Kinjiro Ninomiya: Will Today's Children follow what Kinjiro paved? Part 1

Do we really know what Kinjiro Ninomiya did in his life time? And do we understand how much he contributed to our mental education?  Although we have already known that he is the national icon of diligence in Japan, but most of us do not know who he is exactly. 

In Japanese history, He is known as a agricultural economist and philosopher in during Edo era.

His philosophy was succeeded to the education policy in Meiji era , then it was brought into the mental culture amomg Western countries . His symbolic essence was translated into 'The Book of virtue' written by American author William J. Benett.  

While he was struggling with many issues, he established his original methodology how to reconstruct public finance, what is called, 'Hotoku'. He concluded that social contribution wil reward the contributor in the long run. Additionally, he left many maxims. Here is one of his sayings,

'The Economy without virtue is crime, a virtue without economy is perfect nonsense.'

In 1787, he was born from a poor peasant family in Ashigara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Kayama Ashigarakami gun Sagami province then. He lost his parent and became orphan at the age of 16. He started to live with his uncle. While he was recultivating the small land he rent, he read many books to improve his condition. Even though he went home, he kept on reading with wooden piles on his back. His continuous effort finally expanded his income by renting his small land to grow crops. He became a propety owner when he was 20 years old.

After he reconstructed his family, He was asked to rebuilt Odawara domain by one of samurai family Hattsutori. satisfied with such small success, so he moved to Odawara City to make his business more successful. He served a one of Samurai family. He tackled with many issue in his duty and he gradually got his trust from his Samurai family. One day he was requested by his Samurai boss to save from financial crisis. He tried to reconstruct and he made it. 

After he reconstructed Samurai family's finance, his fame had widspread across the coutries. He was asked to revitalize other Samurai family's finance.

He was a great reconstructor in Japanese history.