Princess Oyama
From VCencylopedia
One of the class of 1882’s most vibrant members was also the first Japanese woman to receive a college degree. Stematz Yamakawa came to the United States in 1870 in a group of young Japanese girls as part of an effort to foster cooperation between Japan and the West, and in support of the education of women. With the "opening of Japan" by Commodore Matthew Perry in the 1850s, the Japanese of the Meiji dynasty were coming out of a centuries-long period of isolationism and were eager to explore Western ways of thought and education. Count Mori, the Japanese Minister of Education, persuaded the government to send a "Great Embassy" of young girls to be educated in America. Traditional upper-class Japanese girls' education consisted of writing and arithmetic sufficient to manage household accounts, and instruction in Confucian principles to prepare them to be proper wives and mothers. Education was usually conducted by private tutors.
Stematz's selection for this imperial mission was curious, considering her family’s relationship to the emperor of Japan. She came from a samurai family who were vassals to the Prince of Aidzu, one of the last to surrender to imperial forces in the mid-nineteenth century civil war between the rebel shogun and the emperor. In 1868, eight year-old Stematz and her family were involved in the siege of Wakamatsu, during which the women and children supported the war effort from within the castle while the samurai men battled the imperial warriors outside the castle walls. Stematz’s future husband, General Oyama was part of the imperial forces during that battle, later liked to joke ironically that the shell that hit him during that battle was made by Stematz herself.
After the imperial victory, Stematz dedicated herself to her studies, and in 1870 at the age of ten she was selected as, in her own words, “one of the two most promising girl-students in Japan, to be sent at government expense to America, there to be educated in Western languages and ways.” She remained in the country until her graduation from Vassar in 1882.
Of the five girls who arrived in America in 1871, the two oldest were sent home shortly, complaining of homesickness, and three were left: Stematz Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda. Stematz and Shige both went to live in Connecticut, Shige with Dr. J.C. Abbott, and Stematz with Dr. Leonard Bacon, an abolitionist and clergyman. It was probably through his influence that Stematz converted to Christianity. Stematz and Shige were friends throughout their childhood and both arrived at Vassar in the fall of 1878, Stematz to the regular college, and Shige to the School of Music. They met regularly during their Vassar years and continued their friendship after their return to Japan.
Stematz was one of the most popular and active students in her year. Renowned for her great beauty and intelligence, she was admired and beloved by her classmates. As a sophomore, she served as president of her class. She was also a member of the Shakespeare Club (reserved for students of formidable intellect) and president of Philaletheis. She graduated magna cum laude ranked third in her class, and was chosen as one of a select few to present her thesis (British Policy Towards Japan) at the commencement ceremony of 1882.
Princess Oyama, right, with Alice Bacon and two Japanese women
It is difficult to say what Stematz's feelings about America and Japan were. Her classmates never observed her to be unhappy, though she was somewhat distant. Several classmates claimed that she and Shige practiced their native language frequently, but she herself wrote in an essay on her return to Japan that she had nearly forgotten her Japanese and took a month to recover it. What is certain that she wrote home to her mother every day and also communicated with a sister at the Japanese embassy in Russia, though those letters were in French.
After graduation, Stematz went to New Haven to attend nursing school for the summer before returning to Japan, where she intended to work for the Red Cross and find employment in the field of education. Frustrated by the lack of available jobs upon her return to her homeland, she decided to accept the marriage proposal of Prince Iwao Oyama, Japanese Minister of War. They married in a private Japanese Ceremony on November 8 1883, and gave a public Western-style ball in celebration on December 12 of that year. After her return to Japan in 1882, Stematz rarely communicated with her American friends because her husband forbade her to write for fear that she would reveal military secrets. She did, however, continue to be a lifelong correspondent of her foster-sister, Alice Bacon.
Stematz busied herself working for the Red Cross as a volunteer nurse and knitter and as mother to her three children: her daughter Hisa (Baroness Ida), and sons Takashi and Kashiwa. All who knew her were impressed with her lifelong and selfless dedication to her work and her children.
The Princess was also a passionate supporter of women’s education, and especially Christian women’s education. She was a trustee of the Peeresses’ School in Tokyo, where Alice Bacon taught for several years and where her old friend, Ume Tsuda, a graduate of Bryn Mawr, was head of the English department. She was also instrumental in the creation of the Girl’s English Institute, founded in 1900 by Alice Bacon and Ume Tsuda.
The Princess died in February of 1919 of pneumonia as a result of influenza. After her death, Shige Nagai (Baroness Uriu) donated one of the Princess’s court dresses, which had been given to her as a gift, to Vassar. The dress, along with two silver vases sent by the Japanese government to Vassar as a thanks for educating their young women, was used to decorate a room in the Alumnae house donated by the Class of 1882 in Princess Oyama's memory. (1)
Footnotes
1.) The room was dismantled in 1959 and the dress donated to the Japan Society of New York City.
Related Articles
Sources
Helen Hiscock Backus '83, A Japanese Lady of High Degree, Vassar Miscellany v.30 1900-01, Vassar College Special Collections
Entry on Alice Mable Bacon, Notable American Women 1607-1950 v.1
John Dwight, "The Marchioness Oyama," from The Twentieth Century Home p. 1
History of the Class of 1882 (on Their 50th Anniversary), pp. 112-118
Japanese Vassar Girls, The Sunday Advertiser, October 1 1893
Megan Baldridge Murray,The Girl Thrown Away Forever: Memories of a Princess. Vassar Quarterly Spring 1983
Obituary for the Princess Oyama, The Japanese Advertiser, February 20 1919
Stematz Yamakawa '82, First Impressions of Japan, After Eleven Years Absence in America, 1882
November 28 1882 Letter from Stematz Yamakawa to Alice Bacon
JLD, 2004
