Tsuda Sen
Japanese politician (1837–1908)
Tsuda Sen (津田 仙; August 6, 1837 – April 24, 1908) was a politician, educator and writer in Meiji period Japan. He was one of the founders of Aoyama Gakuin university, and the father of noted author and educator Tsuda Umeko.
Biography
Tsuda was born as the fourth son of a low ranking samurai of Sakura domain in Shimōsa (present day Sakura city, Chiba Prefecture). At the age of 15, he was sent to the domain's school, where he learned English and Dutch, and afterwards was sent to Edo, where he studied rangaku. He was hired by the Tokugawa bakufu as an interpreter, and accompanied Fukuzawa Yukichi on a mission to purchase warships in the United States in 1867.
After the Meiji Restoration, Tsuda joined the new Meiji government, and enthusiastically embraced the rapid westernization drive. He opened the first western style hotel in Tsukiji in 1867, near the foreign settlement. He also spent time with the Hokkaido Colonization Office, where he made close contacts with future Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka. Around this time he developed a strong interest in women's education, and when the revolutionary idea of sending women overseas as exchange students with the Iwakura Mission, he quickly volunteered his daughter Umeko. Tsuda also influenced the creation of the Friends School, a women's junior and senior high school established in 1887 in Tokyo.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tsuda Sen” is japanese politician (1837–1908). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tsuda, Japanese and politician, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2600702. VIAF identifies the subject as 76190202. The Library of Congress control number is nr93031667. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1837, 1908, 1867 and 1887.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tsuda Sen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.