| Dairoku Kikuchi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 March 1855 Edo, Japan |
| Died | August 19, 1917 (aged 62) Tokyo, Japan |
| Citizenship | Empire of Japan |
| Nationality | Japan |
| Fields | mathematics |
Baron Dairoku Kikuchi (菊池 大麓 Kikuchi Dairoku, March 17, 1855 – August 19, 1917) was a mathematician, educator, and educational administrator in Meiji period Japan.
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Kikuchi was born in Edo (present-day Tokyo), as the second son of Mitsukuri Shuhei. After attending the Bansho Shirabesho, the Shogunal institute for western studies, he was sent to Great Britain, in 1866, at age 11, the youngest of a group of Japanese sent by the Tokugawa shogunate to the University College School, on the advice of the then British foreign minister Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby.
Kikuchi returned to England in 1870, and was the first Japanese student to graduate from the University of Cambridge (St. John's College) and the only one to graduate from the University of London in the 19th century.[1] His specialization was in physics and mathematics. In 1884 he attended the International Meridian Conference in Washington D.C.
After returning to Japan, Kikuchi later became President of Tokyo Imperial University, Minister of Education (1901–1903) and President of Kyoto Imperial University. His textbook on elementary geometry was the most widely used textbook in Japan until the end of World War II.
Kikuchi was made a baron under the kazoku peerage system in 1902, and was the eighth president of the Gakushūin Peers' School. He was also briefly the first President of the Science Research Institute of Japan (Rikagakukenkyusho or RIKEN, the equivalent of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge). He died in 1917.
Kikuchi was a member of one of Japan's most distinguished and outstanding families of scholars, the Mitsukuri family, and at the centre of Japan's educational system in the Meiji Era. His grandfather had been a student of Dutch studies ("rangaku"). His father Mitsukuri Shuhei had taught at the Bansho-shirabesho (Institute for Investigating Barbarian Books). His children were famous scientists, and his grandson Minobe Ryōkichi became Governor of Tokyo.
Other Japanese who studied at the University of Cambridge after Kikuchi:
British contemporaries of Kikuchi at the University of Cambridge:
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ryohei Okada |
President of Kyoto University 1908—1912 |
Succeeded by Mitsuru Kuhara |