Missionary Riggins's English Conversation Education: Language Education as Missionary Preparation at the End of the Closed Country (Mid-19th Century)

Missionary Riggins's English Conversation Education: Language Education as Missionary Preparation at the End of the Closed Country (Mid-19th Century)

John Riggins was one of the early Protestant missionaries who came to Japan at the end of the Edo period. He was a representative figure who engaged Japanese society through the medium of English education at a time when direct evangelism was forbidden. His activities are located at the intersection of religious history, educational history, and language history, and represent an important preliminary step prior to the institutionalization of English education in the Meiji period.

In the mid-19th century, Japan nominally maintained a system of national seclusion, but in reality it faced the military power and trade pressure of Western powers. Although a Dutch-based correspondence system was functioning in Nagasaki, as more and more American and British ships arrived, there was an urgent need for immediate communication in English. However, the Shogunate had yet to establish English-language education as an official system, and there was a chronic shortage of personnel who could use English.

Under these circumstances, in 1859, Riggins, a missionary of the Episcopal Church in America, came from China to Nagasaki to recover his health. At the time, Christianity was prohibited in Japan, and missionaries could not openly engage in missionary work. Therefore, many missionaries adopted the strategy of building relationships with Japanese society through practical activities such as medical care and education. Riggins was also commissioned by the Nagasaki Magistrate's Office to train English-language teachers.

The most distinctive feature of his English education was its emphasis on practical use, with a focus on conversational English. While conventional language study tended to focus on translation and grammatical understanding, Riggins emphasized the cultivation of skills directly related to port operations and diplomatic work, such as pronunciation, response, and scene-specific expressions. This educational policy was strongly in line with the practical demands of the magistrate's office, which was under pressure to respond to foreign vessels.

At the same time, for Riggins, English education was not just a matter of administrative cooperation. Under circumstances where direct missionary work was not possible, he regarded language teaching and Japanese language research as preparation for future missionary work. Learning Japanese from the Japanese in the process of teaching English and understanding the honorific system and expressions of social distance were considered to be the foundation for later transmission of the faith.

In 1860, Riggins published an English-Japanese bilingual conversation book in Shanghai. This book was groundbreaking in that it was written in romanized Japanese and was composed mainly of colloquial expressions. It contains the difference between superiors and subordinates and examples of daily conversation, making it highly valuable not only as a book for learning Japanese, but also as a source for describing the early Japanese language. In English-speaking studies and digital archives, this conversation book is regarded as one of the earliest Japanese conversation materials, and is highly regarded as having influenced subsequent missionaries and Japanologists.

Riggins' teaching of English conversation brought about an improvement in English language skills on the Japanese side and provided a means of deepening understanding of Japanese society on the part of the missionaries. His activities can be positioned as a prehistory of the hired foreign teacher system and English language education in schools that would come into full swing during the Meiji period.

Riggins' attitude of preparing for faith and knowledge through language education at a time when direct missionary work was prohibited has important implications for understanding the practical response of missionaries in Japan at the end of the Edo period and the process of establishing modern language education in Japan.