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CHAPTER FOUR Contrasts in Japan and Taiwan In the mid-1870s, the Canadian Methodist mission was able to expand its work away from the two original centres in Shizuoka and Koishikawa. The opportunity to begin evangelistic activity in Numazu and in the hinterland of Yamanashi Prefecture was closely intertwined with the skein of contacts McDonald and Cochran had created. As in Shizuoka, interest in Western studies in Numazu owed its genesis to the Tokugawa educational effort in Shizuoka Prefecture after 1868. Like McDonald, George Meacham taught in a private school which continued to provide Western-studies education after the forced closure of the original Tokugawa institution. On a more modest scale, the case of Numazu provides a further example of the impact of Western ideas and Christianity in Shizuoka Prefecture. Just as Nakamura played a key role in the development of the Koishikawa Band, Ebara Soroku had a profound influence on the emergence of the Numazu Christian group. The educational activity in Numazu was part of a longstanding concern for Western studies among the sabakuha in Shizuoka Prefecture ; however, the case of Nambu in Yamanashi Prefecture was somewhat different. Though interest in Western studies had existed there for some time before Eby's arrival, it was an interest among rural villagers in a relatively remote, if not also traditionally backward, region. In that sense, the example of Nambu reveals the relative speed with which Western ideas penetrated at least one part of rural Japan. The beginning of Canadian Methodist work in all four places was conditioned by the intellectual response of the Japanese to the deluge ofWestern ideas coming into their country. What took place in Taiwan stands in starkest contrast to what occurred inJapan. Almost complete intellectual rejection confronted Mackay'S attempts to Christianize the north of the island. Where the response to Christianity of the exNotes for Chapter Four are found on pp. 232-34. 71 72 THE CROSS AND THE RISING SUN samurai in early MeijiJapan shows that the Christian message fitted in with the broader concerns ofJapanese society, this was definitely not the case in Taiwan. While the overt intransigence of the literati was a major barrier to Christian expansion in Taiwan, it was also a manifestation of the gap between the Christian message and the aspirations of Taiwanese society. Thus, Mackay's example illustrates the work of a jack-of-all-trades under very different and difficult circumstances. NUMAZU In September 1876, shortly after he arrived in Japan, George Meacham took a contract-teaching position at the Shihan Gakko in Numazu,1 which had been arranged by McDonald following a request from the school's headmaster, Ebara Soroku, for a missionary teacher.2 The Shihan Gakko was the Numazu equivalent of the Shizuhatasha in Shizuoka, a private junior school which was an outgrowth and continuation of the Numazu Heigakko (Fuzoku) Shogakko (Numazu Military Academy [Attached] Junior School.) The Shihan Gakko had its immediate predecessor in the Suseinoya (Shuseisha) and itself would serve as the predecessor to the Numazu Chugakko (Numazu Middle School), the changes in name being symptomatic of the difficulties of financing private schools. The intent, however, remained constant: to provide junior school education for the children of ex-Tokugawa samurai and the townspeople of Numazu after the closure of the Numazu Military Academy in 1874. Continuity through all these changes was provided by Ebara Soroku who was associated with all these schools from the beginning in 1872.3 Ebara Soroku, the central figure in bringing about the emergence of the Numazu Band and in later life a pillar of the Canadian-sponsored Japan Methodist Church, was born in 1842 in Tokyo, the son of a retainer of the Tokugawa Shogun.4 His early education had been that of typical samurai; he received a literary education in Chinese, history and mathematics (with abacus), and a military training consisting of sword and rifle exercises and horsemanship. The poverty of his family restricted his formal education and required him to work, but he educated himselfas much as possible. In his later life, Ebara mentioned having been so poor as a child that he could not afford to buy a kite and that some of his happiest moments as an adult were helping other young people buy kites and things he had not been able to afford.5 The financial difficulties of his boyhood proved to be one of the mainsprings in motivating him to assist other people in his later career. At eighteen, Ebara was posted...

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