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Date: November 11, 1996
Lectureship to Honor First Japanese Graduate of Princeton
Princeton, N.J. -- A group of alumni of the former Third National College of Japan, known as Sanko, will visit campus Tuesday to establish a lectureship honoring Hikoichi Orita, the college's former president and the first Asian to graduate from Princeton.
At noon Tuesday, the alumni group will present University President Harold T. Shapiro with a check for 10 million yen to establish the McCosh-Orita Lectureship Fund, designed to promote deepening relationships between the United States and Japan. The lectureship is named jointly for Orita, who graduated in 1876, and for James McCosh, Princeton's 11th president, who is considered one of the most innovative leaders in the school's history.
Born in 1849, Orita was involved in the civil wars in Japan that led to modernization under the Meiji government. Orita came to the United States to study in 1870 and settled in the home of the Rev. Dr. Edward Corwin, pastor of the Reformed Church of America in Millstone, N.J. After learning English and Christian theology, Orita was admitted to Princeton in 1872 and met James and Isabella McCosh, who cared for the young man.
After graduation, Orita returned to Japan and earned a national reputation for his efforts to develop the country's higher education system. Japan established five Keto Gakko institutions, which gave select groups of young men a rigorous foundation in liberal arts and Western languages before sending them on to professional schools. Orita established this curriculum as president of the Third National College, where he served from 1890 until 1910.
Orita is best-known for having infused Sanko with the spirit of "freedom" that focused on cultivating the spiritual well-being and personal integrity of students. "Freedom" became the college's enduring trait. Sanko's reputation lived on after the college closed in 1948, when a new reform movement shut the Keto Gakko institutions. Sanko alumni remain active, and the alumni group responsible for the new exchange hopes to schedule the first McCosh-Orita Lecture in Kyoto, Japan, in 1998, during a celebration of the 130th anniversary of Sanko's founding.
Little was known about Orita before Sanko's 125th anniversary. At that time, alumnus Sozo Itakura, who graduated in 1937, began researching Orita's background and his connections to Princeton. Shortly before his death in 1994, Itakura completed a biography of Hikoichi Orita, Portrait of a Man, which was published by the Sanko Alumni Association.