Mori Arinori

Viscount Mori Arinori (23 August 1847 to 12 February 1889) was a Meiji period Japanese statesman and diplomat, and the founder of Japan's modern educational system. As the first Minister of Education, in the first Ito Cabinet, he played a key role in establishing the educational system of the Empire of Japan. Together with Inoue Kowashi he issued orders from 1886 that established elementary, middle and normal school systems and an imperial university system, a crucial step in Japan's modernization. Born in the Satsuma Domain to a samurai family, he was sent to study at University College London in 1865 and later served as Japan's first ambassador to the United States, where he became very interested in western methods of education. In 1875 he established the Shoho Koshujo, Japan's first commercial college and the predecessor of Hitotsubashi University. He advocated secular education and equal rights for women, except for voting.