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President
of Nagasaki University
Hiroshi
Saito
M.D., Ph.D.
President's Profile
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President's Greeting at the opening ceremony of brand new courses in "Dutch Language" and "Dutch Culture"
November 12, 2007
I feel very grateful for the opening this fall of brand new courses in "Dutch Language" and "Dutch Culture" and for our Nagasaki University 150th Anniversary Memorial Lecture held today. The new courses are being conducted under the Support Program for Contemporary Educational Needs of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, called "Training Program of Cosmopolitan Students with Modern 'Dejima' Spirit through Renaissance: NAGASAKI RANGAKU".
In our country, there is a 300-year old saying "Heading to Nagasaki to study with a Kyu on his back". "Kyu" is a woven-bamboo backpack and people in old times used this when they traveled.
Since the national isolation in 1639, Nagasaki was Japan's only city opened to the world and a Mecca for young people who aspired to learning. Many intellectuals gathered in Nagasaki from all over the country. This saying was born of that historical circumstance.
Those young geniuses learned medicine, chemistry, botany, astronomy, and other discipline from medical practitioners in the Dejima Dutch Trading Post such as Engelbert Kaempfer and Philipp Franz von Siebold, Dutch-trained physicians such as Kogyu Yoshio, and Dutch translators such as Tadao Shitsuki. The whole town of Nagasaki was a university. Hikoma Ueno, Choei Takano, Shinsaku Takasugi, Ryoma Sakamoto, Yukichi Fukuzawa, and others who contributed to the Meiji Restoration all learned in Nagasaki; therefore, we can think of them as alumni of Nagasaki University.
In 1857, Dutch naval surgeon J.L.C. Pompe established "Igakudenshusho", the present School of Medicine.
In the historical setting since the Edo period, considering "the whole town of Nagasaki a university" --which can be inferred from the example of Igakudenshusho-- Nagasaki has become one of Japan's most educationally minded cities, furnished with advanced facilities for higher education.
In 1874, the "Elementary School Teacher Training Institute" was set up, the Faculty of Education as we know it today. In 1890, the "Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Department of Medicine of Fifth National Middle High School" was founded, which has today become the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 1905, the "Nagasaki Higher Commercial School" was formed, Japan's third school of economics after Tokyo and Kobe. It has developed into today's Faculty of Economics. In 1921, the "Department of Fisheries of Nagasaki Prefectual Teacher Training Institute for Vocational Education", today's Faculty of Fisheries, was created. In 1942, the East Asia Research Institute of Endemics, the predecessor of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, was organized.
In Nagasaki, these distinguished higher education research institutes with their long histories were combined to create Nagasaki University in 1949. Six limpid streams merged to form a great river "Nagasaki University".
Afterwards, the "Faculty of Engineering" was inaugurated in 1966, the "School of Dentistry" in 1979, the "Faculty of Environmental Sciences" in 1997, and the "School of Health Sciences" in 2001 to evolve into an even greater river. Now Nagasaki University has grown into one of Japan's top-level universities, in both quality and quantity, that comprises eight faculties, four graduate schools, and one institute with 10,000 students and 2,200 faculty and administrative staff.
It has been 150 years since the establishment of Igakudenshusho, which means that this is a commemorative year marking the 150th anniversary of the Nagasaki University School of Medicine. It also means that 150 years have passed since Nagasaki University was founded. Today's "Nagasaki University 150th Anniversary Memorial Lecture" was planned to celebrate this significant milestone.
Nagasaki University is old but new, unique, and distinctive, having Japan's first School of Medicine, 150 years old, and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, only 10 years old. I sincerely hope that faculty and administrative members, students, and alumni will work together even harder to further develop Nagasaki University with assistance and understanding from society.
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