Isawa Shūji

Template:Japanese name Isawa Shūji (伊沢 修二, 30 June 1851 – 3 May 1917, also called Rakuten) was a Japanese educator of the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods. Isawa was born in Shinano province to a middle-level samurai family. After studying English in Tokyo under Nakahama Manjirō and receiving brief training in American-style pedagogy in the very beginning of the Meiji period, Isawa was given a high-ranking position in the Ministry of Education. After petitioning the Ministry for permission to travel to the United States, Isawa studied from 1872 to 1878 at the Bridgewater Normal School (now Bridgewater State University) and Harvard University under Luther Whiting Mason and Alexander Graham Bell, among others. He returned to Japan to establish the Tokyo Normal School (now University of Tsukuba) in 1879, the Tokyo School for the Deaf in 1880, the Tokyo School of Music (now Tokyo University of the Arts) in 1887, and the Taiwanese public school system in 1895. A prolific writer and wide-ranging thinker, Isawa is credited with the earliest works in Japanese on Western music education (including the first music textbooks for children), pedagogical theory and practice, education of the deaf, linguistics, and evolutionary biology.