was one of the founders of the
Japanese Scouting movement.
He graduated from Tsuwano Elementary School. He entered Himeji Junior High School, a state school run by
Hyogo Prefecture, but dropped out due to family reasons.
In 1903, he became a student at Shimane
Normal School
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...
.
In 1905, he received a full Elementary School Teacher's licence, and became a teacher at Tsuwano Elementary School.
In 1907, he went to Tokyo, and worked at Akasaka Jinjo High School. Together with his colleagues, and , he participated in the movement.
In 1909, he started the . This group received support from, among others, , and , and held 61 meetings in six years, before being disbanded. It is reported that meetings consisted of events such as readings of children's stories and inspirational and improving stories, singing, excursions and group training, and were always extremely popular.
On October 7, 1913, Hasunuma Monzō and had a discussion about youth education with
Japan's ambassador to Russia , where Motono explained in detail about the
Boy Scout
A Scout (in some countries a Boy Scout, Girl Scout, or Pathfinder) is a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split ...
principles and
organization in Europe. They were greatly impressed, and told Koshiba how wonderful this organization was.
Koshiba immediately set to work on forming a youth education group, founding the ("Tokyo Youth Army").
This group's first excursion was to the temple known as to visit the grave of , and dig for
imo potatoes.
In 1920, he participated in the First
World Scout Jamboree in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, together with
Shimoda Toyomatsu (1887 - October 10, 1972), born in Iwanai District, Hokkaidō, helped to establish what became the Scout Association of Japan. He was Japan's first Chief Scout.
Background
His father, , participated in the organization from the Kanezawa han, wh ...
and
Richard Suzuki.
On April 13, 1921, he reorganized the
Shūyōdan Yōnenbu to form the
Tokyo Shōnengun ("Tokyo Youth Army"). This was the first youth group based on the British Boy Scout training methods to be founded in Japan.
On June 19, 1925, he died in his Tokyo home of
heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...
, aged 42.
See also
External links
*https://web.archive.org/web/20181105085923/http://www.geocities.jp/higashikurume_bs/history.html
Sources
Much of this article was translated from the
equivalent article in the Japanese Wikipedia, as referenced on October 27, 2006.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koshiba, Hiroshi
Scouting in Japan
1884 births
1925 deaths
Japanese writers
Scouting pioneers