Waseda WeeklyWaseda Weekly

It was about 10 years ago. As I was walking from behind Statue of Shigenobu Okuma to the auditorium, a student walking in front of me made the comment in the title to the student next to me. I don't remember the student's response, but I muttered to myself, "How can a Waseda student not know something like that?" I'm not well versed in the history of Waseda, but I remember being surprised and disappointed at the same time, because I thought it was common knowledge that Shigenobu Okuma  had served as prime minister.

In the past, there were few well-established books about Shigenobu Okuma, so it is inevitable that students are not familiar with him. For this reason, from the 2022 academic year, Professor Yoshihiro Watanabe (Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences) has been distributing "Shigenobu Okuma and Waseda University" to new students, but there is a sense that it is unclear how many students are reading the book.

In the central hall of the National Diet Building, a bronze statue of Okuma Shigenobu is installed alongside those of Hirobumi Ito and Taisuke Itagaki, but this fact is not widely known even among Alumnus (I only found out about it recently). Shigenobu Okuma resigned from his position as a councilor in the Meiji government and stepped down from power, so he is seen as a leader against the Meiji government, but he is also honored as a contributor to the establishment of parliamentary democracy in Japan, alongside the first prime minister and the father of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. Please remember that the founder of our university is in a special position among all the prime ministers.

Makoto Fujita, Executive Director of Student Affairs Division Waseda University