Kansai University

Origins

The academic traditions of the university reach back to the Hakuensyoin (泊園書院), a Tokugawa shogunate (徳川幕府; 1603–1867) school for local citizens founded by Tōgai Fujisawa (藤沢東畡) in 1825. Kansai University was founded as Kansai Law School (關西法律學校, Kansai hōritsu gakkō) in November 1886, in Osaka City, Japan. Its founders were six judicial officers who were in the service of the then Osaka Court of Appeal.

19th century

In the early 1870s, the Ministry of Justice established its own law school. Western legal concepts, including that of human rights, were introduced into Japan by distinguished foreign scholars engaged by the Ministry. The founders of Kansai Law School had all studied at this law school, under the French jurist Boissonade de Fontarabie. The idea of individual rights and legal processes independent of central governmental control were new to Japan. Long after the conclusion of their study with Dr. Boissonade, the founders continued to feel that these concepts were vital to the new Japan. They saw it as their duty to popularize jurisprudence to spread throughout the nation two notions: that of an independent judiciary and that of human rights.

From this sense of mission sprung the idea of founding a law school. They then sought and received the assistance and cooperation of Kojima Korekata, their superior (and later Chief Justice of Japan's Supreme Court), and Doi Michio, president of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Thus Kansai Law School was the first law school in Osaka. The founders taught that the law belongs to all citizens and, that by means of the law, they can and should defend their own rights. This became the origin of the university's academic tradition of nurturing a love of justice and a concern for the protection of the freedom of the individual. Thanks to the support and trust it has won from the general public, the institution has since then steadily developed and diversified.

20th century

In 1905 the institution was renamed as Private Kansai University (私立 関西大学, Shiritsu Kansai Daigaku), then in 1920 as Kansai University (関西大学) before finally in 1922 being granted the official status of a university. Also in 1922 its main campus was moved to its present more extensive site in Suita City (a suburb of Osaka), thus paving the way for later growth. Its first graduate school was established in 1929. In consequence of the educational reforms carried out soon after the end of the Second World War, Kansai University was able to avail itself of the new system to expand its scope for tuition so as to comprise four faculties: those of Law, Letters, Economics and Commerce.

With the start of the new university system in 1949, Kandai established the First Higher School (関西大学付属第一高等学校). Its Faculty of Engineering was founded in 1958, followed in 1967 by the founding of its Faculty of Sociology. In 1994 in response to the requirements of modern technology and communication, the Informatics faculty was instituted on another campus, created just outside the dormitory-town of Takatsuki City. Its Institute of Foreign Language Education and Research was inaugurated in 2000.

For many decades, the evening courses were taught on a separate campus, in the Tenroku (天六) area of Osaka. These originally constituted a night school for students, many of them working adults. In 1994 the evening course was moved to the Senriyama campus; in 2003, the university instituted an innovative 12-hour curriculum, integrating both day and evening courses.

21st century

Thus, at present, Kansai University offers seven faculties in its undergraduate day school and five faculties (Engineering and Informatics being the exceptions) in its undergraduate evening school; it also offers graduate studies in all seven faculties, plus the independent graduate school staffed by members of its Institute of Foreign Language Education and Research.