What to read after Henry Dyer?

Ignored in Britain and forgotten for generations in Japan, Henry Dyer (1848-1918), engineer, educationalist and author of two major works on Japan as well as dozens of papers and pamphlets and other works, has been the subject of ongoing research by Nobuhiro Miyoshi (Hiroshima University) for over thirty years, culminating in this updated and expanded version of his original 1989 biography, Dyer no Nippon. At the age of 24, even before he had taken his final exams at Glasgow University, Henry Dyer was appointed principal of Japan’s new Imperial College of Engineering (ICE), with a remit to set up a world-class engineering institution that would deliver the engineers with the technical know-how and expertise to build the New Japan. Dyer’s appointment by Ito Hirobumi, the then Vice-Minister for Public Works and a member of the Japanese Embassy in London (later to become Prime Minister). In the nine years Dyer was in Japan – unfettered by ancient academic traditions and protocols – he formulated an approach to engineering education that enabled the ICE to become the most advanced institution of its kind in the world, later to become part of Tokyo University. This study makes an important new contribution to o-yatoi (‘hired foreigner’) studies of the Meiji period, particularly in the field of education, and helps illuminate existing perceptions regarding the nature of Japan’s route to modernization.