History
Ōtani University traces its origin to the early Edo period (1603 – 1868). It was founded in 1655, and served as the seminary of Higashi Hongan-ji. The shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu founded Higashi Hongan-ji in 1602 by splitting it from Nishi Hongan-ji in order to diminish the power of the Shin sect of Buddhism. The seminary was strengthened and revived in 1755, and developed a broader curriculum throughout the 19th century.
The modern university was founded in 1901 as Shinshū University in the Sugamo neighborhood of Tokyo. Shinshū University was closely associated with Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903), a Shin Buddhist reformer from a low-ranking samurai background who studied at the University of Tokyo under the American philosopher Ernest Fenollosa (1853 – 1908). Kiyozawa also served as the first dean of the university. In 1904 the university achieved the legal status of senmon gakko, or vocational school.
Shinshū University moved from Tokyo to Kyoto in 1911. It had a curriculum that consisted of three years of general study, two years of specialized study, and four years of graduate-level study. The university moved to newly-constructed buildings in the Koyamahigashifusa-chō neighborhood of Kita-ku in 1913, remains at this location. Shinshū attained university status in 1922, and was renamed Ōtani University in the same year. Under the Education Law of 1947 Ōtani University transitioned to the post-World War II educational system, and was reclassified as a university.
Read more about this topic: Otani University
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)