The Japan-Andover Connection

When I was an undergraduate at Indiana University doing East Asian Studies and Religious Studies, I wrote my senior thesis on a man named Neeshima Jo, who was the founder of Doshisha University in Kyoto. I was interested in him because in many ways he characterized the convergence of Japanese and American cultures at the time of Japan’s Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century. He was an interesting case study in how a culture that had been cut off from the outside world for 250 years began to assimilate to the modern West, following the events that took place right here where we are living in Shimoda in 1854 after Commodore Matthew Perry negotiated the first Japan-US treaty. I had read just about everything that was written by or about Neeshima in English, and some things in Japanese as well. I knew all about his days at Phillips Academy in Andover. I had never been to Andover or even Massachusetts yet at the time.

It was an interesting coincidence then that just a few years later, when I was a second year seminarian at Harvard Divinity School, I would end up doing my parish field education at Christ Church in (of all places) Andover, Massachusetts. That was 1983-84. My relationship with Christ Church extended beyond that year through the mid and late eighties. Prior to my ordination I was a sometime member of the schola cantorum that sang at the 11:15 service. I remember at one of our choir parties bringing up something about Neeshima in conversation. One thing about the choir parties at Christ Church is that you can always depend on someone knowing something about any subject you might bring up! Sure enough, David Currier knew about Neeshima. He knew about him because his mother lived in the house where Neeshima had lived while a student at PA. I knew the name of the young couple (a brother and sister couple, actually) with whom he had lived, so I asked him if it was the house that Mr. and Miss Hidden had lived in. He said, “well, it’s on Hidden Road, so probably so.” Dave arranged for me to visit the house sometime later.

Neeshima’s story is an interesting one. It was around 1850 (if my memory serves me correctly) that a young boy with the family name Neeshima stowed away on a ship from Japan to China. It was illegal for Japanese to leave the country, just as it was for foreigners to enter, during the period of Tokugawa isolation that had begun around 1600. That’s another whole story that had to do with the suspicions of the shogunate about the colonial intentions of the Dutch and the Spanish. But for 250 years, the only foreigners permitted into Japan were a few Dutch traders, and only then into a small island named Deshima off the coast of Nagasaki. So when Neeshima left Japan, it was an act of treason. He sailed for China, studying English while on board, using a Bible that someone had given him. From there he got on another boat that eventually ended up in Boston Harbor. The boat was owned by a Boston trader named Joseph Hardy. Hardy became aware of the young “heathen” on board, but sensed his potential, and decided to send him to be educated at Phillips Academy. The headmaster at Phillips determined that Neeshima would be out of place in the dormitory, and would perhaps be the object of some ridicule by the other boys, so he arranged for him to stay in a private home with the Hiddens. He took the name Joseph Hardy Neeshima in recognition of his patron. In Japan he would later be known as Neeshima Jo.

While a student at Andover, Neeshima became a Christian and was baptized in the school chapel. He did well as a student, and qualified to enter Amherst University subsequently. The then-President of Amherst, Dr. Julius Seelye, took a particular interest in the young Japanese man. Neeshima would later write about their unique relationship. He said that Seelye’s eyes were “suffused with tears” as he entered his office for the first time. It was the first of many indications of his kindness and generosity toward Neeshima. During his years at Amherst, Neeshima decided to enter the ministry. In the Congregationalist tradition of the schools where he had studied, the best place to prepare for the ministry would be Andover Seminary, so back to Andover he went. It was while there this second time around that the Congregationalist American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) would decide to ordain him to missionary work in Japan.

I haven’t found anything in the record to indicate whether Neeshima ever visited or was aware of the Episcopal congregation that had been established only a few years earlier in Andover (in 1837) at the corner of Central and School Streets.

Meanwhile, all sorts of interesting things had been happening in Japan as well. Commodore Perry had come back to the US in 1854 with a treaty opening Japan to trade with the US, an event that sparked a period of major political and social changes in Japan as they cautiously prepared to enter the modern world. It would require not only the apparatus of foreign trade, but also a willingness to learn and accept new ideas that would come along with trade. The Japanese government embarked upon what would be known as the Meiji Restoration – a period marked by radical changes in education and commerce. It was a time when Japan self-consciously opened itself to ideas from other parts of the world. There was a shortage of people who could speak both Japanese and English, but the young Japanese man in Andover came to the attention of authorities soon enough. He was invited to join a Japanese embassy to the US and Europe that would examine Western educational systems for possible implementation in Japan. Neeshima would be their interpreter, and as a result of this experience, he learned a great deal about education that would inform his own life’s work. Eventually, Neeshima did return to Japan, sponsored by the ABCFM, where he founded Doshisha University. It is still one of Japan’s more well-respected institutions of higher education.

In 1989 I made a brief 3-day visit to Japan on my way to Hong Kong and southern China. On that trip my host took me to the campus of Doshisha University in Kyoto. I wanted to see the place where Neeshima’s unique journey had taken him. Walking around the campus we came upon the university public relations office. We went in, and I explained to the person we met that I was interested in Neeshima Jo and the history of the college. I told them that I lived in Andover, Massachusetts, in the USA.

When I said I was from Andover, I was an instant celebrity! They immediately arranged for a photographer, and someone to interview me. Some weeks later I got in the mail a copy of the article that appeared in the Doshisha alumni magazine, featuring a distinguished visitor from the US. It was all a bit embarrassing. A few years later (Elaine Bailey or Skip Eccles can help me with the details here) there was a large group from Doshisha that came to Andover for a significant anniversary in the history of Neeshima and the university. They presented a Neeshima memorial to Phillips Academy, now situated in a garden just outside the Admissions Office on Salem Street in Andover. It is an obelisk with a Japanese inscription to Neeshima – a very nice reminder of the unique connection of the Academy, the seminary, and the town of Andover, with a very significant period in the development of modern Japan.

I suppose it’s another example of the “grassroots communication” that the Buddhist priest at Ryosenji and I talked about (and I reported on in a prior post – “The other side of cross-cultural communication”). What happened here in Shimoda to enable a new period of relations between our two countries was also happening in another way halfway around the world in Andover.