, or more than 10 million yen, in today’s money.) In the evenings Brown held Bible study lessons at his residence in the Yorii neighborhood.
One of Brown’s students, a certain Abe, would later establish the prefecture’s first Christian school, Hokuetsu Gakkan (1885-93, no relation to Hokuetsu HS), an institution for boys. Moreover, one of Ms. Kidder’s pupils, Ueda Teiko, became the first Japanese female to study abroad.
(That’s a lot of “firsts”!)
Brown’s missionary efforts lacked zeal, however, prompting his superiors to give him the sack after just nine months. This may have been what he wished for, though, as he returned to his former residence in Yokohama to resume work full-time on his labor of love, a Japanese-language translation of the New Testament. For those who like a bit of trivia, there’s this: among Brown’s collaborators on the project was no less a man than James Curtis Hepburn, he of the eponymous system of romanization known as ヘボン式ローマ字.