ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what went into the educational efforts and moral influence of these resolute Western women educators, themselves pioneers in terms of late nineteenth century American society. It also focuses on the work and lives of Mary Eddy Kidder, who started the first mission girls' school, Ferris School in Yokohama, and upon Alice Mabel Bacon, associated with both the Peeress School and Tsuda College. With the coming of the Black Ships and the opening of Japan to the West in 1857 and the return to power of the Imperial House in 1868, the Meiji era of "civilization and enlightenment," as the young modernist-elite such as Fukuzawa Yukichi and Mori Arinori labeled it, took shape. Japan's reaching out to the West, as it broke with the tradition of Tokugawa isolationism, coincided with an outburst of conscientious Christianity in the West.
