著者

恒川 清爾

出版者

日本科学史学会

雑誌

科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.236, pp.177-190, 2005 (Released:2021-08-11)

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The Meiji government started constructing a new country by hiring engineers from European countries. But soon trained Japanese engineers replaced them. This paper analyzes the characteristics and roles of these Japanese engineers in Meiji era, by looking at their social and educational backgrounds. At the beginning of Meiji era, a major group of the engineers were artisans and the people who received short term and practical training. They built railways and harbors and conducted waterworks by themselves. They gained a status equal to those of new graduates of college or university. But the workers and contractors of projects usually did not get a good public recogniton, though some of them had good civil engineering skills. After the middle of Meiji era,, graduates of colleges and universities took the managerial positions and became the supervisors of almost all civil engineering projects. This did not mean that the projects needed more higher level of technologies. The engineers who actually supported civil engineering projects were artisans and gishu or middle class engineering officers, who were mostly the graduates of short term training schools. Some graduates of foreign countries and constructors actually contributed to construction engineering, but did not receive fair recognition especially after a bureaucratic system was established. This was a major factor why Japan stayed far behind in the advancement of construction engineering.

著者

恒川 清爾

出版者

日本科学史学会

雑誌

科学史研究 (ISSN:21887535)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.42, no.225, pp.20-30, 2003 (Released:2021-08-13)

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In the Meiji era, who were the electric engineers, who developed and manufactured the electrical machines? I have investigated and analyzed these engineers and reviewed the electrical engineering in Meiji Japan. At first, the officers of governments who could speak English, started the construction of the telegraph networks under the instruction of "oyatoi-gaijin", the hired foreigners. After the Telegraph Technical School opened, these ex-students mainly executed these project. Since 1889, many had graduated from "Koubu-Dai-gakko", Imperial College of Engineering Tokio. However, most of them had become to the officers of the Ministry of Public Works or Communications, or the chief engineers of the newly established Electric Light Companies. The manufacturing had started from repairing the telegraph machines at "Seikijo", work shop in the Ministry of Public Works. The engineers here were the graduates of Telegraph Technical School and the craftsmen, who had been mainly the subordinates of Tanaka Hisasige, famous "karakuri" craftsman. From the middle of Meiji 10s, many engineers of "Seikijo" established their own manufacturing firms, which have become the roots of the main electric machine manufacturing companies in Japan. In the middle of Meiji era, the electric technologies were still young, but started the development rapidly by participating of many scientists and engineers, who had high education background. In Japan, the electric technologies were supported mainly by the craftsmen. One of the causes of the big delay of electric technologies is no participation to manufacturing of the graduates of College or Universities.