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Nitobe Inazō

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Nitobe Inazō

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Also known as Inazō Nitobe, Inazo Nitobé, Nitobe Inazo, Nitobe Inazou, Inazo Nitobe

Japanese educator, agricultural economist and diplomat (1862–1933)

Person · Open Library

Born
1862
Died
1933
Works
85

Top works

  • Bushido
  • 世渡りの道
  • The Way of the Warrior
  • What the League of Nations has done and is doing...
  • Japan's innate virility

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Origin
Japan

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • A typical samurai calls a literary savant a book-smelling sot. Another compares learning to an ill-smelling vegetable that must be boiled and boiled before it is fit for use. A man who has read a little smells a little pedantic, and a man who has read much smells yet more so; both are alike unpleasant. The writer meant thereby that knowledge becomes really such only when it is assimilated in the mind of the learner and shows in his character.
  • Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a "dog's death." "To rush into the thick of battle and to be slain in it," says a Prince of Mito, "is easy enough, and the merest churl is equal to the task; but," he continues, "it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die."
  • Pilgrimages to all sorts of uncanny places—to execution grounds, to graveyards, to houses reputed to be haunted, were favorite pastimes of the young. In the days when decapitation was public, not only were small boys sent to witness the ghastly scene, but they were made to visit alone the place in the darkness of night and there to leave a mark of their visit on the trunkless head.
  • We needed no Shakespeare to feel—though, perhaps, like the rest of the world, we needed him to express it—that mercy became a monarch better than his crown, that it was above his sceptered sway.
  • We knew Benevolence was a tender virtue and mother-like. If upright Rectitude and stern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature. We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude.
  • "Bushi no nasaké"—the tenderness of a warrior—had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us; not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being, but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse, but where it recognized due regard to justice, and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind, but where it was backed with power to save or kill.

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Key facts

Born
( 1862-09-01 ) September 1, 1862, Morioka , Mutsu , Japan
Died
October 15, 1933 (1933-10-15) (aged 71), Victoria, British Columbia , Canada
Spouse
Mary Patterson Elkinton ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1891 ) ​
Children
Nitobe Yoshio; Nitobe Kotoko
Education
Johns Hopkins University ( BA ), Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg ( PhD ), Kyoto Imperial University ( LLD )
Occupation
Agronomist, diplomat, political scientist, politician, writer

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image
Monsieur Inazō Nitobe.jpg
Show 5 more facts
Commons category
Nitobe Inazō
date of birth
1862-09-01
date of death
1933-10-15
name in kana
にとべ いなぞう
name in native language
新渡戸稲造
Sources (4)

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~14 min read

Article

Nitobe Inazō (新渡戸 稲造; September 1, 1862 – October 15, 1933) was a Japanese agronomist, diplomat, political scientist, politician, and writer. He studied at Sapporo Agricultural College under the influence of its first president William S. Clark and later went to the United States to study agricultural policy. After returning to Japan, he served as a professor at Sapporo Agricultural College, Kyoto Imperial University, and Tokyo Imperial University, and the deputy secretary general of the League of Nations. He also devoted himself to women's education, helping to found the Tsuda Eigaku Juku and serving as the first president of Tokyo Woman's Christian University and president of the Tokyo Women's College of Economics. He was also a strong advocate for Japanese colonialism, and described Korean people as "primitive".

Early life

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