At the French port of Marseille 140 years ago, a lone young German woman boarded a ship for a month-long journey that would take her far away from her home and family to Tokyo and her betrothed. Her courage may have been the only sign of the key role she was poised to play in establishing early childhood education here as the first head teacher at what is Japan's oldest surviving kindergarten.
Eight years after the Meiji Restoration put an end to the long reign of the Tokugawa shogunate, but still 13 years until Japan's first constitution would be enacted, it was a time of change as the nation raced to catch up to the social and economic advances of the West. For Clara and her fiance, it was a time of opportunity.
Clara Zitelmann met Hazama Matsuno in Berlin, where she lived with her family and where he was attending the Eberswalde Forestry Academy. His study of German and fortuitous contacts from his upbringing in what is now Yamaguchi Prefecture led to his inclusion in the party that accompanied Prince Kitashirakawanomiya on his studies abroad. Hazama became the first Japanese person to study forestry and his consequent work in that field, including the establishment of forester training, led to him today being referred to as the father of modern Japanese forestry.