Kume Kunitake


Kume Kunitake was a historian in Meiji and Taishō period Japan. He had a son, Kume Keiichirō, who was a noted painter.

Biography

Kume was born in Saga Domain, Hizen, and was active in attempting to assist the administrative reform of Saga domain during the Bakumatsu period.
After the Meiji Restoration, he was selected to join the Iwakura mission on its around-the-world voyage in 1871–73 as the private secretary to Iwakura Tomomi. In 1878 he published the Tokumei Zenken Taishi Bei-O Kairan Jikki, a five-volume account of the journey, and of what he observed of the United States and Europe.
Kume became a professor at Tokyo Imperial University in 1888, while contributing to Dai Nihon Hennenshi, an encyclopedic comprehensive history of Japan.
In 1889, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
However, in 1892, he was forced to resign after publishing a paper Shinto wa saiten no kozoku , which the government considered to be seditious and highly critical of the State Shinto system.
Kume continued to write and lecture at the Tokyo Semmon Gakko , the predecessor of Waseda University, after his resignation from Tokyo University.

Works