Tsunesaburō Makiguchi

Tsunesaburō Makiguchi (1871 to 1944) was a Japanese primary school teacher and principal who developed a theory of value-creating education and founded the Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai, the Value-Creating Education Society that grew into today's Soka Gakkai. Born in Niigata Prefecture and trained at Sapporo Normal School, he taught and later served as principal in a succession of Tokyo primary schools, often clashing with education officials over his uncompromising stance. His 1903 book Jinsei Chirigaku, A Geography of Human Life, argued against rote memorisation of place names and for understanding how people and their activities relate to the natural environment. In the 1930s he published the four volume Sōka Kyōikugaku Taikei, The System of Value-Creation Pedagogy, with his disciple Jōsei Toda. It proposed a student-centred education aimed at the happiness of the learner, and a partnership of school, home and community. He was arrested in 1943 for refusing to accept the Shinto talisman and died in prison in 1944. Soka schools and universities founded later by Daisaku Ikeda draw on his pedagogy. Scholars disagree about whether his stand amounted to opposition to the war.