Wednesday, November 9 1921: Seijiro Ibaraki is appointed as Principal of Tokyo Womens Higher Normal School, which is now Ochanomizu University.

1921 (Taisho 10) Wednesday, November 9 Seijiro Ibaraki (45) has been appointed as the seventh Principal of Tokyo Women’s Higher Normal School, which is the present Ochanomizu University.

Seijiro Ibaraki was born on August 19, 1879 as the second son of Misao Ibaraki, a member of the warrior class in Ishikawa Prefecture. She was 45 years old when she assumed the post of principal. I studied at the English Department of Tokyo Imperial University, and the lecturer at that time was Patrick Lafcadio Hearn. After graduating from Imperial University in 1899 (Meiji 32), he became a professor at his hometown’s former Fourth High School (now Kanazawa University). He took over as head of the family in 1907 (Meiji 40).

Later, he studied in England and rose steadily as an education bureaucrat and educator. After serving as the principal of the Tokyo School of Music (now the Faculty of Music of Tokyo University of the Arts), the Tokyo School of Foreign Languages (now Tokyo University of Foreign Studies), and the former Matsumoto High School (now Shinshu University), she became the principal of the Tokyo Girls’ High School.

Ibaraki’s wife is Honda Ryo, the grandson of Honda Masatsura, a chief retainer of the Kaga clan at the end of the Edo period who was assassinated by the sonjo party at the age of only 32. Ibaraki had five daughters. The first daughter, Hikaru, went on to Kanazawa Daiichi Girls’ High School, but the second daughter, Nobu, and the third daughter, Shu, went on to Tokyo Jokoshi, where their father was the principal. In addition, the fourth daughter Miwa, who was born in April of the same year when she assumed the post of principal, was later promoted to Tokyo Onna Koshi.

For 6 years until 1927, Ibaraki served as the principal of Tokyo Nyokoshi, but the school building was destroyed by fire in the Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 12 1923 during his tenure. However, the day after the earthquake, a temporary office was set up at the Tokyo Music School in Ueno, and the following month it was moved to the Tokyo Women’s Normal School (now Tokyo Gakugei University) in Aoyama. In the following year, a temporary school building was constructed in Ochanomizu and the school returned to Ochanomizu.