Kuniyoshi Obara

Kuniyoshi Obara (小原 國芳, Obara Kuniyoshi^?, April 8, 1887 – December 13, 1977) was an influential Japanese educational reformer and publisher. Obara left a strong mark in educational philosophy and on the theories of liberal education, art education and vocational education. In addition to creating his own educational theory, Zenjin (or "Whole Man") Education, he was among the leaders of the New Education Movement in Japan and disseminated in that country the works of earlier reformers such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. He was the founder of the campus Tamagawa Gakuen and for many years president of its university, Tamagawa University.

Born to a Samurai family on 8 April 1887 in the Kagoshima Prefecture of Japan, in a village called Kushi, Obara was the grandson of a famous educator, but was adopted into the Ajisaka family in his early childhood after the death of his parents. Obara converted to Christianity in his early adulthood and remained a devout Christian throughout his life. In 1920, he married educator Nobu Takai, who remained his wife until her death six months before his own. In the last months of his life, Obara was diagnosed with disease of the pancreas and hospitalized. He died on 13 December 1977.

Obara studied at Kagoshima Normal School and Hiroshima Higher Normal School before becoming an English teacher at Kagawa Normal School in Shikoku, where he also taught education and psychology. He entered the Kyoto Imperial University in 1915. There, he was influenced by a number of prominent professors in the Kyoto School of philosophy, including Kitaro Nishida and Seiichi Hatano. His first book was published in 1918. Kyôiku no Konpon Mondai to shite no Shûkyô ("Religion as the fundamental problem of education") was a retitling of his bachelor's thesis, Shûkyô ni yoru Kyôiku no Kyûsai ("The salvation of education through religion"), which he had completed the same year.

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